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The Engadget Podcast, Ep 2: One More Robot
In Episode Two: One More Robot, editors Cherlynn Low, Dana Wollman and Chris Velazco join host Terrence O'Brien to talk about how fitness trackers ruined Happy Meals, the true potential of AI and try to figure out what monster would want the backspace key to navigate back a page in Chrome.
Automate text entry in iOS
One attribute that all tech bloggers admire in other bloggers is the ability to point out hidden (or at least poorly documented) gems in the operating systems and apps we use. Sandro Cuccia at The Mac Observer did a great job over the weekend of showing how to automate text entry in iOS using a built-in capability that not many users know about -- Keyboard Shortcuts To use Keyboard Shortcuts, launch the Settings app on your favorite iOS device, then select General > Keyboard. Toward the bottom of the keyboard settings (seen above) -- which includes such other fun things as auto-correction, enabling caps lock and creating the "." shortcut -- you'll find a section called "Shortcuts." There's already an example shortcut listed; typing "omw" anywhere on an iOS device will expand into the phrase "On my way!" Cuccia points out that the "iOS Keyboard Shortcut feature is very, very basic." He's right; all you get is your words in plain text, with no formatting or carriage returns. But still, anywhere you have access to a text keyboard on your iOS device, you can use the shortcuts. Say, for example, that I wish to expand the shortcut "tuaw" into "The Unofficial Apple Weblog." I'll tap Add New Shortcut, type "The Unofficial Apple Weblog" into the Phrase field and then "tuaw" into the Shortcut field. Tap Save, and then the shortcut is ready to use. Typing the shortcut into any text field displays the phrase in an Auto-Correction bubble, meaning that all you need to do is tap the space bar to enter the phrase. Cuccia has many more keyboard tips available in his full post on The Mac Observer, so be sure to check out this helpful post as soon as you can.
Friday Favorite: CommandQ for Mac
CommandQ is a Mac utility that stops you from accidentally quitting apps when using the keyboard shortcut "⌘" (or command) and "Q". Unfortunately, we are all susceptible to moments of human error. This means, with the ⌘ + Q shortcut, we sometimes quit apps we don't mean to. Perhaps when we're meaning to hit ⌘ and W or ⌘ and the TAB key. I know I've done it too many times to count! Thankfully, there's an app for that! CommandQ is a Mac utility app that stops apps from quitting unless you press and hold down the ⌘ + Q shortcut for a short period of time. This gives you a moment to catchup with your mistake and let go before the app quits. It's a straightforward concept, but has the potential to save you a lot of frustration and stress. CommandQ lets you customize the period of time it takes for ⌘ + Q to take effect, from half a second to two seconds. You can also specify which apps CommandQ works with, so it's only the important apps which require a longer ⌘ + Q press to quit. CommandQ is a simple, well-designed app that will go largely unnoticed until it saves you from an unfortunate mistake. It costs US$3.99 or is available as a free trial for 30 days. It's not available on the Mac App Store, but you can get it from the CommandQ website here.
