Three annoyances

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Electric

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I switched to Mac recently, and so far I've came upon three little annoyances (I'm using OS X 10.3, iBook G4):

1. Is there a way to lock my screen using keyboard shortcut (like Win + L in XP)?

2. Is there a way to make Apple's system spell checker recognize languages that I'm using based on keyboard selected? For example - if I am typing my email using Croatian keyboard - I don't want that part of message to be checked for errors. But, when I switch back to English keyboard - I would like spell checker to indicate misspelled words.

3. In my everyday work I use Visio a lot and now that's the only program that makes me switch on my Wintel box. Which are some good applications for OS X that will allow me to draw diagrams (mostly racks and networks)? Some level of Visio compatibility would be highly desirable :)

TIA.
 
1. Turn on "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver" in the "Security" pane of the System Preferences. Then, assign a "hot-corner" for your screensaver. After that, you can simply "flick" the mouse to that corner of the screen and the screensaver will kick in. A password will be required to get back to the Desktop.

2. I dunno... sorry!

3. OmniGraffle is great for laying out diagrams: http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
1. Turn on "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver" in the "Security" pane of the System Preferences. Then, assign a "hot-corner" for your screensaver. After that, you can simply "flick" the mouse to that corner of the screen and the screensaver will kick in. A password will be required to get back to the Desktop.[/url]
Click to expand...

WOW, that was fast :)

Thanks a lot, but this is not what I need. I want to be able to lock my computer when I want with simple keystroke. Most of the times, I don't need password to wake it up (actually - most of the time that password prompt would just drive me nuts ;).
 
For your first question you could use the hot corners to start the screen saver, which you could then have it be password protected.
Question two, I can't answer. In regards to question three, use OmniGraffle.
 
Hmmm... no offence, but what good is "locking" a computer if a password isn't required to unlock it?

There's no way to "lock" a Mac with a keystroke like there is under Windows... we can find a suitable workaround, though, like the hotcorners solution.

You can enable Fast User Switching, then select "Login Window..." from the FUS menu in the upper-right of the menubar. That will bring you back to the login window, effectively "locking" your account, and then you just have to log back in to get back to your Desktop...
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Hmmm... no offence, but what good is "locking" a computer if a password isn't required to unlock it?
Click to expand...

Hm, seems I can't explain my problem precisely.

My computer goes to sleep 20 or 30 times during the day and I don't want to type password every time I press a key to wake it up. But I still want to be able to lock it sometimes. The near perfect solution is to click Lock Screen command on Keychain Access icon on menu bar. But that requires mouse actions, I would really prefer to do it using keyboard.

I just downloaded OmniGraffle demo, and will play with the demo for a couple of days.
 
I don't want to question your usage, but sleeping and waking a computer 20 or 30 times a day is excessive! The hard drives must spin down, then spin back up every time the computer sleeps, which puts a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on them. Keeping the computer awake during the day and allowing it only to sleep at night would put much less "stress" on the computer, but it's only a suggestion.

The only thing I can think of is to use Fast User Switching via the menu with the mouse, or you could use the Keyboard Shortcuts menu to access the elements in the menubar by pressing Control-F8, arrow-keying over to the FUS menu, then pressing down until you got to "Login Window" and hit Enter. Mine takes three button presses not counting the initial Control-F8 to do this -- not a one-motion action, but still relatively quick. You could customize the hotkey in the Keyboard/Mouse pane of the System Preferences.

I'll keep looking, but I just don't think this feature is implemented in Tiger like you'd like to use it. Might be able to find some 3rd-party software to help accomplish this, though.
 
what do you mean lock? if not password protection (privacy) then what? i can't seem to work out the reason for locking a computer other than privacy.
 
Right then, I think the best solution to your 'Lockout' problem is WinSwitch, downloadable from here:

http://wincent.com/a/products/winswitch/download/

This replaces Apple's own fast-user switching menu with it's own customisable one. I downloaded it and tried it and it can be set to only display initials which doesn't intrude much (see below).
However, the main thing that you're looking for is a lock function.
It does this too.
In the WinSwitch prefs (Click your username in the menubar then Winswitch prefs) you can define a shortcut to switch to the login screen (i used apple+option+control+backspace) and voila! Problem solved.
 
ziess said:
Right then, I think the best solution to your 'Lockout' problem is WinSwitch, downloadable from here:
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I needed :) Thanks a lot.

Now my only problem is that spellcheker doesn't change it's behavior when keyboard changes. I suppose most of the people here are native English speakers, so that's not a big deal. But for some of us who regularly use two (or more languages) this can be pretty frustrating.
 
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