This is Mike Mejer’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

This series of suggestions is likely to appeal to newer Mac users.

I am sure many of you understand the concept of making folders. Use them! It’s one of the easiest and fastest ways of keeping your files organized. Apple already includes a ‘Downloads’ Folder, and a ‘Documents’ Folder. Don’t always save files and documents onto your desktop – you might, one day, clean it up and files may get deleted on accident. Keep those files in folders elsewhere, so it is easier and quicker to find the items you are looking for. Yes, it does take some time when you get a new Mac, but in the long run, it saves you a great amount of time and stress. Same holds true for keeping documents in the “My Documents” folder on a Windows computer.

Macs hardly ever get viruses, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible for them to get infected! Yes, a Mac does run on a UNIX core, but there will always be one nasty file that slips through the security gates. How do you take extra precautions to ensure your Mac doesn’t get a virus? Be aware of what you are downloading! Make sure that if you download things from the Internet, you know what you’re getting, and if the source is a reliable one. If you have never heard of a site before, aren’t too familiar with the file, and something seems to good to be true, it means: don’t download anything. Download music from reputable sources, not illegally from unknown users. Anti-Virus software is not necessary for OS X at this time – if you follow these steps. If you don’t download illegal files, monitor your activity and traffic on the Internet, then you should remain okay and virus free!

I have been asked how I organize my Dock a few times. The way I look at it is: if you use an application often, keep it there. For instance, I constantly use Pages, Mail, iTunes, iMovie HD, and Activity Monitor. So I keep those applications in my Dock. Now those weren’t all of the applications that are in my Dock; I have a total of 18 apps and 2 Stacks on my Dock. I try to keep it as organized as I possibly can. So, I keep the applications that I constantly need (and are constantly in use) in my Dock. My Stacks contain files which I often need to access quickly. I tend to put a few apps in them every now and again, but every week I do a “maintenance” job (as I like to call it) and sweep out the cruft. Organizing your Dock can be easy. Simply make a list of the applications you use often, then drag them onto your Dock. If you find yourself not using an app, drag it away and it leaves the Dock.

Stacks are folders which can be placed on the Dock. There is generally nothing on my desktop other than the devices connected to my Mac. So, I have two folders which I need to access quite often, so I keep them on my Dock. Stacks generally work the same way as applications do on a Dock. That is really all you need to know about keeping your Mac’s Dock organized and un-cluttered.

That’s how you can customize your Mac to give you quick access to often used apps and folders, keep your Mac virus free, and nice and organized. Any questions? Leave a comment for more tips on which you may be curious about.

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This is Tyler Tufte’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

What is Evernote? Evernote is a free, cloud-based note taking and organizational tool. It is beneficial to those who use multiple computers, travel or those who are sick of their desktop being cluttered with sticky notes (physical or software based).

1. All your notes are just a couple mouse clicks away from anywhere in the world. A simple login to www.evernote.com will give you access to view, edit, or create notes. Windows and Mac users will also enjoy the benefit of using the client based software which will give you access anytime, online or not. If you are a Firefox user, you will also be able to select text and/or images on a website and click a toolbar shortcut to save the selection directly to your account.
2. Creating notes is as simple as typing in a document. You can customize your notes with fancy fonts and colors. Organization of the notes is also a breeze. Notes can be grouped into customizable “Notebooks”. They can also be tagged with user-defined words. This is useful if the subject matter has multiple descriptions or key words. Just tag it with whatever words best describe the note. Then you can filter through all of your notes by tags. Of course you can always type in the search bar to search through any text (tags, OCR, text within notes, etc).
3. Say you are at lunch with some business partners and the napkin becomes the destination of all the important decisions. Now what do you do? Retype everything? What about those great diagrams? Problem solved. Just use an iSight Note. This uses Mac’s built in iSight camera to snap a photo of hand written notes, business cards or any other information that you do not want to loose. Best off all, Evernote’s servers will do OCR text recognition on the image and automatically index any words it recognizes so they will be searchable. All those who use Windows Mobile, an iPhone or an iPod Touch will be able to take advantage of Evernote’s mobile application. Your notes will be with you all of the time and you can even utilize your camera to snap notes directly from your device or even make voice notes.
4. Another feature of Evernote is the ability to share information with anybody. Say this Christmas you decide to build your Christmas list in Evernote. With a simple checkbox, you can make any note accessible to anyone via a public URL. The cool thing is that your note becomes a downloadable PDF for anybody to enjoy, as long as they know the correct URL.
5. If security is a top priority for you, then you can upgrade to the premium service for a small monthly or yearly fee. Now, your account will be protected with SSL encryption and will have more monthly allotted bandwidth for all of you power users out there.

I have been using this service for several months now and I can honestly say that I would be lost with out it. The ease of use made my transition from an ad-hoc mess of papers, software stickies, and plain text files to Evernote an enjoyable one!

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