If you use Math Type, read the link below before upgrading to Microsoft Office 2008
Math Type:
http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype%5Fmac/office2008.htm
Excerpt from the link:
"Microsoft has omitted VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) support from Office 2008, claiming that it would cost too much to port this to the Intel Mac platform. Lack of VBA support is going to cause problems for many users, especially those that use Excel macros, MathType, and many other products that contain features implemented as VBA macros. MathType's toolbar and menu inside Word are no longer possible. Features such as equation numbering, formatting, etc. will not be available."
Initially I though that you could run both Office 2004 and Office 2008 at the same time, apparently not:
From a MacFixIt forum:
".. When you install Office 2008, you are given the option not to uninstall Office 2004, presumably so you can revert to Office 2004 if something important doesn't work right. Well, at least in my case when I installed Office 2008 it broke Math Type in Word 2004, and so far 2 reinstalls haven't been sufficient to restore it."
Posted: February 26, 2008 11:20 am by Janice Canero-Conklin | 0 comments
Tags: Mac Leopard OS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Office 2008, MS Office
I finally took the plunge back into Spaces today. I assigned each of the Office 2008 apps to my Space 1, and double clicked on a Word document. Word opened up. . . in the space I was in (Space 2).
Undaunted, I checked my Spaces preferences again, reselected Word to make sure it was assigned to Space 1, and then "manually" moved my open Word document over to Space 1.
Good to go, I thought.
Nope. I clicked on Mail in the Dock, and sailed gracefully back into Space 2 so I could copy text from an email message. To switch back to Word, I clicked on Word in the Dock. And my Word document moved itself from Space 1 to Space 2.
I don't know if this is a Leopard thing, or an Office thing, but I'd really like to use Spaces to keep my Excel / Word / PowerPoint documents in a separate area where I might be able to concentrate free of the distractions of my email, etc.
Sigh.
It gets better. Or worse, that is. I moved Word back over to Space 1 again, so that I could concentrate on my report. I saved my document, and Word moved itself back over to Space 2 again.
Posted: February 14, 2008 12:48 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Office 2008
Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine backups are not visible
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306928
Upgrading to a new Mac?
If you are upgrading from one Leopard-based Mac to a new Leopard-based Mac, and you wish to use Time Machine backups from the previous Mac, make sure the computer name of the new Mac (in Sharing preferences) is the same as your previous Mac's computer name was when its Time Machine backups were made. Afterwards, if the previous Mac is still on your network, give it a different computer name.
Posted: February 13, 2008 7:50 am by Janice Canero-Conklin | 0 comments
Tags: Mac Help, Mac Leopard OS, Mac OS X, Mac Troubleshooting, Time Machine
I've written before about how I sync Meeting Maker to iCal, and then iCal to my iPhone using a very out-of-date applescript. I've noticed enough times now that I can say it's true: when I have appointments in Meeting Maker booked at the same exact time, they don't make it into iCal.
That is, if I have two appointments from 9 am - 11:30 pm, the AppleScript will move one of them to iCal, but not the other. Inevitably, the one it doesn't move is the one meeting of the two that I really need to attend.
What I'm afraid I really need to do is stop using the Banner feature in Meeting Maker so that I can start using the iCal export instead of the text export. As a former Palm user, I've always used Banners, or "untimed events," to keep track of birthdays. Since the iPhone doesn't keep as much information in its address book as the address book on my computer does (e.g. the relationship fields don't sync), I'm hesitant to isolate birthdays in my address book.
What has probably occurred to iCalendar users well before it occurred to me is that I should create "all day" events in a separate iCalendar calendar for all of the birthdays I track. Then I can sync that to the iPhone, and they'll appear the way I want them to. I think. Maybe.
Oh wait, but I can't trust using the iCal export until I know that Apple has fixed the bug I wrote about before, because otherwise, if I need to overwrite the iCalendar calendar, it'll notify everyone as though I'm canceling the meeting in Meeting Maker, even though I'm not.
Posted: January 8, 2008 7:38 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple iCal, Calendar synchronization, iPhone, Mac Leopard OS, Meeting Maker
Okay, I give up. I just disabled Spaces. Let me count the reasons why:
- While putting Word into Space 1 prevented Word from crashing as frequently, using PowerPoint (2004) in Space 1 still led to PowerPoint telling me that the file on the file server I had open had been locked (by me) and so I had to save the file to a new name. Repeatedly.
