6 essential Android typing tips

Ever dread the thought of tapping out a text or replying to email on your slippery Android touchscreen? I know the feeling.
Here’s a half-dozen ways to make life easier on your fingertips, from long-pressing your way to the symbol keys to letting your voice do the typing.

1. Long-press for accents, numbers, and symbols

Need an accent above a vowel, or just a quick number or two?
Try this: tap and hold a key to reveal a pop-up menu of additional options.
For example, if you tap and hold a letter key along the top row of the keypad, you’ll get a shortcut for the number that shares space on that particular key.
Meanwhile, you can long-press any vowel key—say, “e”—for acute (“é”) and grave (“è”) accents, as well as umlauts (“ë”), circumflex (“ê”), and more.
You can also try the same trick with symbol keys. Tap and hold the dash key (“-”), for example, and you’ll find an em dash (“—”), while long-pressing the dollar sign (“$”) reveals symbols for the euro, the Japanese yen, and the British pound, among others.
Last but not least, tap and hold the period for a pop-up menu of many common symbol keys, including parenthesis, the colon and semicolon, the pound sign, and quotes.

Just double-click the shift key to switch to all-caps mode.

2. Double-click for caps lock

Want to type in ALL CAPS? Not a problem. Just double-tap the shift key.
When you do, a telltale blue indicator will light up, and all the letter keys will jump into upper-case mode.
Ready to return to lowercase? Tap the shift key once more.

3. Turn off auto-correct

As you type, most Android phones will display a row of alternate spelling possibilities just above the keyboard; tap one, and it’ll replace the word you’re typing (or mangling, as the case may be).
Many Android phones may also let you replace a word automatically by tapping the spacebar or a punctuation key
Android’s “auto-correction” feature comes in handy when you’re typing in a hurry, but it can also leave you a little red-faced if you wind up texting that (for example) you’re in a “can” rather than a “cab.”

You can turn off Android’s “auto-correct” feature in just a few taps.

Rather not risk any auto-correct embarrassments? Here’s how:

• Tap Settings, Language & Input, find the Keyboard & Input Methods heading, then tap the Settings icon next to “Android keyboard.” (Note: The exact settings may differ depending on the make and model of your Android phone; I tested this tip on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, running on Android version 4.2.1.)
• Scroll down to the Text Correction heading, then tap “Auto-correction.”
• A pop-up menu will give you a series of auto-correct options, from “Modest” to “Very aggressive.” The setting we’re looking for, though, is “Off.” Go ahead and tap it. And don’t worry: you’ll still see a row of word suggestions above the keyboard, even with auto-correct disabled.

4. Speak instead of type

Don’t have a free hand for tapping out a text message? Well, there’s always the power of speech.
In the bottom-left corner of most recent Android phones, you’ll find a key stamped with a microphone icon.
Tap it and start talking—and as you do, your phone will listen carefully and start transcribing your words on the screen.
The results may not be perfect, and you may have to resort to tapping to replace a word or two.
That said, Android’s “voice recognition” feature can be uncannily accurate—and unlike the iPhone, Android will let you voice-type even without a data connection.
(Having trouble with voice recognition when your phone doesn’t have a signal? Tap Settings, Language & Input, Voice Search, and—finally—”Download offline speech recognition.”)

Even if you don’t have the latest version of Android on your phone, Swype will let you do the “swipe-to-type” trick on your handset.

5. Swipe instead of type

Is tapping on your Android phone’s virtual keypad slowing you down? Here’s a way to speed up your touchscreen words-per-minute: swiping instead of typing.
“Gesture Typing,” a feature in the latest version of Android, lets you swipe smoothly from one letter to the next, almost like you’re drawing words rather than typing them.
For using an older Android phone, there’s always Swype, a downloadable Android add-on that also lets you do the swipe-to-type trick.
Read more…

6. Use custom keyboard shortcuts

Getting tired of typing out your street address over and over, or wish you could type a phrase like “On my way!” in just a few taps?
Using the “Personal dictionary” feature on newer Android phones, you can designate your own, custom keyboard shortcuts, good for anything from common phrases to your job title.
For example, you can tap “omw” to insert the phrase “on my way” into a text or email message, or type “addr” (or anything you want) to call up your home address.

a post from heresthethingblog.com
6 essential Android typing tips

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Create your own Yule log video playlist YouTube tips

Want to cozy up to a digital fireplace as you unwrap your Christmas presents? You can find dozens of Yule log videos on YouTube, of course, but most of them are too short to last even through the stocking stuffers.

