Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of posts aimed at novice Mac users and veterans who like the occasional refresher.

Mac OS X is equipped with a dictionary application that does pretty much what you'd expect, and a few things you might not. Here's how you can get the most out of Dictionary.

Most people use a dictionary to look up a word's definition. Doing so in Dictionary is pretty straightforward: Just launch the app, type your target term into the search field and hit return. That's all well and good, but not very interesting.

Here's what is. Click any word in the definition to find the meaning of that word. Do this just once, and an orange "Snap Back" icon appears in the search field. When clicked, it brings you back to your original search term.

Here's another cool trick. Let's say you looked up "Surname." Dictionary displays it broken up by syllable: "sur•name." If you highlight and copy it, it will paste as it should be written: "surname."

But wait, there's more! Highlight or position the cursor over a word in any Cocoa application (Safari, for example) and hit Control-Command-D. A small window appears that displays that word's definition and thesaurus alternative(s). If the term in question is the name of an Apple product, you'll see that product's official description from Apple. Clicking "More" at the bottom of this tiny window launches Dictionary.

Let's say you typically misspell a word that you have to type often (my Achilles' heel is "Twitterrific"). Simply right- or Control-click that word and select "Learn Spelling" to add it to Dictionary.

Dictionary is also more than a collection of definitions. You can quickly switch between a thesaurus, official descriptions of Apple products and Wikipedia. Additionally, select "Font/Back Matter" from the Go menu to access a slew of great information, like

• Proofreader's Marks
• The History of English
• Countries of the World
• Chemical Elements

Of course, every single word you find there can be clicked to reveal its definition. Finally, here's a bit of eye candy that isn't useful but still fun. You can browse every photo in Dictionary by navigating to

/Library/Dictionaries/New Oxford American Dictionary.dictionary/Contents/Images

and switching to Cover Flow view.

Keeping up with the Leopard-centric changes to managed preferences and mobile accounts is crucial if you're responsible for a labful or campus-ful of Macs, and you want to gracefully control what permissions or resources your wanton users have when they log in. One great resource for Mac admins diving into MCX (managed clients for OS X) for the first (or hundredth) time is Apple engineer John DeTroye's Tips & Tricks documentation.

We mentioned John's Tiger edition of the T&T docs last year, and now that he's updated the handbook for Mac OS X 10.5 and Server 10.5, you'll want to bring your library up to date. Gone is most of the material specific to machine imaging techniques (I strongly recommend NetInstall [PDF], which is working better under Leopard than it ever did before), making room for more discussion of MCX settings and portable home directories. Download your free copy of the T&T file today and it'll make your life easier tomorrow.

Much like Nigel's amp that goes to 11, making it "...one louder," your Mac has a super-quiet mode. Macworld explains how to find it.

First, use your keyboard's volume keys to turn the volume all the way down (using the menu bar slider won't work). Next, press the "Mute" key. The speaker graphic will appear on screen and display the familiar "sound waves." Listen closely (or plug in your headphones) - your Mac is in super-quiet mode.

We're not sure when you'd want to do this, but now you can.

[Via Lifehacker]

It is 6pm (on the East Coast) so you should have your iPhone now (there wasn't a big wait, right?). The question is, what the heck CAN you do with it? Sure, you can make a phone call or two (and even conference people in. Sweet.). You can pick up the iPhone missing manual in August, or you can head on over to iPhoneHints right now and learn some tips and tricks. There isn't much there right now, but soon that will all change I am sure.

I know your Mac is really cool, and you know it's really cool, but do all of your friends (especially those using Windows)? One of the things I really enjoy is gloating showing off some of my Mac's more interesting tricks, a job made easier by this cool list at Silver Mac. They describe one of my favorite tricks right off the bat: If you highlight at word in any cocoa app (like Safari) and hit Command-Control-D, a small window will appear with the dictionary definition and part of speech of that particular word. Move the cursor from word to word, and see their respective definitions.

The article also describes how to invert your screen's colors, create a quick text clipping and more. Check it out, and really "wow" your friends.

Sure, you can repair your iPod's battery when you need to, but wouldn't you rather just avoid the issue in the first place? Chris Breen thinks so, and he's offering several tips for keeping your battery healthy and strong for as long as possible. A few of  his suggestions I already do, like flicking the "Hold" button to avoid accidental activation, keeping the backlight duration to a minimum and keeping up with software updates.

Other rules I don't follow so religiously, like keeping it charged (I'll go several days without plugging it in) and keeping it warm (it sits in my car sometimes, and here in New England, it's still pretty chilly at night). It's a good list of suggestions. Check it out.

Photo from iPod's Dirty Secret.

You love to podcast, but you just don't have the time to spend tweaking settings and trying out new tricks. I'm right, aren't I? We're all very busy people with lots of things to do (and lots of media to create). That's whereOne Minute Tip comes in. The whole blog is just a series of short tips and tricks for you podcasters out there.

[via CommandN]