Your source for indispensable Apple and Macintosh news, reviews, tips, and commentary since 1990.
Author Biography
Tonya Engst co-founded TidBITS with Adam Engst back in 1990 when publishing on the Internet was either strange or revolutionary, depending on your viewpoint.
Since then, along with performing nearly every imaginable role involved in running TidBITS, she has worked at Cornell University's academic computer store (selling Macs, PCs, and NeXTs), worked at Microsoft as a technical support person, written and co-written several books, written oodles of articles for the likes of MacWEEK and Macworld, become a parent, edited various books, and found her dream job as editor-in-chief for the Take Control series of electronic books.
Recent TidBITS Talk Discussions
Shopping for a new digital camera? In "Take Control of Buying a Digital Camera," pro photographer Larry Chen helps you pick out the right camera and accessories for your needs and budget. This book is loaded with tips on using your camera, pointers to the best review sites, and more!
Articles by Tonya Engst
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You can hear about my early impressions of the Kindle in a recent
MacNotables podcast.
Following up on that podcast, and on my earlier TidBITS article (see
"First Kindly Impressions about My Kindle," 2008-03-27), I want to
comment here briefly on my experiences with the Kindle during my
recent trip via airplane from Ithaca to California and back...Read more...
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How Tonya upgraded over 10 years of email from Eudora to Apple Mail, but not without mistakes and troubles, and what she learned along the way.Read more...
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Listen in as Glenn and Joe chat about Time Capsule: how it works, what's going on behind the scenes, what type of user it's meant for, and more.Read more...
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Tonya's new Kindle arrives and makes a charming, but quirky, first impression.Read more...
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TidBITS Senior Editor Tonya Engst is shocked to have to wait in line for the bathroom at Macworld Expo. Seemingly many more women made the trek to the show this year.Read more...
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If you find that your Mac unexpectedly starts typing in a different character set, such as Greek or Arabic, the explanation may be simple.Read more...
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This assortment of handy iPhoto tips will help you organize photos quickly and easily, while learning old and new features. I can't promise that these tips will help you whip out your holiday cards from iPhoto while you bake cookies and realize that Chanukah is way before Christmas this year, but they certainly won't hurt.Read more...
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When Leopard arrived, I couldn't resist slipping into something more comfortable... picture included!Read more...
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Few people have trouble viewing a PDF, but clicking links in PDFs is another story. If you've ever had trouble clicking a link in a PDF to go to a Web site, or have been nagged incessantly by Adobe Reader about visiting Web sites, read on for how to take control of your PDF-reading software.
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When it comes to buying bleeding-edge tech gadgets, it's best to do your research before pulling out your charge card and the iPod touch is a case in pointRead more...
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Does a lack of mobility in lifestyle lead to a lack of mobility in trying new technologies, such as the iPod touch?
I posed that question to myself over the past weekend, reflecting on how my lifestyle choice to work at home has caused a lack of mobility in more ways than eliminating commutingRead more...
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Who knew that Twitter turns out to be both fun and useful - I'd been curmudgeonly about it for months. But with some judicious setup, I've become a Twitter convert.Read more...
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Like so many people these days, I work at home, so for me, nearly every day is "take your child to work day." As often as not, after school my eight-year-old son Tristan helps me balance bank statements or put stamps on envelopes, or "helps" by staying out of the way while I wrap up editing a manuscript or making one last phone call.
But, there's much more to my job than what Tristan normally sees, and some of that "much more" happens at Macworld Expo, an event that is oft-discussed around my dinner table, but that Tristan had never seenRead more...
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Out of the many linear feet of books that crossed my doorstep for possible review recently, one stands out: Suzanne Stefanac's "Dispatches from Blogistan: A travel guide for the modern blogger." The book is a great read for anyone wanting to keep up with Internet trends, read and use blogs more adeptly, start a blog, or run a blog more professionally.
In today's world of profit-pumping book publishing, a blog-related title is easy - the technology is simple enough to explain without much research or tech-writing talent and the buzz factor should make the book easy to marketRead more...
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The holiday season is upon us, and if you are the resident geek in your home, that probably means messing around with smart playlists in iTunes to wrangle your holiday music into likely compilations - quiet music, lively music, silly music, and so onRead more...
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"Take Control of Permissions in Mac OS X" Released -- When Adam and I conceived of the Take Control series back in 2003, we imagined multiple ebooks, each functioning like a chapter in a huge volume about the Mac - readers could buy only those chapters that were of interest, and we could provide deeper and more current coverage than a print book could offer.
In our initial brainstorming sessions with authors, a number of people suggested writing about permissions, those sometimes-pesky settings that control who can do what to which files, folders, and disks on a MacRead more...
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Do you like menus? Menus tend to be overlooked in the desire to show every possible option at once in a toolbar or palette, but the nice thing about a menu is that its there when you need it and out of the way - but not gone entirely - when you don'tRead more...
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New Ebook Helps Readers Customize Microsoft Office -- I've been working with author Kirk McElhearn for nearly a year on this title, and neither of us can believe how long it's taken to explain clearly how to customize the toolbars, menus, and keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft OfficeRead more...
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Pop quiz: can you think of a round, computer-driven device that has four buttons, is not made by Apple, and ought to be in every household by the end of the decade? In case you don't pay much attention to the domestic scene - and by domestic, I mean the low-down world of dust bunnies, dog hair, and cookie crumbs - the answer is Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner from iRobot.
Roomba is about the size of a medium pizza, and about as thick as a pizza boxRead more...
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Interarchy 7.2 Sports Useful New Features -- Stairways Software's Interarchy is a venerable file transfer utility, but two new features in the recently released Interarchy 7.2 are sure to be helpful to many usersRead more...
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