Everyone wants to feel more productive on the computer and there are certainly plenty of ways to achieve that. Whether it’s using a program launcher, keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures, there’s something for everyone to shave off that extra mouseclick or tap of the keyboard which in turn leads to time saved every day.
We here at MakeUseOf have been committed from day one to teaching you how to do things faster, easier, and more efficiently. Now we have produced 24 PDF cheatsheets for you to download absolutely free of charge which will list all the shortcuts available for different popular programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Skype (including the secret emoticons), Firefox, Chrome, Gmail and many more.
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Beginner’s Guide to iOS Development: The Interface – Part I: The good news is, iPhone application development is not as hard as you might think, and this post exists as a comprehensive guide to walk you through the complete process of building an application for iPhone. So whether you’re learning for business or you just have an amazing app idea that might make you a millionaire, let’s get started on building your first iPhone app!
Beginner’s Guide to iOS Development: Building Your First App – Part II: In the first part of our iOS tutorial I took you through a guided tour of the iPhone app development. We got a deeper look at Xcode 4, and also took a very short tutorial on building iPhone app. Today, we’ll get into the second segment of the topic, where we will be building a fully-functioning iPhone application. The app, with a tabbed navigation, will convert temperature units and distance units. Don’t worry if you’re still new to the Xcode. It does not take very long time to comfortably adapt into the interface. I’ll be explaining each step in detail so you shouldn’t get lost, either!
These are actually pretty good and very clear. I think most of us could actually accomplish the task and create an App. I think the hard part is a fully developed idea.
In Lion you can easily add Emoji characters (smiley faces, hearts, graphic icons, etc) in text. Bring up the Characters palette with Command+Option+T and then select Emoji. Then select the type and double-click the character to insert it. Works best in rich text editors like TextEdit and Mail, but doesn’t seem to work yet in Pages. http://macmost.com/type-emoji-characters.html
and check out:
Video: MacMost Now 623: Address Book Special Fields
Video: MacMost Now 622: Speech Recognition For Your Mac
When iOS 5 was released alongside the iPhone 4S, much of the talk was about Siri and other voice-related technology built right into the operating system. The option to speak into your iPhone and have it either translate that speech to text, or act upon your instruction is obviously super cool, but there’s one speech-related feature that’s slipped under the radar.
iOS 5 has a new accessibility option that allows iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users to have their text read back to them…
The toggle switch for text-to-speech is hidden inside the General > Accessibility section of your iDevice’s Settings app, and goes by the name of “Speak Selection.” You can also change how quickly the text is read via a slider.
Read the full instructions: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/23/ios5-text-to-speech/
By R.J. Murphy, Small Dog Electronics
This is a neat little tool I’ve been using for a while. You can essentially turn any song in your iTunes library into a ringtone for your iPhone.
First, you’ll want to pick out the song you’d like to use and find a good 15-30 second duration that you would like to specifically use for your ringtone. If it’s not the beginning or end of the song, you’ll want to make a note of the start and stop time of the part.
Next, click on the song and press Command + I on your keyboard. Click on the Options tab and plug those recorded times in the Start and Stop Time fields (e.g. if you would like to use the first 30 seconds of the song, you would leave the Start Time at 0:00 and input 0:30 for the Stop Time). Make sure both check boxes are checked next to Start Time and Stop Time, and hit OK.
With the song still selected in iTunes, click on Advanced > Create AAC Version in the menu bar. You should now see a duplicate of that song in your library that has a 30-second duration. Click the newly made AAC version of the song and drag it onto your desktop. Click the file once, then press enter.
Now, you’ll need to change the .aac file extension to .m4r (the standard iTunes ringtone file). You should receive a prompt asking if you would like to use the .m4r extension (yes). Your ringtone should now look like “[song title].m4r”. Drag the file back into iTunes where it should populate under the Ringtones section of your library.
Now, when you plug in your iPhone, you’ll want to check the box next to Sync Ringtones (if it’s not already checked) under the Ringtones tab. The next time you sync your phone with your iTunes, this ringtone will be uploaded to your device. Lastly, you’ll need to select the song in your iPhone as your ringtone. You can do this under Settings > Sounds > Ringtone.
Turn up the volume and enjoy your new ringtone!
Read the rest of the newsletter with other good tips and tricks at:
http://blog.smalldog.com/techtails/tt790/
