Hands-On Apple (Audio)

By TWiTTechnology

Hands-On Apple (Audio) episodes

July 24, 2020HOM 19: Make Free iPhone Ringtones - How to Make Ringtones With Mac
Sick of paying for Ringtones? You can make any song a ringtone for free on your Mac! Here's how:
Open Apple Music, or iTunes on older Macs.
Open Music -> Preferences click Files, click Import Settings and choose AAC Encoder, High-Quality 128k
Select a track to use as the source.
On the Get Info > Options tab set start and stop times to 40 seconds or less
Use File > Convert > Create AAC version.
Right-click on the new copy and click Show in Windows Explorer or Finder.
Change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. (You may need to adjust folder options to see the extensions.)
Now connect your phone and drag the m4r file to it.
Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac!

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
GetRoman.com/HOM
12 min
July 17, 2020HOM 18: Mac Keyboard Magic - Mac Keyboard Shortcuts, Modifier Keys, Text Abbreviations
Want to learn some powerful Mac keyboard shortcuts and how to create your own?

Last week we spent some time in the Keyboard system preference pane, but you may have noticed many more features in there. Let's explore.

Keyboard → Modifier Keys

Text - abbreviations and completions

Shortcuts - macOS comes with a ton of keyboard shortcuts, but you can add your own, or modify them as needed here

If you want to create a keyboard shortcut to launch an application or perform a more complex action use Automator.

Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac!

Host: Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac

Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
12 min
July 17, 2020HOM 18: Mac Keyboard Magic - Mac Keyboard Shortcuts, Modifier Keys, Text Abbreviations
Want to learn some powerful Mac keyboard shortcuts and how to create your own?
Last week we spent some time in the Keyboard system preference pane, but you may have noticed many more features in there. Let's explore.
Keyboard → Modifier Keys
Text - abbreviations and completions
Shortcuts - macOS comes with a ton of keyboard shortcuts, but you can add your own, or modify them as needed here
If you want to create a keyboard shortcut to launch an application or perform a more complex action use Automator.
Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac!

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
12 min
July 10, 2020HOM 17: Getting Your Mac to Read to You - Mac Text-to Speech Accessibility Features
As usual, go to the Accessibility System Preference pane to see Speech option.

Select the "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" checkbox. By default, speaking is enabled when you press Option-Esc.

Choose a voice. Alex is the default but there are many others.

For full screen-reading capability (like JAWS) you can turn on voice over.

If you'd like to convert web pages and text tiles to recordings stored in Apple Music, open the Keyboard system preference pane and select the Shortcuts tab. Tap "Services" on the left and you'll see a variety of useful services you can add to the Services menu. On Catalina and later look for "Add to Music as Spoken Track" in previous versions of macOS it will say iTunes instead. You can even add a keyboard shortcut. Look for the Services entry under the Applications main menu. In the Text section, you'll find an entry to add the selected text to Music. You can also right-click on a text selection in some apps (the Services menu isn't always available as a right-click, however).

If you do this a lot or want to convert a number of files from text to speech at once, you can create an Automator app to do this, too.

Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac.

Host: Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac

Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
GetRoman.com/HOM
13 min
July 10, 2020HOM 17: Getting Your Mac to Read to You - Mac Text-to Speech Accessibility Features
As usual, go to the Accessibility System Preference pane to see Speech option.
Select the "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" checkbox. By default, speaking is enabled when you press Option-Esc.
Choose a voice. Alex is the default but there are many others.
For full screen-reading capability (like JAWS) you can turn on voice over.
If you'd like to convert web pages and text tiles to recordings stored in Apple Music, open the Keyboard system preference pane and select the Shortcuts tab. Tap "Services" on the left and you'll see a variety of useful services you can add to the Services menu. On Catalina and later look for "Add to Music as Spoken Track" in previous versions of macOS it will say iTunes instead. You can even add a keyboard shortcut. Look for the Services entry under the Applications main menu. In the Text section, you'll find an entry to add the selected text to Music. You can also right-click on a text selection in some apps (the Services menu isn't always available as a right-click, however).
If you do this a lot or want to convert a number of files from text to speech at once, you can create an Automator app to do this, too.
Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac.

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
GetRoman.com/HOM
13 min
July 03, 2020HOM 16: Should I Get a New Mac Now or Wait? - Mac transitions to ARM-based Apple Silicon
Should you buy a Mac now? Should you wait for the new Apple Silicon Macs? Here's what we think.

TWiT's Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac.

Host: Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac

Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
18 min
July 03, 2020HOM 16: Should I Get a New Mac Now or Wait? - Mac transitions to ARM-based Apple Silicon
Should you buy a Mac now? Should you wait for the new Apple Silicon Macs? Here's what we think.
TWiT's Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac.

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
18 min
June 26, 2020HOM 15: Mac Voice Dictation Needs Work - How to get your Mac to Listen to You... Badly
Dictate your messages and documents on Mac

Say the name of the punctuation mark, such as "exclamation mark."

Say "new line" (equivalent to pressing the Return key once) or "new paragraph" (equivalent to pressing the Return key twice). After you say "new line," the dictated text appears when you're done dictating.

Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac

Host: Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac

Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
11 min
June 26, 2020HOM 15: Mac Voice Dictation Needs Work - How to get your Mac to Listen to You... Badly
Dictate your messages and documents on Mac
Say the name of the punctuation mark, such as "exclamation mark."
Say "new line" (equivalent to pressing the Return key once) or "new paragraph" (equivalent to pressing the Return key twice). After you say "new line," the dictated text appears when you're done dictating.
Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
LastPass.com/twit
11 min
June 19, 2020HOM 14: Aliases, What Are They Good For? - Aliases, soft links, and hard links explained
An alias can be used anywhere you can use a file or folder
Soft Links (ln -s original alias)
can cross the file system,
allows you to link between directories,
has different inode number and file permissions than original file,
permissions will not be updated,
has only the path of the original file, not the contents.
Hard Links (ln original copy)
can't cross the file system boundaries (i.e. A hardlink can only work on the same filesystem),
can't link directories,
has the same inode number and permissions of original file,
permissions will be updated if we change the permissions of source file,
has the actual contents of original file, so that you still can view the contents, even if the original file moved or removed.
Leo Laporte gives you helpful tips to get the most from your Mac every week on Hands-On Mac.

Host: Leo Laporte
Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-mac
Discuss episodes in the TWiT Community.
Sponsor:
itpro.tv/twit use the code TWIT30
15 min

About Hands-On Apple (Audio)

From the publisher's feed

Hands-On Apple explores and explains the Mac — and beyond! From clever Terminal commands to little-known iOS settings, Mikah Sargent shares all the best tips and tricks for your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. You'll get all the details on Apple's apps and the best apps in the App Store, you'll learn about awesome accessories for your Apple devices, and you'll explore updates to Apple's operating systems — including iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Hands-On Apple is your one-stop shop for Apple know-how.

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