Get Save As back on Mountain Lion's File menu easily and without hacks
You can make the "Save As..." menu item more visible and easier to use simply by giving it a different keyboard shortcut. In 10.7 (Lion), Apple removed the 'Save As' menu item and replaced it with "Duplicate" which did not work the same way. Apple relented in 10.8 (Mountain Lion) by returning "Save As..." but they hid it as an optional menu item which would only be shown when you held down the Option key while looking at the "File" menu. (There is also a keyboard shortcut for "Save As..." in 10.8, but it is not very convenient: Command + Shift + Option + S.) Apple did such a good job hiding "Save As..." that many smart and knowledgeable Mac users still don't know that 'Save As...' exists in Mountain Lion. Fortunately for us, there is a very easy way to make "Save As..." more visible: just change its keyboard shortcut. I'm going to show you two different ways that you can do that (you only need to choose one). Option 1. Terminal.app If you are comfortable using Terminal.app, you can add a different keyboard shortcut this with one simple line. First, quit all your apps except Finder and Terminal. Then paste this command (as one line) into Terminal.app (and press Return): That's it! Launch TextEdit and open the 'File' menu and you should see "Save As..." back in its rightful spot with its original Command + Shift + S shortcut, as shown in the image above. Aside: After you enter the 'defaults write' command, you will not see any confirmation that it was entered correctly. Terminal.app is a little terse sometimes. If you want to verify it from the command-line, enter this: defaults read -globalDomain NSUserKeyEquivalents and look for "Save As..." = "@$s"; in the output. Option 2. System Preferences.app If you would rather not use Terminal, it's still very easy to add the keyboard shortcut. Launch the System Preferences.app, then open the "Keyboard" preference pane. At the top you will see "Keyboard" and "Keyboard Shortcuts" – click "Keyboard Shortcuts" (labeled '1' below). Then in the list on the left side, click "Application Shortcuts" (labeled '2' below). Then click the "+" button (labeled '3' below): Once you press that "+" button, a small window will appear asking you to enter the title of the menu item and the keyboard shortcut that you want to use. Enter "Save As..." in the "Menu Title:" field, and then press the keyboard shortcut that you want to use. In the example below I pressed Command + Shift + S: Note: It used to be true that you had to enter an actual ellipsis (which you can get by pressing Option + ; on a US-English keyboard). However, when I tested this in Mac OS X 10.8.2, it worked with three consecutive periods. Bonus Tip: Hide the "Duplicate" menu item. In my original article I suggested that you also enter a keyboard shortcut for "Duplicate" and while you can do that if you wish, you do not need to do that. However, if you would like to hide the Duplicate menu item, you can do that. There are two steps: first, remap "Save As..." to Command + Shift + S (as shown above). Then the 'trick' is to remap "Duplicate" to Command + Shift + Option + S. What you will have done is swap the keyboard shortcuts for "Duplicate" and "Save As..." which means that OS X will make "Duplicate" the optional command. If you open the "File" menu and hold down "Option" the "Save As..." command will change to "Duplicate" (Thanks to TUAW reader 'rbascuas' for pointing this out in response to the original article!) Important Addendum: "Keep changes in original document" As we reported in August 2012, the "Save As..." command in early versions of 10.8 had an unexpected and likely unwanted side effect in Mountain Lion: it would save the changes in the new document (created by "Save As...") but would also save the changes to the original document. However, Apple realized that users might not want that behavior, so in Mac OS X 10.8.2 they added an option "Keep changes in original document" which you can see here: Option A: If you want to save the changes you've made in the document and then save the document with a different name, then make sure that the box is checked. Option B: If you want your original document to stay as it was when you last saved it and create a new document based on the modified content of that document, then make sure that box is not checked. If you do not see the 'Keep changes in original document' box, then the application is probably going to give you the "Option B" behavior, but if you are not sure, I would suggest choosing Cancel in the "Save" dialog, then copy and paste the contents of the document into a new file, and save the new file. I know that's several extra-and-less-convenient steps, but if you are worried about preserving the original document, better safe than sorry. You could also save the file, duplicate it in Finder, and rename the new instance. Open old file and revert to previous save using 'Versions'. Frankly,I wish that Apple had just left the "Save As..." command alone, but for some reason they didn't ask my opinion. That said, I'm glad that they brought it back in Mountain Lion. I would have paid $20 for that feature alone. Note: This article was re-written and republished on 2013–02–21. The original process still works, but I wanted to update it to reflect some additional information. Read the previous version at web.archive.org.
VIM Adventures teaches you keyboard shortcuts, :%s/n00b/pro/gc in no time
If you've ever had the pleasure of using VIM, the popular Linux (and other platforms) text editor, you'll know that dark magic lies within its keyboard shortcuts. However, with so many to learn, where do you start? Well, some fine fellow (Doron Linder to be precise) thought the answer to that question was a neat little fantasy adventure game. VIM adventures coaxes you through the learning process via ingenious little tasks that teach you the shortcuts along the way, all washed down with a healthy glug of gaming nostalgia. Before long you'll have the keys to the castle and, of course, unabated word processing prowess. Tap j to hit the source link and get started.
MSDN Windows Help blog plays on our love of keyboard shortcuts, tells how to navigate Windows 8 like a pro
If you didn't get the gist of our Windows 8 Consumer Preview run-down, it's a bit clumsy on the desktop front. Fortunately for power-users, the budding operation system is introducing a suite of keyboard shortcuts to help them manage its classic and metro interfaces. We mentioned a few in our early impressions of the consumer build, but Rob Margel's MSDN Windows help blog has a full list of 30 shortcuts for you to master before Windows 8 makes its final debut. Craving a shortcut to cycle through your toast notifications? Need to switch to the classic Windows desktop while simultaneously pulling up the Run box? Hit the source link below and let Morgel drop some hotkey knowledge on you.