- Today I had PowerPoint and 1 mail message open in Space 1, Firefox and Mail open in Space 2, and iTunes open in Space 3. I started using iTunes U, which required flipping back and forth between Firefox, my Mail, and iTunes. I clicked on Mail in the dock, and the space wouldn't flip. I moved the 1 mail message back to the rest of my mail in Space 2 and clicked on Mail in the doc--still the space wouldn't flip. I clicked on Firefox, I couldn't get to Space 2. Finally, I couldn't move from any space to any other without going into Spaces itself, or the Expose shortcut.
Okay, so that's only 2 reasons, but I've really had it. Which stinks, because I love Spaces, and if it worked, it would make me more productive.
As for the Adobe products: something's still buggy between Leopard and CS3. For example, there are times when I choose the crop tool, type in measurements, and try to crop: the crop measurements don't stick. Sometimes they do stick, and then when I try to remove them from the toolbar, it looks as though I deleted the measurements, but the crop tool is still sticking to the deleted measurements. This happens at home consistently, but I'm pretty sure it happened at work too.
Then there are the CS3 updates, which take forever to load.
Leopard, oh Leopard, when will you stabilize?
Posted: January 4, 2008 12:42 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 1 comment
Tags: Adobe Photoshop, Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, PowerPoint 2004
I've been really frustrated about how difficult it is to find my applications, using the new Leopard feature that lets you spring up the contents of a folder from the dock. My applications folder is too full, and includes applications that are inside of folders, so I can't launch them with one click off the dock.
I decided to make a separate "Apps" folder within my user folder, and to put aliases of all of almost all of my applications into that folder. That meant that with two clicks, I could get to any application, even to Grab, which lives in the Applications:Utilities folder. One click on the Apps folder on the dock, and one click to the application. After that, I pulled my "real" Applications folder off the dock.
Then I got frustrated that I couldn't easily pick out my new Apps folder on the dock, because the icon was indistinguishable from all others. After some surfing, I found a great tip. Folders on the dock display the icon of the first item in the folder itself. So if you put an image in your folder, and name it, for example "1st item," or, better yet, " 1st item" (note the space in the title), it'll come up first.
I needed some icons. First I found some at the icon factory, where I've been before. I found some cute free ones, like of a little fly catcher plant with an open jaw (a nice one for a folder looking to eat things up). But I wanted one for my applications folder that really cried out "APPLICATIONS."
That led me tonight to a really interesting blog post on IndieHIG, which disparages Apple for doing a bad job on Leopard icons. That, in turn, led me to two awesome icon makers who are distributing their work through the Creative Commons license (Laurent Baumann, use it for free, distribute it as is, credit the creator) or, as best I can tell as an English-only reader, for free (Susumu Yoshida).
Now I have Baumann's AquaBlend Aqua Smooth Folder Applications icon on my dock for my Apps folder. And Yoshida's Stack_mac Box green Downloads for my Downloads folder. I'm also using Yoshida's Safari icon. For more info about changing your icons, see Mac 101: Change Your Icons.
The really cool thing about the Stack_mac boxes is that Yoshida has designed them to work perfectly in the dock.
So, here's how that section of my dock looks now. The little ghost isn't a great dock icon--I'm still hunting for a good icon to serve as my shortcut to MM to iCal (a bit of a ghostly/scary syncing process I follow for my iPhone and Meeting Maker).
Look how much easier it is to distinguish among folders!
Never one to leave well enough alone, especially when I'm really tired, I found another site, that includes some better Adobe CS3 icons (but I still can't find one for Acrobat that fits nicely in my new folder icon). DeviantART. Poor looking URL, so the link may not work.
Posted: December 20, 2007 10:44 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Dock, Mac Leopard OS
I've tried several more things to make it so that PowerPoint doesn't tell me that the file I have open on the server is in use (by me) and so I have to save with another name.
1. I tried making sure that there was no Finder window open showing the file. Then PowerPoint said the file was in use, but only once. When I saved it as another name, and kept using it for another hour, including having the computer go to sleep in the middle, it was fine.
2. I've now moved Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to Space 1. PowerPoint didn't tell me the file I had open was in use, but every time I saved the file, it switched to Space 2, where I had a Finder window open showing the file. Then, when I quit PowerPoint, it thought it had crashed and asked if I wanted to send a report to Apple.
It's possible that the Microsoft Office 2004 suite works well with Leopard if you don't use Spaces. But if you do use spaces, expect to have lots of problems with Office. Very frustrating.
Posted: December 20, 2007 10:12 am by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Office 2004