The trick: creating a video playlist, perfect for taking an all-day tour of your favorite YouTube Yule logs—the more, the merrier.
Here’s how to do it…

• First, you’ll need a free YouTube account. Creating one takes just a few seconds, or you can log in to YouTube using your Google or Gmail profile.
• Next, start searching for Yule log videos. You can refine and sort your results by clicking the “Filters” menu just beneath the search box.
• Find a Yule log that suits your fancy? Click the “Add to” tab just beneath the video player (make sure to click through to the video itself from the search results page). A new “Add to playlist” section will appear, complete with a gray box containing the playlists (if any) that you’ve created in the past.
• Beneath the gray box, you’ll see a form labeled “Enter new playlist name.” Go ahead and make up a name (like “My favorite YouTube Yule logs”), select a privacy setting (Public or Private), then click the “Create playlist” button.


Just click your Yule log playlist in the gray box to add more videos.
• Now repeat the process as you find more Yule log videos—except instead of creating a new playlist for each one, look in the gray “Add to playlist” box and click the Yule log playlist you just created.
• Want to see the results? Click the “Guide” button in the top-left corner of the page, just beneath the YouTube logo, then click the “Playlists” (or “Playlist updated”) link.
• You should now see a list of all the playlists you’ve created. Click the link for your new Yule log playlist, and it should begin playing automatically, one Yule log after another.
• Want to change the order of your YouTube Yule logs, change the name of your playlist, or make it public? Click the Guide button (top-left corner of the page) again, click Playlists, and click the Manage button (beneath and to the right of the search box). Finally, click the Edit button next to your Yule log playlist.

So, want to see a Yule log video playlist created by yours truly? Click here to view it on YouTube, or just check out the video player below:

Bonus tip

You can view your Yule log playlist on your Android phone, iPhone or iPad from Google’s YouTube mobile app.
Just log into your Google account, tap your name in the left column of the interface (on iPhones and smaller Android phones, you may have to tap the top-left menu button first to reveal the column of options), then tap Playlists.
Oh, one more thing…
Happy holidays, everyone!

Create your own Yule log video playlist [YouTobe tip

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35 Basics tips for Mac Xs You must know

Need a little help figuring out your new iMac or MacBook? You’ve come to the right place.
Check out our updated survival guide for the basics on Mac OS X, including details on the latest “Mountain Lion” features, illustrated guides for updating and backing up your Mac, must-know tips, and more.

The basics

What is Mac OS X?

It’s the software that powers all the day-to-day features on your iMac or MacBook. Every time you click a menu at the top of the screen, open a folder on your desktop, or search for a document on your hard drive, you have the Mac operating system (or “OS”) to thank.

OK, so what does the “X” in “Mac OS X” stand for?

It stands for “10,” as in the Roman numeral—and specifically, it means we’re currently using the tenth major version of the Mac OS. Mac OS X first arrived for desktop Macs way back in 2001, and had been preceded by—you guessed it—Mac OS 9.

“Mountain Lion” is the latest version of Mac OS X, the software that powers your iMac or MacBook.

What is “Mountain Lion”?

Over the past dozen years, there have been seven big updates to Mac OS X, and the latest update, 10.8, is nicknamed “Mountain Lion.” Previous updates to Mac OS X have been named “Panther,” “Leopard,” “Snow Leopard,” and plain-old “Lion.” Yes, it’s safe to say that Apple has a thing for felines.
Anyway, Mac OS X “Mountain Lion” (which came out in July 2012) adds more than 200 new features to the Mac operating system, including a “Notification Center” with alerts for incoming e-mail and calendar alerts, voice dictation, text messaging with iPhone, iPad, and other Mac users, and the ability to “mirror” a newer Mac’s display to an Apple TV-connected HDTV.
Check out Apple’s rundown of the 200 new features in Lion right here.

