Comments on: Tell Me One Thing You Can Do With a Mac that I Can’t Do With Windows! (Part 2) http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html I've been observing personal computing behavior for a long time, and now I have some things to say. Here are my two cents about computing, music, software, and related topics. Fri, 01 May 2026 08:10:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Leland http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-156 Leland Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:43:12 +0000 http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-156 Tandt: I am a contextual menu fiend. A future article will discuss all the cool, free contextual menu items you can find. I should have thought to edit the menu shown in the quicktime movie, cause it shows all kinds of irrelevant menu items. I believe the tool I'm using to get the Services in my contextual menus is ICeCoffEE, which not only does that Services menu thing, but also makes it so you can Command-click on any URL in a Cocoa application to launch the URL. CascadeHush is right... twice! I should have mentioned that to get the little Dictionary panel shown in the screenshot/movie by default, you need to change a preferences setting in Dictionary. It's my personal preference, but may not be yours. Also, I think it may also be true that the Dictionary service only works in Cocoa apps, not Carbon apps (like Firefox, MS Word, etc.). Too bad! This is one of the things that keeps me using Safari or Camino rather than Firefox. I love Firefox, but it misses out on all the natively great Mac technologies that have sprung up around Cocoa, and I miss those when I use it. Tandt: I am a contextual menu fiend. A future article will discuss all the cool, free contextual menu items you can find. I should have thought to edit the menu shown in the quicktime movie, cause it shows all kinds of irrelevant menu items. I believe the tool I’m using to get the Services in my contextual menus is ICeCoffEE, which not only does that Services menu thing, but also makes it so you can Command-click on any URL in a Cocoa application to launch the URL.

CascadeHush is right… twice! I should have mentioned that to get the little Dictionary panel shown in the screenshot/movie by default, you need to change a preferences setting in Dictionary. It’s my personal preference, but may not be yours. Also, I think it may also be true that the Dictionary service only works in Cocoa apps, not Carbon apps (like Firefox, MS Word, etc.). Too bad! This is one of the things that keeps me using Safari or Camino rather than Firefox. I love Firefox, but it misses out on all the natively great Mac technologies that have sprung up around Cocoa, and I miss those when I use it.

]]> By: Macaday http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-155 Macaday Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:37:18 +0000 http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-155 You don't need to select the word. Just leaving the curser over the word is enough...so it's even easier than YOU thought! You don’t need to select the word.

Just leaving the curser over the word is enough…so it’s even easier than YOU thought!

]]> By: eric gonzaga http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-154 eric gonzaga Tue, 13 Dec 2005 14:07:38 +0000 http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-154 oh yeah... dictionary rocks and it's even easier and faster if you use a keystroke for it. the default is totally unfriendly with cmd-ctrl-d or ctrl-opt-d so i changed it right away to opt-esc. you can change it to whatever you want. with the keyboard, you don't even have to highlight. just hover the mouse over the word, hit the key combo and voila! and you can hold down the option key after hitting escape and the pop-up stays open even while moving your mouse over other words. great for wowing windows freaks. and scroll-wheels (or scroll-balls for mighty mouse users) works for scrolling definitions that run on. and here's my favorite trick. you can highlight a synonym or even a group of words in the pop-up, click and hold until you get the arrow cursor, and drag it out into whatever document you are working! seriously convenient. the built in dictionary has totally changed the way i write. thanks for sharing. oh yeah… dictionary rocks and it’s even easier and faster if you use a keystroke for it. the default is totally unfriendly with cmd-ctrl-d or ctrl-opt-d so i changed it right away to opt-esc. you can change it to whatever you want. with the keyboard, you don’t even have to highlight. just hover the mouse over the word, hit the key combo and voila! and you can hold down the option key after hitting escape and the pop-up stays open even while moving your mouse over other words. great for wowing windows freaks. and scroll-wheels (or scroll-balls for mighty mouse users) works for scrolling definitions that run on. and here’s my favorite trick. you can highlight a synonym or even a group of words in the pop-up, click and hold until you get the arrow cursor, and drag it out into whatever document you are working! seriously convenient. the built in dictionary has totally changed the way i write. thanks for sharing.

]]> By: CascadeHush http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-153 CascadeHush Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:49:56 +0000 http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-153 The whole application opens by default. To get the little drop down/flyover pictured above you need to switch that option on. Alas services don't seem to work in firefox. The whole application opens by default. To get the little drop down/flyover pictured above you need to switch that option on. Alas services don’t seem to work in firefox.

]]> By: tandt http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-152 tandt Tue, 13 Dec 2005 03:59:01 +0000 http://www.musingsfrommars.org/2005/12/tell-me-one-thing-you-can-do-with-a-mac-part2.html#comment-152 OK I am jealous, I am running TIger 10.4.3, but when I use the dictonary function I get Look up in Spotlight, Look up in Google, Dictonary, and Copy....why do you get the Services option? What am I doing wrong? Thanks for letting me know.....and I need to know! :-) OK I am jealous, I am running TIger 10.4.3, but when I use the dictonary function I get Look up in Spotlight, Look up in Google, Dictonary, and Copy….why do you get the Services option? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for letting me know…..and I need to know! :-)

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