tips and tricks - page 18

OS X Mavericks (named after a hot surfing spot in California) was released last week, and even though it may have been overshadowed by the iOS 7 announcement at the same time, there are bound to be some new things in the operating system we can tip you about.

Remember, though, that as with all beta software, OS X Mavericks isn’t a final version–it’s meant to be used by developers to ensure that when it’s released this fall, all the devs with apps on OS X will have had time to make tweaks to their current Mac software, and start integrating Mavericks stuff into their next bits of software.

That said, let’s take a look at how to enable the new Do Not Disturb toggle in OS X Mavericks beta.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA Collin Donnell wants app developers to learn from his mistakes.

Donnell, a full-time iOS developer  since 2008 whose app credits include Pinbook for Pinboard, shared some tips to a packed room at AltWWDC, which we have been all over like an snuggle iPad case. He divided them into practical and philosophical, but they sort of blend together.

Battery life! It’s a thing!

To get the most time out of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch battery, you have to manage it. There’s no substitute for figuring gout how your iPhone uses power, and then optimizing your usage and the enabled services and features on your iPhone to make sure you get the most life out of your battery.

Here are five ways you can stay firmly in charge of your battery.

Look, all these great tips for saving your iPhone battery are not very useful if they don’t apply to you. Your iPhone use is uniquely your own, and you really ought to get a handle on how your battery is affected as you apply the various strategies to help conserve power when you need it.

Otherwise, why bother, right? Here’s how to check your battery usage stats right on your iPhone, as recommended by Apple.

Mac OS X is full of great accessibility features to help those with differing abilities access their Macintosh, whether they have visual, hearing, or motor challenges. One feature, Full Keyboard Access, is set for those who can’t use the mouse reliably. You can use it, too, if you just want to keep your hands on the keyboard, focused on the task at hand.

Here’s how to activate it and make it work for you.

Location services are really an integral part of a ton of iOS apps, using the internal GPS system to add Instagram photos to a map, checkin with FourSquare or Facebook, or let your friends know where you are with one of many “on my way” apps, like Glympse or Twist.

If you’re battery is dying, however, the location services are the first thing you should turn off, as they suck up a lot of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch’s power needs, what with their background data sending and receiving and such.

Here’s how to turn them off.

Yes, I’m totally making fun of those “lose belly fat” ads you might see all over the internet (or maybe it’s just me) with that headline, but the truth is, while many Mac users may know that hitting Command-Tab will bring up the Task Switcher in OS X, they may still be doomed to endlessly loop through their running apps with that keyboard shortcut.

If you’re running a lot of apps, that’s a lot of wasted time. Time that could be better spent actually in the apps you’re cycling through in and ever more frustrating rightward bound loop of task switching.

This just in: your iPhone (and iPad or iPod touch) is a marvel of engineering and does some amazing things, keeping you connected to the rest of the world with its super amazing technology. All that connectivity, though, can come with a price.

Push services are there to let you know when you have stuff to do, or emails to check. It’s pretty handy. However, when you need to conserve your battery, it’s probably time to turn them off. Here’s how, straight from Apple.

It used to be so easy to remove items from the sidebar of OS X Finder windows. You’d simply click, drag, and poof! The offending item would disappear like a well-heeled Dock icon in search of greater opportunity in the world.

Today, however (and for quite some time, really) you can’t just click and drag the sidebar items away without giving it a little more thought. That’s where this handy keyboard shortcut comes in.

Sure, you could use the right-click (Control-click or two-finger click on a trackpad) to bring up a contextual menu, but where’s the fun in that?

Several technologies on your iPhone, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular data, are made to continually check for signal when you’re out and about. Continual checking requires power, which comes from your iPhone (or iPad, or iPod touch) battery.

It makes sense, then, that turning these different wireless features off when you don’t need them can help your battery last a little longer. Here’s how to do just that.

If you haven’t been using OS X’s Mission Control lately, you’re missing out. It’s a great way to separate out your apps, full screen and not, to be just that much more productive on your Mac.

Trouble is, it seems like a fairly mouse-centric system, with users encouraged to click on the different desktops across the top or the apps in the main window area to bring them up.

Luckily, there are a couple of keyboard shortcuts to help you move between Desktop spaces, at least, and one to help you add or delete them, as well.

Battery life, it’s the bane of every iPhone user’s existence, right? It’s hard to tell, really, reading the internet, which specific steps to take to make sure your battery is working at its most efficient, giving you the longest life without compromising performance.

One of the most misunderstood areas of managing battery life may just be the brightness settings. Here’s what Apple has to say about it.

Starting up your Mac each day may seem a simple thing, right? Just press the power key on your keyboard or main Mac unit, hear the Mac chime, and then get to work, right?

Sometimes, though, you might want to boot a Windows partition with Boot Camp, or start up from a network volume. Heck, you might even want to start from a completely different OS X disk.

In that case, use the following keyboard shortcuts to do so.