Where to get Mountain Lion

Lion is available for download from the Mac App Store for $20.

The “About This Mac” window will tell you is your Mac is new enough for Mountain Lion.

Can your Mac handle Lion?

Generally speaking, you’ll need an iMac or MacBook Pro that was manufactured no earlier than 2007, or a MacBook circa 2008 or later.
Specific iMac and MacBook models have different requirements, however; click here for more details.

How to install Mountain Lion

The Lion installation process is fairly straightforward, but it will require at least an hour of your time.
Once you purchase Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store, your system will download the update and alert you when it’s ready to begin the installation process. Just follow the prompts (there are only a few), sit back and wait. After a restart or two, your Mac should be all et.

How to back up your Mac

Don’t even thing of updating your Mac’s operating system without backing up your hard drive first. Luckily, backing up your hard drive is easy thanks for a Mac OS X utility called Time Machine; here’s how to use it.

35 must-know Mac tips and tricks

You can pause your Notification Center alerts with a quick swipe and click.

1. How to pause all your Notification Center alerts

Want a break from all the banners and alerts from the Mac’s new Notification Center? You put all your notifications on “pause” with a simple swipe and click.

2. Getting the hang of desktop “spaces” in Mission Control

The Mac’s handy Mission Control feature lets you manage multiple desktop “spaces” at once, each filled with its own assortment of open documents and applications. Sounds confusing, I know. But once you get the hang of it, these additional, virtual desktops can become addicting—and even essential.

3. Why “natural” scrolling feels backwards—and how to turn it off

Does scrolling on your Mac feel backwards to you? Blame Apple’s new “natural” scrolling feature. Luckily, turning it off is a cinch.

Wish you could get your scroll bars back? All you have to do is tweak the right setting.

4. How to get your missing scroll bars back

Hey, what happened to the scroll bars on your windows? Don’t worry—you can get them back in a few clicks.

5. 12 handy trackpad gestures you need to try

Want to zoom in on a web page, twirl a snapshot in iPhoto, sneak a peek at the desktop, or look up the definition of a head-scratching word? You can do all that and more with a simple swipe, “pinch,” or tap on your Mac’s trackpad.

6. Turn on your Mac’s speaking clock

Your Mac has a built-in speaking clock that will read you the time every hour, on the hour—or the half hour, or even quarter hour. Here’s how to turn it on.

You can add a new Mission Control desktop with a little help from your mouse.

7. Create a new desktop in Mission Control

Making a new “space” in Mission Control, the Lion feature that gives you a bird’s eye view of all your virtual desktops, is easy—if you know where to look.

8. Pin an app to a specific Mission Control desktop

There’s a way to assign an app to a specific desktop in Mission Control, perfect for keeping your programs in their proper “spaces.”

9. How to paste your signature into a PDF, no scanner or printer required

Got a contract or some other document that you need to sign and return via email? Just snap a photo of your John Hancock with your Mac’s iSight camera (just about any recent iMac or MacBook should have one), then paste it into the document you need to sign.

10. 8 ways to make the most of the Mac desktop dock

Thanks to the handy Dock at the bottom of your Mac desktop, your favorite programs, files, and folders are never more than a click away—and if you know where to look, you can make the Dock behave practically any way you want.

“Sticky Keys” make for a clever alternative to playing “Twister” with your fingers.

11. How to enable “sticky keys”

Having a tough time maneuvering your fingertips around multi-key combos like SHIFT + ALT + DELETE? The “sticky keys” feature in Mac OS X can help.

12. 5 ways to take a “Quick Look” at almost any file

Meet “Quick Look,” a handy, built-in Mac tool that lets you take a quick glance at almost any file or folder without committing to firing up a program.