Google aids accessibility with ChromeVox reader, better YouTube captions and more
Engineers from Google have commandeered a booth at this year's CSUN accessibility conference and they're keen to talk up their latest efforts. For the visually impaired, there's now a beta version of a Chrome screen reader called ChromeVox (demo'd after the break), plus improved shortcuts and screen reader support in Google Docs, Sites and Calendar. Meanwhile, YouTube boasts expanded caption support for the hard of hearing, with automatic captions enabled for 135 million video clips -- a healthy tripling of last year's total. Check the source link for full details or, if you're anywhere near San Diego, go and hassle those engineers the old-fashioned way.
Windows 8 on a laptop in-depth preview (video)
Less than 24 hours after it went live on Microsoft's site, Steve Ballmer reported a whopping 500,000 downloads of Windows 8 Developer Preview. That's half a million copies, if not eager Windows fans. Well, you can count us among them. Although we were treated to some private hands-on time with a tablet optimized for the OS, we hadn't, until now, had a chance to use it on a laptop -- i.e., the computing environment where we spend most of our time, and the one where we're most used to seeing Windows, in particular.For the past three days, we've been doing just that: getting acquainted with Windows 8 using the good 'ol mouse-and-keyboard combo. And while that might read like a redundant statement (what recent version of Windows hasn't accommodated a cursor?), Win 8 is a peculiar breed -- It's the first version of the operating system where finger input wasn't an afterthought, but a first-class citizen. It's clear that this time around, Windows is optimized for touch, but we had to wonder if that Windows Phone-inspired UI would present a steep learning curve, if it would get in the way while we tried to go about business as usual. So how's that working out for us? Suffice to say, we're not in Kansas anymore, so find your most comfortable chair and meet us after the break -- we've got oh-so many details to delve into.%Gallery-134097%
Mac 101: Quick navigation of browser tabs
If you ever use the tabs in your web browser, you may have a hard time navigating between them as you take your hand off the keyboard, put it on your mouse, click on the tab you're looking for, look at that page for a moment and then click back on the first tab again. As a person who has loads of tabs open all the time for researching all kinds of things, going back and forth like this is pretty inefficient. Luckily, two major browsers for the Mac (that is Firefox and Chrome) offer a very handy method for going from tab to tab: Pressing Command and any of the number keys will take you to that tab. So Cmd+3 will take you to the third tab across, Cmd+9 to the ninth, etc. (although in Chrome, Cmd+9 will take you to the last tab, no matter what). This makes it easy to go from tab 2 to tab 7, for example. In Safari, however, Cmd+1 will take you to the first item in the Bookmarks Bar, located under the URL and Search bar. [Updated with some corrections, thanks commenters! - Ed.] Now for people who have way more than nine tabs open (like me), it's also a good idea to learn the keyboard commands to flip to the next or previous tab in your browser of choice. Firefox, Chrome: Command+Option+Arrow (left or right) Safari: Command+Shift+Arrow (left or right) If you want your tabs in a different order, you can drag the tabs around to rearrange them however you'd like, and then use the keyboard commands to flip between them. You don't have to learn all the available keyboard commands all at once, but if you can add a couple here and there, you can do a lot to streamline your workflow.
Quickly enable or disable JavaScript in Safari
By using "Disable JavaScript" on Safari's Develop menu, you can eliminate annoyances from some websites, without the frustration of disabling JavaScript altogether. I'll even show you how to make a custom keyboard shortcut for it, so your fingers never even have to leave the keyboard. The initial setup will take a few minutes, but it will be worth it when you realize the power you will wield in your fingers when you're done. JavaScript by itself is neither good nor evil. JavaScript is driving a car. Most people who drive cars are good folks just trying to get from Point A to Point B as easily and quickly as possible. Some people, however, are maniacs, some are drunk drivers and some are just not very good at it. The same is true for JavaScript. Most of the time you don't even notice JavaScript, but it's working in the background to help you and the website work together. Have you ever typed something into a field and the website immediately recognized a problem? That was JavaScript. Unfortunately the analogs of "maniacs" and "drunk drivers" of the JavaScript world all seem to work in marketing. Pop-up windows? Pop-over windows? Ads that suddenly appear or slide over what you were trying to read? Also JavaScript. Those green-double-underline links or other links that show you ads when you hover over them? JavaScript. My favorite is when I'm at a page that won't let me copy text or even right click, thinking this is some sort of "protection." The ironic part is that many of these sites (such as for music lyrics) are posting content they don't own in the first place, and then they try to use JavaScript to block you from using it. On some sites you use Safari's Reader feature, but that doesn't always work. Fortunately, you have more tools at your disposal. Read on for more on taming JavaScript.
