Intermediate

Sometimes you want to add media files to your iTunes so you can sync them on your mobile devices, but you don't want to copy the files to your /Music folder to avoid extra copies of the content and to save space on your hard drive.

In order to do that you can open iTunes Preferences and switch off Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.

If you want to transfer files from your Mac to a Windows PC or play your movies on your TV that accepts USB drives you will need to reformat your USB drive to a format that is widely accepted.

You can format any drives with the Disk Utility application, but the default Mac OS Extended formats will usually only work on Macs and the MS-DOS(FAT) format will only work on Windows XP and not on Windows 7.

Excerpted from Real World Adobe Illustrator CS5 (Peachpit Press)

By Mordy Golding

Certain Illustrator features, such as Pathfinder, are incredibly useful and, as a result, are used many times a day. Features such as 3D are also extremely cool, but they aren’t used as often. Every once in a while, a feature comes along in Illustrator that is cool and fun to use but that is also practical enough that you use it on a regular basis. Live Trace is such a feature.

I tested the Wacom Bamboo, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad as primary input devices with my Mac over several weeks. I wanted to find out which one is the most effective for everyday use. My usage was not limited to graphic design applications, but lot of web browsing and doing various other work, like working on spreadsheets or navigating developer apps.

Wacom Bamboo Tablet

The Wacom Bamboo tablet is the most natural input device if you are comfortable with a pen or a pencil which is true for most people. It allows you to put the cursor instantly to the area of your interest. You don't need to drag the cursor over the screen to get from the menu to the trash bin.

On the downside the cursor is not absolutely stable like you are used to it with a mouse. Because your hand is not still all the small movements are picked up and your cursor will move about just a little. This is a problem if you want to point to one specific pixel, for example when making a precise selection. You have to concentrate to make it happen. Lack of steadiness is also a problem when double clicking, your double click may register as a click and drag, which is very annoying.

Excerpted from Taking Stock: Make Money in Microstock Creating Photos That Sell (Peachpit Press)
By Rob Sylvan

You must have heard that Google introduced phone calling right from your Gmail. The service is not yet available in all countries but being rolled out fast.

Calling the USA and Canada is free and the rest of the world is cheap. You can buy credits with Google Checkout.

The prices of Google Voice are generally cheaper than the already very cheap rates of Skype.

The only remaining question is how to get all your numbers from your iPhone or OSX Address Book into your Gmail? There are two ways to do that.

Facebook Places is now live. It does three things essentially. Allows you to share where you're, find your friends and discover new places.

It comes with all the privacy settings. Either you can opt out of it altogether, so friends can't tag you or you will be notified every time you're tagged, so you can remove individual tags manually. Businesses can claim their shops on the map.

With Google recently hitting the headlines with the purchase of semantic database tool www.freebase.com, semantic search is becoming a big upcoming topic that is promising a lot in terms of the way we search the web and more importantly how we view the information in different media.

The official Twitter share button has been finally released. It will replace the Tweetmeme button most websites use today. Tweetmeme required users to connect their Twitter accounts to Tweetmeme before they could share a page making the tweet a little more complicated than it should be.