13. 12 Mac keyboard shortcuts you need to know

Switch applications, take a “quick look” at a file, get help, and more, all without touching your Mac’s mouse or trackpad.

14. 6 ways to give your Mac desktop icons a makeover

Got a jumble of icons cluttering your Mac’s desktop? Are you desktop icons too big—or too small? Wish they would just arrange themselves? Help is here!

15. 5 ways to make the most of the sidebar

Looking to add your own folders to the Mac sidebar? Or perhaps you’d rather make the sidebar bigger, smaller, or just plain gone. Help is here!

Just dip into your Mac’s system settings to make the mouse pointer bigger.

16. How to boost the size of the mouse pointer

Want to save both your eyesight and your sanity? Here’s an easy way: by dipping into your system settings and boosting the size of the mouse pointer.

17. How to control your desktop with “Hot Corners”

Turn on the Mac’s hot-corner feature to jump to Mission Control, clear your desktop, and more, all with a simple flick of your fingertip.

18. How to “unthread” your e-mail conversations

It’s easy to “unthread” the mail conversations in your Mac’s Mail inbox messages—or at least it is once you know the setting you need to tweak.

19. How to disable the Caps Lock key

Sick of striking the Caps Lock key by mistake? The good news is that turning off Caps Lock for good on a Mac is easy.

20. How to stop programs from launching automatically

How long does it take for your Mac to start up? Too long? Maybe your Mac is trying to launch too many apps when it’s first starting up.

You can zoom your Mac’s display with a few keyboard combinations.

21. How to zoom the display

Squinting at your computer screen? You can zoom the entire display on your PC or Mac, a handy trick for anyone with iffy eyesight. Here’s how.

22. Choose your default web browser

Sick of having Safari pop up when you really wanted another browser, like Chrome or Firefox? There’s single, centralized place on your Mac where you can set your default web browser once and for all.

23. Create a “recent files” folder on your desktop

It’s easy to create a folder on your desktop that’ll display only the files you’ve created or worked with in the past day, week, month … you name it.

24. Set your Mac to automatically start up (or shut down) each day

Want to wake up each morning to a freshly brewed pot of coffee and a fully powered-on Mac? It’s easier than you might think.

25. 16 Mac keyboard shortcuts you need to know

Want to switch applications, empty the trash, search your hard drive, or put your Mac to sleep, all without touching your mouse? Read on for 16 keyboard shortcuts that’ll let you zip around your Mac like a pro.

By tweaking a single setting, you can use your Mac’s function keys without having to press and hold the “Fn” key.

26. Use the function keys without pressing “Fn”

On most Mac keyboards, the function keys—you know, those keys along the top of the keyboard marked “F1,” “F2,” “F3,” and so on—don’t get the luxury of having an entire key to themselves. Want to switch things around so you don’t need to press and hold “fn” to use a function key? No problem.

27. Set multiple “home” or “start” pages for your web browser

Want more than just a single home page to appear when you fire up your web browser in the morning? No problem.

28. Cram a bunch of files into a single “zip” archive

Got a bunch of little files that you want to send to a friend? Well, you could always drag them all into an email and send them as attachments, but talk about messy. A cleaner, tidier alternative is to take all those little (or not-so-little) files and compress them into an archive—or, to be more specific, a “zip” archive.

29. Turn any printable document or web page into a PDF

It’s actually quite easy to convert a Word document into a PDF, and you won’t have to pay a dime to do it. In fact, here’s the rule of thumb when it comes to turning documents or even web pages into PDFs: if you can print ‘em, you can convert ‘em.

Tapping to click takes getting used to, but it’s surprisingly addicting, not to mention easier on your fingers.

30. How to “click” the trackpad with a tap

Having a hard time clicking the MacBook’s squishy trackpad? If so, here’s an alternative: setting the Mac trackpad to “click” with a simple tap rather than an actual click.

31. Share files between nearby Macs with AirDrop

Got a file on one Mac that you’d like to send to another Mac just a few feet away? A built-in Mac feature called AirDrop lets you…well, “drop” a file from one Mac onto another.

