Here at TheAppleBlog, we spend all day working on how-tos and tutorials to help you get the most out of your Apple products. But then we thought: Maybe we should ask you what you need to know.

We’ve come up with a new idea that we’re calling Ask TAB. Once a month, we’re going to run a post asking you for ideas. If there’s something Apple-related you wish you knew how to do, or do more easily — from the basics like rearranging your Mac’s Dock to advanced topics such as setting up file sharing between a Mac and a PC — leave a comment below. We’ll go through all the suggestions, assign a bunch to writers and post the articles throughout August.

The more of you who get involved and ask questions, the better this will work. Since Lion has just been released, why not ask a question about the latest version of OS X? Post anything that comes to mind. If we’ve run an article on it, we’ll point you in the right direction with a link to something from our huge archive of content.

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So after four months of development and production, I’m very proud to announce the launch of TechUniversity.

TechUniversity is a video tutorial and screencast site dedicated to teaching you how to use your Mac and Apple products better. We’re launching with close to two dozen screencasts and will be adding new videos every week. You can watch the videos directly on the site or download high-quality, DRM-free videos with chapter markers. And to get your feet wet, you can check out a few free episodes in the Freebies section.

To view all the videos and access the downloads, you pay a small monthly fee of $4.95 (or $49.95 for a year). Being a subscriber also lets you interact with the screencast authors and other community members.

For those new to the Mac, I suggest checking out our 101 Series.

So, check out TechUniversity and let us know what you think! We’re extremely proud of this and would love for you to be a part of it!

The 13″ aluminum MacBook is an “almost” machine. It appeals to me in many aspects, being a roughly three-quarter-sized unibody MacBook Pro at a substantially lower price. But it falls just short of the slam-dunk it might have been.

For me, probably the biggest negative is the lack of a FireWire port. I think I could live quite happily with the glossy display that some object to, and while I’ve gotten comfortably used to the 1440 x 900 screen resolution in my PowerBook G4′s 17″ display (I knew that would spoil me), I don’t think downsizing to a 13.3″, 1280 x 800 screen would be a deal breaker for me. I’m still working fairly happily on the 1024 x 768 screens in my two old Pismo PowerBooks.

Consequently, I spent a lot of the day on Friday ruminating over whether or not to take advantage of Apple’s one-day $101 price cut on the aluminum MacBook at the expense of other things I should have been doing. In the “just do it” column were the arguments that Apple rarely has sales of any sort, and while a hundred bucks off wasn’t especially exciting, it would at least pay most of the sales tax, and with the Canadian dollar having dropped by more than 25 percent in relation to the U.S. greenback over the past year, I’m skeptical that Apple Canada will hold its current price points for much longer. It’s also the time of year that one starts thinking about income tax expense deductions.

However, on the downside, I have a provisional policy of not buying Revision A computer hardware, there’s the FireWire issue, the smaller screen issue, and that $101 really isn’t much of a discount off the C$1399 sticker price. It was almost enough to persuade me, but not quite. I’m looking to upgrade to a MacIntel machine, but I’m not desperate yet for a new computer. My old 1.33 GHz G4 machine is still anvil-dependable, very pleasant to use, and an astonishingly capable performer for its age, although it is struggling a bit to keep up with what I’m demanding of it lately.

There’s also the matter of Apple Certified Refurbished early 2008 2.4 GHz MacBook Pros selling for just C$150 dollars more than the Black Friday discounted unibody MacBook, and it’s equipped with both FireWire 400 and 800 ports, an ExpressCard 34 slot, a 2.1-inch larger LED backlit display with 1440 x 900 resolution (same res. as my current 17″ PowerBook), a more than 20 percent faster processor, a real discrete graphics processor with dedicated video RAM, and a backlit keyboard, all for C$650 less than the equivalent new model cost less than two months ago.

Another alternative I priced out was an old-school MacBook. Apple’s Black Friday discount on it was a paltry $51, and that didn’t seem like much of a deal at all compared with the unibody pricing out to $200 more, since the base model comes with just 1GB of RAM as opposed to 2GB, a 120GB hard drive instead of a 160GB unit, old-fashioned CCFL screen backlighting, and of course the white plastic enclosure instead of aluminum carved from a solid block of metal.

I could also get a Certified Refurbished early 2008 2.4 GHz Penryn MacBook with a a FireWire port, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive for C$1054. The biggest drawback with the older model is its Intel GMA x3100 integrated graphics, rather than the unibody machine’s claimed 5x faster Nvidia 9400M graphics chipset, but I’m not a serious gamer and don’t do high-end graphics or video work, so that’s probably not a deal-breaker issue for me. What I really want is a unibody MacBook Pro, but it will probably be at least eight months to a year before refurbished examples of that currently future model become available, so a 2.4 GHz white MacBook might make a sensible tide-me-over machine for a year or two. Of course, that’s what the refurbished 17-incher was supposed to be when I bought it nearly three years ago!

So, in hindsight, what would you have done? Is a $100-off sale enough for you to jump the gun and buy an Apple notebook?

