In order to help answer a question on AppleInquiry.com, I put together a quick video on how to select a table in Numbers in order to set its border properties.

It’s short, has no audio, and will be totally irrelevant to most of you.  Some of you, however, may find it useful, so I am posting it here:

Apple released iWork Update 3 on October 7, 2009, and if your Mac hasn’t already prompted you that an update is available, you can get it by choosing Software Update from the Apple () menu.

Here’s what is new:

All iWork 9.0.3 Applications

• Addresses general compatibility issues
• Updates the help
• Adds a link to online resources in the Help menu
• Improves image handling when reducing the file size of images with Instant Alpha applied
• Improves file size management when inserting some movies

Numbers 2.0.3

• Fixes an issue with columns and categorized checkboxes
• Addresses an issue with categories and CSV export
• Improves reliability of import and export of some Microsoft Excel files
• Addresses an issue that could cause formulas to stop working after formatting a cell
• Fixes an issue with hiding or deleting rows in categorized tables
• Improves reliability when reverting a document to the saved version
• Addresses an issue caused by quitting without saving after editing some templates
• Fixes an issue with deleting table columns containing chart data
• Resolves an issue that prevented dropping an audio file into a media place holder

iWork.com beta

• Enhances security with 128-bit SSL encryption and document password protection
• Improves document reviewing capabilities with Comment notification features
• E-mail invitations are now sent via iWork.com instead of using Mac OS X Mail

Check out the new Magic Mouse from Apple. It has Multi-Touch!

Also, in side profile, it kind of looks like a flying saucer. What more could you ask for in a mouse?

I just found this great tip for viewing fonts in OS X on Macworld. Instead of using the built-in font viewer application, use Quick Look.

Select a font file in the Finder, then press the Space Bar. Instead of seeing a huge version of the “Ag” icon, you’ll see uppercase and lowercase versions of the alphabet, along with the digits 0 through 9. This makes it simple to get a quick glance at a font.

(Note: the font files referenced above are located in the following locations: your user’s fonts are in your Library/Fonts folder; the all-user fonts are in the top-level Library/Fonts folder, and the system fonts are in /System/Library/Fonts)

Great tip.

We have two big announcements: First, after two years, we are closing down the Numbers Templates Forums. Second, we are starting a new site called AppleInquiry.com, which will serve as the new home for the content generated on the forum.

We have many reasons for doing this. Chiefly, we believe that the software behind AppleInquiry.com (the same that runs the sites StackOverflow.com and SuperUser.com) is vastly superior for quickly finding answers to questions. Second, users earn reputation points as they ask and answer questions, which allows for additional site privileges as you earn points (e.g., the ability to comment on questions, or edit tags).

Also, we wanted to expand the scope of the discussion beyond Numbers into all things Apple. For example, if you are running Numbers and have questions, you probably have questions about the rest of the iWork suite, or iLife, or OS X. See the point?

AppleInquiry.com uses openid for logins, so your personal data will also be more-secure (we will be deleting our forum user database after the site transition is complete).

How does this differ from the discussion boards at Apple? It differs precisely because the Apple boards are forums. This means that the replies to any question are set out chronologically with no weight given to a particular response. With AppleInquiry.com users can vote up answers that they feel best answer the question. This allows the “wisdom of crowds” effect to kick in, resulting in the most-relevant answers rising to the top.

All content on AppleInquiry.com is licensed under the cc-wiki with attribution required license. This means anybody can use the content for any purpose as long as they link back to the source, and license their adaptations under a similar license. This also means the content can never be locked behind a “pay wall”.

Another awesome feature is the ability to subscribe to rss feeds for individual tags. So, if you wanted to follow all questions and answers related to Numbers, you could subscribe to this Numbers Tag RSS feed in your favorite reader. Also, you can choose to be emailed when someone answers one of your questions. Great, great, stuff.

What is the goal?

The ultimate goal of AppleInquiry.com is to become the first place users go to answer their Apple related questions; a Wikipedia for Apple questions if you will. In order to achieve this goal, we need your help. A site like this can only catch on with an active community. We hope that users will both find, and contribute useful content.

It is perfectly acceptable to use the site like a notebook. By that, we mean that you can answer your own questions if you feel that the knowledge you are posting would be something you may wish to refer back to quickly, and is something that you feel other users may find useful. Joel Spolsky describes it thusly, “You can find out about bread on the internet, but there should be an entry for bread in Wikipedia. That’s the purpose of an encyclopedia.”

One last caveat: The software that runs the software is currently in beta, so there could be some quirky issues at the start. Rest assured however, that these issues will subside. The software is being developed by Fog Creek Software, which has a reputation for hiring great developers and creating quality products.

I received an email from Amazon yesterday announcing that Snow Leopard was now available for pre-order for $29.  Although it doesn’t have an official release date yet, Apple is saying that will be out sometime in September.

I placed my order immediately.  Snow Leopard will not contain a lot of new features that are “user facing”, but instead will contain many under the hood fixes that should improve performance and stability.  Also, I understand there are a number of new features which will allow developers to write new and better software.

At $29 Apple is attempting to make this a “no brainer” type upgrade in order to move the majority of the customer base over as soon as possible.  Also, you can expect to see applications this year that only run on Snow Leopard.

• Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard Upgrade $29
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard Upgrade Family Pack (5-User) $49
• Mac Box Set, Snow Leopard Edition: $169
• Mac Box Set Family Pack with Snow Leopard (5-User) $229
• Mac OS X Server version 10.6 Snow Leopard $499

Yesterday, while I was grabbing a link from Amazon for post about the classic HP calculators for the iPhone, I noticed something amusing:

Apparently, people frequently buy a HP 12c Platinum Financial Calculator, plus a copy of Mastering Financial Calculations: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Mathematics of Financial Market Instruments, and then a standard HP 12c Financial Calculator.

How many calculators do you need?

For those of you who fear that all the time you invested in learning Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) was wasted, prepare to rejoice. 

HP has announced that two of its classic calculators, the 12c financial calculator and the 15c scientific calculator, which will cost $14.99 and $29.99 respectively, will be available on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

While these prices are high for iPhone apps, they are cheap considering the physical 12c Platinum costs $66 on Amazon.

If you look in any financial institution, you will undoubtedly see “old timers” still toting their 12c’s around.  For many years it was the de facto standard of financial calculators.

Another nice touch was the inclusion of the quick reference guide, which can be accessed by tapping the HP logo.  This same reference guide is printed on the back of physical HP 12c’s.

The Apple Blog has a nice write up on conditional formatting in Numbers.

The real power behind spreadsheets is not just how well they can crunch data, but how you can visually present the information in a variety of ways. Sometimes, however, you may want to give more attention to a particular area, or hide certain data if it’s not relevant. You often see conditional formatting applied to financial spreadsheets where positive values are in black or green, but negative values are always in “the red.” So how do you do that? It’s where conditional formatting, or formatting based on certain criteria, comes into play.

As we posted yesterday, Numbers ‘09 uses a different file format than Numbers ‘08

You can save Numbers ‘09 documents in a format compatible with Numbers ‘08, the option is just a little hidden.

Here’s how to make your Numbers documents compatible with the older version: First, choose File > Save as… Then, click the checkbox at the bottom labeled “Save copy as:” (the default is Excel Document). Finally, click the drop down menu (as shown below) and choose iWork ‘08.

The new file will have the same extension (.numbers) as the ‘09 file, but it will be saved as a “package” file, rather than a “flat” file.

For more explanation of the new file format, see yesterday’s post: File Compatibility Between Numbers ‘08 and Numbers ‘09.