32. Change the default programs for your files

Annoyed that the Mac’s Preview app, and not Adobe Reader, always gets to open your PDF files? There’s a way to permanently change the “default” program that opens a given type of document.

33. Customize the buttons in program toolbars

Ever wish there were a Print button next to the Reply and Forward buttons in the Mac’s Mail app, or a pair of Zoom buttons on the top of every Safari browser window? Well, here’s the thing: you can add, remove, and rearrange the buttons in the “toolbar” of several familiar Mac programs.

You can set your wallpaper to change at any interval you choose, from once a day to once every 5 seconds.

34. Put your desktop wallpaper on shuffle

Getting tired of the same old wallpaper on your Mac desktop? If so, try this: just set your Mac to shuffle some or all of your favorite desktop wallpaper (or “background”) photos, at any interval you choose.

35. 4 ways to right-click on a Mac trackpad

There are actually several different ways to right-click on the MacBook’s trackpad, which (nowadays, at least) is essentially one big button.

 35 Basics tips for Mac Xs You must know

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13 Tips to Increase Android’s Performance

As it is with any other desktop or mobile operating system, the performance of your Android OS will start to diminish after you use it for some time. Mobile operating systems are supposed to be lighter and faster to keep up with our need to be on the move, yet still give us access to everything. Want to have the best of both worlds? Then, it’s time to do some housekeeping.
If you have noticed that your Android phones performance have been ‘slowing down’, particularly after you’ve been loading it up with tons of Android apps (we don’t blame you) from the Google Play store, we have a few tips to share with you.

With just a few tweaks and changes, you’d probably be able to breathe life into your Android specifically those that have been updated to Android 4.0 and above.

1. Know your Device

It is important that you learn about the capabilities and drawbacks of your phone. Don’t overburden your phone with resource-hungry apps which would otherwise degrade your phone’s performance at your expense.

2. Update your Android

If you haven’t updated your Android phone to the latest firmware, you should. Google brings great improvements to each new release of the Android operating system, including updates that ensure stability, higher performance speed and connectivity along with other user-friendly new features.
Tablets can also run on ICS and Jelly Bean now; you should be able to update it until Android 4.1 Jelly Bean via System updates (Check under ‘About phone’).

3. Remove Unwanted Apps

Every app you install in your phone take some storage space and runs some background processes. The more storage space occupied or the more background processes running on your phone, the slower your phone’s performance.
Don’t install apps you hardly use. Keep only the apps that you need and if you have got an app that isn’t really useful, you can uninstall or disable it.

4. Disable Unnecessary Apps

‘Performance assistant’ was introduced in Android ICS to help you disable apps that you don’t need. Disabling apps is different from uninstalling apps – uninstallation remove application files from the phone but no file is removed/deleted when you disable it. These disabled apps are not shown on the home screen or app tray but you can re-enable them for use whenever you need them.

5. Update Apps

You should regularly update your phone’s installed apps from Google Play. Try to get updates your apps when they are available in Google Play. Developers fix bugs and add features in new released versions of apps. Updated apps perform better and faster, and will less likely crash your phone.

6. Use High-Speed Memory Card

The memory card is the storage space of your phone. Phones with low internal memory can get a boost from high-capacity memory cards for maximum storage space. But it adds not only capacity but also speed to the mix. You can get between 2GB to 32GB worth of storage space to support high speed read/write operations. Always go for memory cards of Class 6 or Class 10 for your Android phone if you seek performance for your phone.

7. Keep Fewer Widgets

Widgets are not apps, which only run once you choose to activate them. No, widgets are always running in the background; they are active all the time. While some Android users use it to keep track of the weather, and their important dates, others use widgets like ‘Extended controls’ for quick access for essential configurations such as switching Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or their GPS on or off.
They do have their uses but bear in mind that having too many of them running on your homescreen will cause your device’s performance to slow down.