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In a previous article I described the abundant tutorials and tips Apple supplies online for their various software products. In this article I’ll examine two other ways Apple provides learning tools for their software.

Resources

Apple’s resources pages contain numerous links to information on a particular product. This can be information both inside and outside of Apple.

A typical resources page may list downloads available for the product, Apple support/discussion forums, third-party web sites, upcoming seminars, third-party books, links to PDF manuals, etc.

If you own any of the products below I’d suggest peeking at the resource page for it at least once.

• Final Cut Express
• Logic Express
• Aperture
• Final Cut Studio
• Final Cut Server
• Shake
• Logic Studio

Finally, Apple has resource pages under the much broader categories of Business and Pro users. But Apple’s categorization is not exact (there’s some overlap), and I’ve found useful information on both sites that applies even to me, Mr. Normal User. I’ll bet they’re worth a look for you, too.

Free Online Seminars

Apple has a Seminars and Events page where you can search for seminars coming to your area, and then register online to attend.

In this article, however, I’m going to assume that you want to learn from the comfort of your own home. Maybe you don’t live near most of the seminar locations. Or maybe you just prefer learning at your Mac. Or maybe it’s 3am and you just want to learn something now, darn it!

From the Seminars page just click Seminars Online to get a list of those available. It begins with a list of categories for the online seminars.

Click any category to see the seminars available.

Now just click a seminar to get a description, an explanation of what you’ll learn, the Mac requirements you’ll need to view the seminar, and a link to register.

If you’re still interested, click the link to register and follow the prompts. You’ll need to login with an Apple account, which you already have if you’ve ever ordered from Apple online or have an iTunes account. Otherwise you can create one.

Obviously, the online seminars do not provide the same level of usefulness you’d get from attending, say, a half-day class onsite, but I’ve found them interesting for the products I use and gained an insight or two. They’re free and can be watched at your leisure; you have nothing to lose here.

With all the tutorials, tips, resources and seminars freely available from Apple’s site, it’s clear they’re striving to help users make better use of, and get the most out of, their software to produce better work or just to save time. All these learning tools are just waiting for you take advantage of them.

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Whether you’re new to the Mac or have been using one for some time, there’s usually always something new you can learn about it to make your workflow, personal projects, or fun time a little easier or more enjoyable. To that end, Apple makes plenty of resources available on their web site.

In part 1 of this I’ll look at what Apple makes available in the form of product tutorials and tips. In part 2 I’ll look at Apple’s resource listings and free online seminars.

Tutorials

Apple has a wealth of tutorials to make use of. Each tutorial is typically anywhere from a couple minutes to five minutes in length (longer for Pro apps), and presented in easily manageable snippets. 

First of all, you should check out Apple’s Find Out How page. By default you’ll be at the Mac Basics page; unless you’re a brand new Mac user this may of limited value. However, along the top you’ll see other categories that you can click on to see tutorials relating to Photos, Movies, the Web, etc. This page could be a “one-stop” site to find useful tutorials.

MobileMe users should check out tutorials here.  

There are also tutorials for almost all of Apple’s individual applications. For starters, check out those for the iLife suite that comes on all Macs. I found the ones for iMovie ’08 especially helpful when that product was introduced. 

Apple doesn’t restrict the product tutorials to the iLife suite. Their productivity suite is included as well, so if you’re an iWork user like me you should visit its tutorials page. 

And Apple doesn’t stop at their two product suites, either. Their professional apps have great tutorials, too. As an Aperture user I found its page of tutorials broad and useful. 

In addition, while not strictly tutorials, the Aperture In Action page has videos of professionals using the product that can provide great ideas for how you want to utilize it in your own workflow. 

You’ll also find a tutorial page for Final Cut Studio (and Final Cut Server). Each program in the suite has tutorials on the page. Don’t let the comparatively small number fool you. These tutorials are a bit longer than others. As with Aperture, there’s also a Final Cut Studio in Action page with quite a few usage tips from the Pros. 

Similar treatment is given to Logic Studio, and there’s a Logic in Action page as well. 

Finally, note that some of the tutorial pages also list text tutorials. These are written, step-by-step, instructions for specific tasks. I would encourage anyone to review these for any software package used regularly. 

For any of the above products you own, you may discover things about them you didn’t already know. If you don’t own any of them, but are considering its purchase and want to know more about it, you can get a good feel for how it works just by watching the tutorials. 

Tips

Apple has two primary tips sites. The Business Quick Tips page contains video tips updated weekly. Each is perhaps 30 seconds long, and I’ve found many useful ones there. Note that off to the right of that page you can find Quick Tours, which are pseudo-tutorial videos you may find useful. 

The Pro Tips page is a listing of dozens of quick tips in text format. Click a tip that interests you and see how it’s done. 

If you were to watch all of Apple’s available video tutorials, you’d be busy for many hours. The tips would keep you busy a long time, too. The point is that there’s likely something here for any Mac user, and it’s freely available 24/7. It’s worth taking advantage of.

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