A handy Safari keyboard shortcut for Google searches
Here I go again, professing my love for keyboard shortcuts. I have shortcuts and hotkeys for just about everything I do on a daily basis. I'm running out of intuitive combinations, actually, but my muscle memory seems to have room for a few more. There's one shortcut, though, that I think every Safari user -- keyboard-obsessed or not -- really should know about. If you have a Mac, and forgive my bold assumption that you do, you already have your own copy of Safari's lesser-known keyboard shortcuts on your drive. It's buried inside of the Safari application bundle, but you can reach it directly from a Web browser (Safari or not) at file:///Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Shortcuts.html. Clicking that link should take you directly there, if you have a current version of Safari. The particular keyboard shortcut I'm referring to is Command-Option-S, the shortcut for Search Results SnapBack.
Custom Safari keyboard shortcuts save my sanity
I'm a latecomer to the Safari party. I have used Opera and OmniWeb, but eventually, the siren song of Safari was too much to ignore. For the most part, I like it quite a bit, but there is one thing that has bothered me for a long time. Safari has some ridiculous keyboard shortcuts. So, I made some better ones. Exhibit #1: the Downloads window. By default, the keyboard shortcut to open the Downloads window is Alt+cmd+L. That's right, "L" for "Downloads." Does that make sense to you? Me neither. It should be "cmd+D" but ... that leads us to another problem. Read on for more...
Divvy up your windows
For those who deal with a lot of windows, especially on multiple screens, any utility that makes it easier to organize and reposition those windows quickly is a boon. I've used SizeUp for a while now, and have become very accustomed to being able to quickly snap my windows into halves or quarters of a screen and jump them from one screen (or Space) to another with keyboard commands. We've mentioned SizeUp before, as well as MercuryMover and Cinch. There's a new kid on the block, though, and it's a brilliant take on the existing ideas. Divvy is a utility that takes advantage of both keyboard and mouse to quickly move windows into place. Where the others allowed a certain amount of control over presets, and offered a certain compromise between flexibility and speed, Divvy takes the cake by using a visual (mouse-driven) interface that also allows custom keyboard shortcuts, assigned to any part of your screen that you define.
Create keyboard shortcuts to jump to Safari 4 tabs directly
My friend Steve (no, not that Steve) just solved a problem I've had for awhile now: how to jump to a specific tab in Safari using the keyboard. Turns out that it's possible, and it's free, and it works pretty well. What else could you ask for? The solution comes from Paul Kretek's website where he outlines how to use FastScripts to assign keyboard shortcuts to specific tabs. Paul and Steve both want to use Safari, but they like Firefox's method of numbering tabs 1-9 used together with the command (⌘) key . By default, Safari uses ⌘+[1-9] to jump to bookmarks on your bookmark bar, which I use all of the time so I'm planning to make keyboard shortcuts for tabs control+1-9 instead. (⌘+0 [zero] is used to set the zoom back to original size.) Who knows, I might change my mind. I had found myself trying to use ⌘+[1-9] for tab switching in Safari because I was already used to tab switching that way in iTerm. The only bookmark keyboard short I use with any frequency is ⌘+1 which I use to invoke Quix which I've written about previously and absolutely cannot work without. Paul's instructions are very thorough, and although they may look a little complicated, it's something you only need to setup once. Also note that FastScripts is free for up to 10 shortcuts, after that it's US$14.95 for unlimited use.