8. Avoid Live Wallpapers

You must be loving Android’s live wallpaper feature. Phones (from different manufacturers) come with different live wallpapers but you should know that live wallpapers that are badly made will need more CPU cycles to run, thus draining the battery faster. Everytime you activate the home screen, you run not only your apps but also your live wallpaper.

9. Stop Syncing

Sync is a very good feature which synchronizes your data with Google servers. Keeping sync on, you can get notifications whenever new mail comes in or when you get new notifications or updates for apps. To do this, it does a refresh at every preset interval (e.g. it checks your mail every 5 minutes for new incoming mail), and this will eat into your android’s performance for other activities.
You can keep Sync off for unrequired services or only have it on when you need to transfer or upload materials to Google servers.

10. Turn off Animations

What animations? Well, if you haven’t noticed, your phone screen actually fades out and in as you switch from one task to the other. To see this in action Go to Settings > Developer Options > Window Animation Scale > Animation scale 10x. Then choose Window Animation Scale again to see the fade in effect in ‘slow-mo’.
When you choose Animation off, the screen just snaps to position without animation. You can also turn off Transition Animation Scale in the same way. If you are a heavy user, you’d probably notice that your Android performs faster with all animations off.

11. Use Task Killer/Manager

Download any free Task Killer apps or Task Managers from Google Play. Some of the good ones are Advanced Task Killer and Super Task Killer Free. Use a task killer to kill background processes and other apps that you don’t need or you don’t use.
Set options to automatically kill unnecessary apps (based on your selections) after every set period of time. Some of the examples include Update Manager (updates don’t come every minute/hour) or any manufacturer-installed app which you don’t require.

12. Root your Android

As Android is built on the Linux kernel, like any other OS, it also can be rooted. Rooting your Android gives you administrator level access on your phone, which means that you can uninstall the apps that came with your phone but may not be what you want to use.
You can then flash it with custom ROMs that may be a better fit to your job requirements or personality, or to enhance the performance and battery life of your phone. You can even update your phone to the latest OS or updates that could otherwise be unsupported for your phone model.
When Not to Root
There are a number of factors against rooting your Android device; for one thing, most manufacturers deem your phone warranty voided if your phone has been rooted. You also need to know what you are doing to avoid screwing everything up, beyond repair. This is called ‘bricking’ a.k.a. turning your phone into a useless brick. So think it through before you use this method to enhance the performance of your Android.

13. Use Lightweight Background Apps

Everyone enjoys listening to music but imagine how much memory the music player app requires to play a whole album for you. It’s the same with other types of background apps you may have. Use lightweight apps for these purposes, e.g., you can install a music player that requires 1 MB installation space (and thus less RAM too) than the ones requiring 10 MB or more.
This way, your phone will have more free memory, boosting your phone’s battery and performance.

Conclusion

If you follow the above-given suggestions, tips and tweaks will help in making your Android faster and smoother while in use. Have other Android-related performance-enhancing tips and tricks? Let us know.

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Useful Keyboard Shortcuts Tips Tricks fro iTunes

iTunes – media library, music player, app organizer and the place to go when you want to sync your apps with your iDevices – has recently seen its 11th update, with plenty of improvements and new features. Some of these features include a smarter, more organized browsing experience, preview history, personalized recommendations and Facebook integration.

The new update makes iTunes a pretty powerful app but also a very complicated one, so it’s a good idea to pick up some shortcuts, tips and tricks to help you navigate through iTunes faster and better.

iTunes 11 Keyboard Shortcuts

We are fans of shortcuts and the trend doesn’t stop at iTunes. Here are some of the shortcuts you can use to breeze through the site.

