Thursday, November 15, 2007

Mac OS X: Mouse-Follows-Focus (Not Focus-Follows-Mouse)?

More from the Windows-Power-User-to-Mac-Power-User-Adjustments department: Windows has a really nice key on the keyboard that I use a lot: the context-sensitive menu key. It looks something like this on most Windows machines:
It allows me to perform a right-click wherever focus currently is without having to use the mouse.

So, Mac OS X has its equivalent of right-clicking, which is Ctrl-Click. So far, so good, except that I still have to use the mouse. Next, I discovered that Fn-NumPad-5 (which is Fn-Option-I on my MacBook Pro, BTW) does the same thing as a Ctrl-Click, so that I can do the Mac equivalent of a keyboard-only right-click. The problem is, instead of using the current focus (which I maniuplated via various keyboard navigations), it uses the current location of the mouse pointer as the location where the Ctrl-Click is effected.

Ideally, I'd like Fn-NumPad-5 to use the current focus to effect the click instead of the current pointer position, but I'd be willing to have the mouse follow the current focus. I've seen focus-follows-mouse, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.

Anyone have any ideas?

POP woes with Yahoo Mail

I'm pretty happy with Yahoo Mail, having been a customer since the service first started, however, I'm having some problems now that I've started using POP access.

Throughout the day, I get prompted by Mail on Mac OS X to reenter the password for my two POP accounts (one for my "@yahoo.com" email address and one for my "@matthewadams.org" address). This happens probably 10 or more times per day. It also happened when I was using Microsoft Outlook 2007 on Windows XP. Oh, and yes, I am checking the "remember my password" checkbox.

Naturally, I contacted Yahoo Business Mail tech support with low expectations of their ability to diagnose and correct the problem, assuming that if I see it from both Mac OS X and Windows, chances are the problem's on their end. Needless to say, my low expectations were met and not exceeded.

Several times each day, I have to reenter my POP password, and it's getting annoying. Anyone else seeing these problems?

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Mac OS X and mp3 Files

So I've been using my new MacBook Pro for a month or so now, and this'll probably the first in what I'm sure will be a series of questions as I transition from being a power Windows navigator to the same on Mac OS X.

I'd like to copy iTunes playlists, consisting only of mp3 files, to my various, generic, USB mp3 players. When I plug the player in, it doesn't show up in iTunes. Please don't tell me that my only option is to find the mp3 files on disk and copy them using Finder (or PathFinder)!