Mac Kindergarten

Previously we looked at, how to enter data into iCal and Address Book. Entering all your contacts sounds like a boring thing. Yes, it is boring!

The good thing is: you don’t have to do it!

iSync is the rescue in this situation. It will enable you to synchronize your mobile phone contacts with your Address Book, so that all the contacts you have on your mobile, will show up in Address Book. This will be just great.

The only thing you need is a mobile phone with bluetooth support, that is supported by iSync. Click here to open the listing of supported phones.

In case your phone is not supported, don’t cry, leave a comment and we will see what we can do for you (Leopard offers a way to add support for unsupported phones).

iSync setup

iSync does not live in the Dock, so we have to use Finder to open it. Go to the Application s folder and locate it in there.

Simply double click it to start iSync. You are presented the main window.

Make sure, bluetooth is set to “On” on your phone. In iSync from the Devices menu select Add Device…

The Bluetooth Setup Assistant starts up. It will take you through the process of pairing your phone with your Mac. Click Continue, select Mobile phone from the list of devices to set up.

Your Mac is now searching for mobile phones. Select yours and click Continue.

Click Continue to make your phone and your Mac “become friends” (i.e. pair them).

After successful pairing, you will be asked what services you want to use your phone for:

Note, that your list of options may vary, depending on your mobile phone. Check the boxes for the services you want to use.
Make sure that you enable Set up iSync to transfer contacts and events, otherwise this whole thing won’t work.

Finish the Bluetooth Setup Assistant.

It might happen, that the following window shows up - just close it, we don’t need it for now:

Now, the view of iSync has changed. You see your phones icon at the top of the program and a couple of options to set up.

The options are quite self-explaining. You can select to synchronize your contacts from Address Book and/or Calendars from iCal.

Attention! It’s very important to leave the setting for first sync on Merge data on computer and device, otherwise all the data on your mobile phone will be erased.

Clicking on More Options… brings up another window, allowing you to adjust the way data is synchronized.
Adjust the synchronizing options to your needs.

Synchronizing

When you are finished, just click on Sync Devices in the upper right corner to synchronize your Mac with your phone.

After the synchronization has finished, open up Address Book and see all your contacts from your phone in Address Book! Yeah!

From now on, every time you synchronize your phone with your Mac, all the data that has been changed on either device (your mobile phone or your Mac) is put on the other device.

The setup process was a one-time-thing, so when you start iSync now, your phone is already in iSync ready to be synchronized. Just hit Sync devices and you are good to go.

So make sure, you use iSync before you leave the house, to have all your contacts and your schedules on your mobile, ready to use, where ever you are.

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For all the people who love to sue web sites, hear this word of warning:
Disclaimer: Mac Kindergarten can not be held responsible for any data loss, described above. If you don’t follow our steps, it’s your own fault.

For all the others: Enjoy your new found mobility!

A really quick way to change the time of a meeting in iCal is to create it and then move the mouse close to the upper or lower edge of the event, so the mouse cursor turns into a double arrow.

Then just click and hold down the mouse button and move it up- or downwards to adjust the time.

In order to rearrange a meeting, just drag it around on your schedule. No need to adjust the details, just move your mouse over an event, click and hold and drag the event around. Release when it has reached the right position.

So, 2 quick and easy tips - exactlz what we like.

We are back, taking on iCal, the calender application of Mac OS X.

In the following we show you, how to use iCal for planing your schedule and how to make birthdays of your contacts in Address Book automatically show up in iCal (and thus giving you more free space in your brain)

First, launch iCal by clicking its icon in the Dock. The icon changes every day, always displaying the current date - nice touch, huh?

Let’s go through the different areas of iCal quickly.

Calendars to the left side: You can have multiple calendars, to show you different kinds of appointments (e.g one for work, one for spare time appointments). You can check and uncheck them to display/hide the appointments of a certain calendar. There is a mini-calendar in the lower left corner and several controls to change the view at the top of the window. These are used to change the main view.

Add an event

1) Select the calendar you want the event to be in (e.g. Home, Work)
2) Double click somewhere “inside” the day of the event.
3) An event is created and you can enter the name of the event. Finish by hitting the return key

4) Click on the event, and press command-E (or via the menu: Edit - Edit Event…) to bring up the details of the event.
5) Now click on the times (and dates) to adjust them.

6) You can also set a location, make the event an all-day event or set an alarm.

Delete an event

To remove an event, click on it once an hit the Delete key.

Display birthdays from Address Book

iCal has a great feature - it can automatically display the birthdays you entered in Address Book in iCal. Doing so, you will never forget a birthday again.
Open the iCal Preferences via the application menu.

In the preferences, check the box to automatically show birthdays entered in Address Book.

This gives you all-day events for every birthday on the according dates.

So while you are using iCal to plan your schedule, you automatically see your friends birthdays, which you entered when you created their contact in Address Book.

This is only one of the many interactions that Apple programs have with each other. We will explore many more in the future.

iCal has of course many more things to offer, which we will cover later on. There is also a very easy way to synchronize your calendar and contacts to your mobile phone (if supported) to have all your appointments and contacts available, even when you are not in front of your Mac.

Yesterday we looked at how to increase our screen space. Today we will take it one step further and create more space in our brain. Well, more like freeing up space for more important things.

Having trouble, remembering birthdays, telephone numbers, and so on? Don’t worry, meet the powerful combination of Address Book and iCal.

Address Book

Let’s start with Address Book. As the name indicates, it’s the application for storing all your contact information (e.g. name, birthday, phone numbers, addresses, …)

Data entry

First we need to enter the data, so launch Address Book by clicking its icon in the Dock.

You are presented with a 3-pane view. To the left, you see all groups, in the middle all names of the selected group and to the right the details of a selected name.Let’s enter some data. Click the “+” symbol below the name section.

After the click, you can start to add data right away. Enter first and last name, phone number, and so on. You will see that there is a selection option next to some entry fields (e.g. for the phone number). Use this to specify the details of the phone number (e.g. work number, home or mobile).

Sometimes you need more fields (e.g. you have a friends number to work, home and the mobile, too). Just fill in the 2 provided fields and a green plus will appear. Just click it to get more fields.

You can even select you own labels for your numbers. Just select Custom… from the list and enter your own label.

To enter a birthday for a person, select from the Card menu, choose Add Field and select Birthday. This adds a birthday field to the name.

Continue entering data until you are done. Click the “edit” button below the data-area to finish entering data. Click it again to edit data of an existing name.

To create a group, just click the “+” sign below the group window and enter a name for the group. Then just drag a name from the names-pane in the middle on to the group name to add this name to the group. You can select multiple names by holding down the command-key while clicking.

One more thing …

Note, that deleting a group does NOT delete the contacts inside this group, the remain in your Address Book and can be view via the “All” group.

This is it for now, explore Address Book and play around with it. Later today, we will start using iCal, Leopard calender application to automatically display birthdays in our daily calender.

Stay tuned.