TextExpander 3 makes short work of keyboard shortcuts
TextExpander, one of my very most favorite (yes, I like it that much) utilities has been updated to version 3. This is a major update and renovation of the program, which has changed from a preference pane to an application. I honestly don't think that I could use a Mac without TextExpander anymore. I have a customized list of "frequently misspelled words" that I have it correct for me, as well as a snippet of text for creating a new shell script, a shortcut to insert the current date or time, HTML markup, and more. TextExpander has been able to sync via MobileMe for some time, but version 3 also includes the ability to sync via Dropbox. It can also correct "double caps" at the beginning of a sentence which happen when you accidentally hold down the shift key for too long. There is a feature to capitalize new sentences as well, but that feature was a little hit-or-miss for me. In its new application form, TextExpander has to be running for it to work. That may seem obvious, but since it used to be a preference pane, users may be used to it running "hidden" as a daemon in the background. There is an option to hide the application icon in the dock. If you hide it in the dock, you can still access TextExpander from its icon in the menu bar. They've even included several different styles of icon for the menu bar, which is good news for those of you who believe that menu bar items should only be black and white.
Mac 101: Navigating OS X with your keyboard
Let's face it: unless you're just casually surfing the Internet or playing a game, chances are pretty good that your hands are on the keyboard most of the time when you're at the computer. Sure, the mouse is only a few inches away, but wouldn't it just be easier if you didn't have to keep going back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard? Enter the world of keyboard shortcuts. A keyboard shortcut is exactly what the name implies: a way of using the keys on your keyboard to quickly perform tasks that typically would require multiple steps using a mouse. Before we dive in to the magic keystrokes, let's take a quick look at how shortcuts work on the Mac.
Ask TUAW: iPad VGA out, changing keyboard shortcuts, Time Capsule worries, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about changing keyboard shortcuts in Keynote, the iPad's dock to VGA adapter, Time Capsule failures, Mac-compatible scanners, iPhone voice control, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify), or if it's an iPhone-related question, which iPhone version and OS version you have.
TUAW Tip: Paste without formatting by default
Here's something I know affects plenty of users out there. Have you ever pasted text in a document or email message, only to have it formatted differently than all the text around it? Irritating, right? There's an answer, thanks to the Keyboard & Mouse pane in System Preferences. If you click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, you can assign "Paste Without Formatting" and/or "Paste and Match Style" to Command + V for all applications. Just click the button under the list, type in the name of the appropriate menu items, and press ⌘-V in the Keyboard Shortcut box. One note: Panic designer Neven Mrgan found that using this tip means you won't be able to paste images into iChat using Command + V. Dragging and dropping (or choosing Paste from the Edit menu) still works, though. Update: If you explicitly add ⌘-V in as a shortcut for Paste that's specific to iChat, you can restore the image paste capability without breaking the global shortcut. Apps that don't have either of those menu items will still default to regular old "Paste" for the same key command. Paste away! [Via @robotspacer, @chockenberry, and thaweesak.com.]
Mac 101: Put your display to sleep fast
Quick! The boss is coming! Hide your screen! What, you don't have Spaces set up so you can switch to that handy Excel worksheet you've got open? That's okay -- just put your display to sleep. Of course, there are other reasons to want to quickly turn off your display, but they all have one simple key combination: Control + Shift + Eject. It works with both desktop and laptop Macs. Moving the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard wakes it right back up when you're ready. Of course, if you want to put your whole computer to sleep, you can use Option + Command + Eject. There are other helpful shortcuts, too, in this article deep in the TUAW archives. Thanks to our own Michael Rose for this one. Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section.
Mac 101: use a tab to navigate dialogs
Recently we here at TUAW were asked about navigating dialog boxes and applications with the keyboard. It is really easy to use the tab key to select different parts of the window and different buttons in a dialog box, if you know how to enable this behavior.Open System Preferences > Mouse and Keyboard, and click the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. You are presented with two options at the bottom of the window (in the "Full keyboard access" section): Text boxes and lists only or All controls. By default, "Text boxes and lists" should be selected, but if you want to be able to select other buttons in a window with the tab key then you need to select the "All controls" option. Now when you encounter a dialog box (or window), just press the tab key to switch between the various buttons on the screen. If you would like to go to a previous button, use shift + tab. When you've got the button you want highlighted, press the enter key or space bar. It's as easy as that! For more tips and tricks like these, visit the Mac 101 section on TUAW.
