Hello and welcome to this month's edition of A Spider Speaks. This is a regular column written to help you make the most out of your MacOS experience. I provide tips, tricks, and other neat information. If you have any comments on or suggestions for this column, please send me email at erik@applewizards.net. Note: Click on all of the pictures — they all do something. Thanks, and let's begin this month's column...
Spiderism #1 - Find a New Friend
  Find File is my friend. It should be yours, too. Why? Many people
don't realize it, but Find File is capable of many more things than
simply scrounging around your hard drive for the file called "Tuesday's Sales." Find File is one of the most powerful tools that Mac users have at their disposal.
Included in the system file on MacOS 8 or via the Find File extension in OS 7.x, the simple keystroke "command-f" brings up a whole new way of searching for files and information on your Mac. Allow me to lead you through some simple examples.
Cleaning Up
Use Find File to clean your hard drive of the gunk that inevitably collects on it. For instance, search for files called "SimpleText" and you're likely to get about 43,532. Why? Well, it seems as though every installer I've ever run installs SimpleText somewhere, and you probably have a few extra copies laying around. Trash all but one and you'll save some valuable space.
Need another method you can use to clean out your hard drive? Get rid of old files. How? Choose to search for files who were last modified, oh, a year or so ago. Have a look at the picture from my Find File:
 
As you can see, I set the date to one year ago. Now, if a file has not been modified in over a year, I can find it and trash it, thus saving even more space. Oh, just be sure to check the files you find before trashing them!
Birds of a Feather
Suppose you want to locate all clipping files on your hard drive. How would you do that? Find File has a way! Type command-f to bring up Find File and choose to search for "file type" "is." Now, what is a clippings' file type? You don't need to know it. Why? Try this: drag a clipping file to the text box and Find File will enter the file type for you! Hit Enter or press the Find button and all the clippings on your specified search disks will be located. Cool, eh? It gets better...
The Ex-Files
Did you know that Find File can search the contents of files for a search string? Okay, suppose you wrote an essay on "spiders" but you can't remember what you called the file or where it is located. Find File to the rescue!
Warning: a smile is about to appear on your face and the words "wicked cool" will float through your mind. Hold down the option key as you click on the left-most pull-down menu in Find File ("name" is pre-selected). You should see some extra "hidden" search options. Choose to search for "content" "contains" and then enter "spiders" or any other keyword you'd like to search for. All files containing "spiders" will be found! I just tried it, and Find File found a Photoshop file that I made for a high school science project! Cool! Didn't I warn you? Warning 2: these "content" searches can take a long time, so give it a while. Remember, though, it still takes less time than you probably would if you had to find the files yourself.
Find File is a great MacOS 8 utility. But, the question is, do you really use it? Give it a try — I'll bet you know a special way in which you could use it yourself.
Spiderism #2 - PICTWhap for the Fun of It
PICTWhapping is nifty! No, it's not the name of Bill Gates' favorite corporate activity. Shame on you for thinking that :-O ! PICTWhapping is taking a picture of your screen. MacOS 7.6 introduced a couple of new PICTWhapping keystroke shortcuts that have remained in MacOS 8. I shall list the keyboard shortcuts needed to PICTWhap below.
shift-command-3 — takes a picture of the entire screen.
shift-command-4 — provides you with crosshairs - click and drag to select the area you'd like to PICTWhap.
shift-command-4 with caps lock on — allows you to take a picture of a window - just click in a window to PICTWhap it.
control + anything above — copies the picture to your clipboard instead of making a SimpleText PICT file. This is extremely useful if you're going to paste the graphic into a document in the near future.
So, how is PICTWhapping useful? Well, I've listed a few examples below.
Tech Support — Are you having trouble checking email? Take a PICTWhap of your settings and give them to the internet service provider. A picture is worth a thousand words, and probably even more in tech support. After viewing the picture, the tech support person may have less of a problem helping you out. Of course, this works with more than just email settings.
 
The Web — 72% of all websites are created on Macs. Why? It is the best graphical machine you're ever gonna find. As such, you'll find many things around the internet that were originally PICTWhapped from a Mac. For instance, visit Other World Computing at http://www.macsales.com/ or our own website at http://www.applewizards.net/ to see perfect examples of some online PICTWhaps.
I won, I won! — Take a PICTWhap of the winning screen when you beat a game. Show the PICTWhap to your snotty brother, who happened to be mowing the lawn when you beat the game, to prove that you are not lying.
At any rate, PICTWhaps are yet another Mac tool. Need to fax your screen? Take a PICTWhap and use your fax software to send it. Need to record a funny dialog box for posterity? Take a PICTWhap. Need to make a few extra bucks? Uh, get another job. At any rate, PICTWhapping has its purpose. How do you think I get these cool screenshots into my column each month?
Spiderism #3 - Rotating Desktop Pictures
Desktop Pictures are one of the coolest things in MacOS 8. I have 50 pictures in my "Desktop Pictures" folder and I recently discovered a cool trick — I can make a new one appear at every startup! Here's how to do it.
1. Put all of your desktop pictures in one folder
2. Open the Desktop Pictures control panel
3. Remove any current picture
4. Hold down the 'option' key when pushing the "Select Picture" button
5. Select the folder containing your pictures
6. Set the desktop!
 
Your Desktop
Pictures control
panel should
look something
like this after
selecting the
folder as the
source of the
pictures. Note how it says "picked randomly from folder Desktop Pictures." Cool, huh?
That's all I have for this month. If you have a suggestion for a tip for next month, send it along to me at erik@applewizards.net. I will answer all emails sent to me and consider putting your tip or answering your question in a future column. Thanks!
Second-Best Dislaimer Ever:
I am using MacOS 8. Not all of my tricks and tips work on pre-MacOS 8 systems, though I try to provide work-arounds or solutions for MacOS 7.x users whenever possible. Thanks
