Dictate Your Text Entries

MAC Tips:  On the iPhone, Siri gets a lot of attention not just for its ability to understand natural-language queries and deliver results, but also for its voice dictation feature. You speak, and your words become text. But Mountain Lion now supports voice dictation in any text field. To start dictation, press the Fn key twice on Macs that include that key (such as laptops), or choose Edit > Start Dictation. (You can change the key in the Dictation & Speech preference pane.) A microphone icon appears, indicating that the Mac is listening. Speak in a normal tone of voice, and specify punctuation where needed ("Dear Jane comma sorry I haven't written recently period new paragraph"). When you're done speaking, click the Done button or press the Return key. Mountain Lion sends the audio to Apple for processing—their powerful data centers can analyze the data faster than your Mac does—and then enters the text. Although the transcription isn't always perfect, it's impressive how well this feature works.

Excerpted from OS X Mountain Lion Pocket Guide by Jeff Carlson

Starting Your New App from Launchpad

Mac Tips
When you purchase an app from the App Store, the download process places the new app in your Applications folder, and it is also accessible from Launchpad. Third-party apps (those not from Apple) appear in Launchpad on a secondary screen, not on the first screen (reserved for Apple applications) that appears when you enter Launchpad. To access the additional screens in Launchpad, click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, and then do one of the following:

• On a Magic Mouse, swipe left with one finger on the mouse surface.
• On a Multi-Touch trackpad, swipe left with two fingers on the surface.
• Click one of the small dots that appears near the bottom of the Launchpad screen, but above the Dock. The white dot indicates which Launchpad screen is currently visible.
• Tap the right-arrow key to go to the next Launchpad screen, or tap the left-arrow key to return to the previous screen.

Excerpted from Mac OS X Lion: Peachpit Learning Series by Robin Williams and John Tollett