Shortcuts	Description
Command + ,	Preferences…
Command + H	Hide iTunes
Command+ Option + H	Hide Others
Command + Q	Quit iTunes
Command + N	Playlist
Option + Command + N	Smart Playlist…
Command + W	Close Window
Command + O	Add to Library…
Command + U	Open Stream…
Command + P	Print…
Command + I	Get Info
Shift + Command + R	Show in Finder
Command + Z	Undo
Shift + Command + Z	Redo
Command + X	Cut
Command + C	Copy
Command + V	Paste
Delete	Delete
Command + A	Select All
Shift + Command + A	Select None
Fn + Fn	Start Dictation…
Option + Command + T	Special Characters…
Command + J	View Options…
Command + B	Show Column Browser
Option + Command + U	Show Up Next
Command + /	Show Status Bar
Command + F	Search
Command + T	Show Visualizer
Control + Command + F	Enter Full Screen
Space	Play
Command + .	Stop
Command + →	Next
Command + ←	Previous
Command + L	Go to Current Song
Control + Shift + Command + →	Next Chapter
Control + Shift + Command + ←	Previous Chapter
Command + ↑	Increase Volume
Command + ↓	Decrease Volume
Command + E	Eject Disc
Command + [	Back
Command + ]	Forward
Shift + Command + H	Home
Command + R	Reload Page
Command + M	Minimize
Option + Command + 1	iTunes
Option + Command + 2	Equalizer
Option + Command + 3	MiniPlayer
Option + Command + M	Switch from/to MiniPlayer
Enter	Play the Currently Selected Song from the Beginning
Command + 1	Open "Music"
Command + 2	Open "Movies"
Command + 3	Open "TV"
Command + 4	Open "Shows"
Command + 5	Open "Podcasts"
Command + 6	Open "Books"
Command + 7	Open "Apps"

Tips / Tricks to Get The most Out of iTunes 11

Here’s where we share with you some of the simple tricks to help you with iTunes. If you have more to add, just drop it in the comments section.
#1. Use the Remote App on iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad to control your iTunes library from a distance. The Remote app is available in App Store for free.

#2. From anywhere in iTunes, start a search in the iTunes Store by typing something in the Search field and press Option + Return.

#3. Press Option + Delete to delete the selected playlist and all the songs it contains from your library.
#4. Press Command + Delete to delete the selected playlist without confirming that you want to delete it.
#5. Press Option + Command + → or ← to move forword or backword within a song.
#6. You can use the 2-finger swipe gesture to navigate back and forth between pages in iTunes Store.
#7. Keep MiniPlayer on top of all other Windows by ticking the option in Preferences > Advanced.

#8. When a song is selected, press Option + Return to add current song to "Up Next" queue.
#9. Press Option + Command + S to bring back the static sidebar.

#10. Press Shift + Command + L to search the selected item in Google.

original post in http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/itunes11-shortcuts-tips-tricks/
Useful Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips & Tricks fro iTunes

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10 Tips to Take Great Selfie Picture for Your Blog

Woohoo! It’s time to camwhore a self-picture! Oops wait… Is SELFIE!!! Say *Cheese* to your camera. You like Selfie; I like Selfie; everyone likes Selfie…. Especially Blogger LOVE SELFIE!!! Well, it’s just an another word for ‘Camwhore’ ~

Selfie has become a popular trend nowadays in our daily life. Regardless taking selfie using a smartphone or digital camera, everything will be look as long as you look confident in the picture. Hence, below here are the 10 tips to guide you in taking a great selfie photo for your blog!

10 Tips to Take Great Selfie Picture for Your Blog:

1. Be confident looking and know your best angle right.
2. Selfie does not follow camera rule of third.
3. Take several shot in different angle and select the best.
4. Don’t lean back from the camera, so that to avoid taking double chin.
5. Take picture in slightly 35 to 45 degree rather than a standard portrait and landscape shot.
6. Focus on your face than other object.
7. If you are using smartphone; try to use back-camera than front-camera for SELFIE.
8. Don’t hold your camera too close to you.
9. Add filter to your SELFIE photo.
10. If the environment is too dark, try to use external light rather than camera flash. This to prevent over-exposed of your face.

Well, hope the tips above give you a little idea on how you showcase your selfie photo on your blog. Do remember to keep it casual and lively as you are sending your beloved faces to the digital world. Smile to the camera and starting SELFIE now! *Cheese*

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