Evernote is a fantastically useful service, with clients for the web, Mac, PC, and iOS. The iOS version is as full featured as the desktop version, a rarity these days, and really makes Evernote my go-to app for keeping track of stuff of all kinds.

Here, then, are four fantastic tips and tricks to get the most out of the Evernote app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

The Dock is one of those things that we all use on our Macs, but may not really do much more than swap out applications and use whatever Stacks were put there when we got the darn Mac.

However, if you really want to get the most out of your Mac, you might as well learn how to do a bit more with the Dock, and master your use of this oft-overlooked bit of user software. Here are four great ways to do just that.

Did you know that you can add Passbook passes to your iPhone from your Mac? It’s a feature Apple hasn’t really promoted, but iCloud syncs passes added from OS X to the iPhone with a click of a button.

Hat tip to David Chartier for pointing out this feature on his Finer Things in Tech blog. When viewing a Passbook pass from a source like Ticketmaster or Second Gear Software, simply click the “Add to Passbook” button. You’ll then see the above prompt, and the pass will be added to your iPhone via iCloud.

For more great Passbook tips, check out our handy roundup.

Source: Finer Things in Tech

As an Evernote junkie and web-searcher, I use Evernote Web Clipper on my Mac, like, all the time. When I come across a great website, story, or even just some text on a page, I clip it right to Evernote, and then have the clipped notes with me on any platform, whether on the go with an iPad, iPhone, or at home on my Mac.

I’ve long wished for a way to do the same thing from my iOS devices, though. I typically copy the URL from my iOS browser of choice, then launch Evernote for iOS and paste it in there. Thank goodness, though, there’s another way, with EverClip, an iOS app for iPhone or iPad that lets you keep everything you copy to the clipboard–images, text, website URLs, whatever–synced up in an Evernote note.

Here’s how.

As you open applications on your Mac, you may notice your Dock getting a little crowded. That’s because OS X adds an icon for each running app to your Dock as soon as you launch it, to let you know that it’s actually doing something. It’s one of the many great visual reminders built into the operating system.

Sometimes, though, your Dock might get a little too crowded. For example, I run Google Chrome all the time. If I remove that icon from the Dock, even when the app is running, I get more space for things I may not always need in the Dock.

Interested? Here’s how.

Evernote is a fantastic notes storage system, synched across iOS, web, and computer platforms so you’re never missing your stuff.

Did you know, however that Evernote allows you to add attachments to your notes, letting you connect images and audio with ease?

It’s super easy, and I’m here to show you how to do so on your iPhone or iPad.

After I wrote a tip on removing icons from the new Mountain Lion Dock a while back, I got a few questions from readers who weren’t quite able to make it work.

Cult of Mac reader, Diane, emailed and said, “well, it sounds good…..But none of your suggestions work on my computer. when I let go, it still zooms back. when I trash it, it still zooms back. when I right click there is no option to remove it from the dock.”

Without knowing the specifics,of course, I cant diagnose the problem perfectly. I do think, however, that I might have an answer to this.

The latest version of Evernote for iOS includes a new Home screen and Quick Notes buttons, both of which make creating a new note in Evernote super quick and easy.

Now, you can create notes with the Quick Notes buttons, which helps bypass the typical way of tapping into a notebook, hitting the plus button, and then filling out the details.

Here’s how to jump right in with these new buttons, creating new notes right on your iOS device quickly and efficiently.

If you’re using Stacks in the Dock, either the built-in ones for Documents and such, or your own, like the Recent Items Stack, you might want to customize the way the Stack looks and behaves.

In Mac OS X Mountain Lion, at least, and very likely earlier versions of OS X, you can have your Stacks appear as a grid, a list, or a fan. You can also have OS X choose the best view for you, depending on how many items are in the Stack.

Here’s the quick way to change the view of any Stack in your OS X Dock.

I really enjoy Apple’s own Reminders app, especially as it integrates with Siri. Recently, however, Evernote has added its own Reminder system. As I use Evernote for a ton of my daily tasks, I thought it might be something to try out.

If you’re looking to remind yourself of the things you keep in Evernote, or are just looking for an alternative to the Reminders app in iOS, here’s how to create and manage them in Evernote for iOS.

The old rainbow Apple menu had a function that let you find recent documents, along with the ability to place folders in it for quick and easy access. This was replaced in Mac OS X with stacks, a visual way to do a similar thing, but from the Dock. You can drag a folder into the right hand side of the Dock and have it open as a Stack, of course, but did you know you could get a list of Recent Apps, Documents, or Servers, as well as Favorite Volumes or Items as a Stack, as well?

You can, with a little Terminal magic. Here’s how.

Apple’s iBooks provides one of the best, most accessible ereading experience on the iPad, in my opinion, and it’s pretty darn simple to use.

That said, there’s always room to learn just a few more tricks to make the experience even better for you. Here, then, are five tips to master iBooks on your iOS device of choice.