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cwydro

(51,308 posts)
Wed May 27, 2020, 11:58 AM May 2020

So I bought an Air...thanks to everyone's great advice!

Any hints, hacks, shortcuts, etc?

So far I've found it very friendly to a computer stupid person, but I'm sure I'm missing out on cool features.

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
So I bought an Air...thanks to everyone's great advice! (Original Post) cwydro May 2020 OP
1. Notifications. 2. Battery. 3. Brightness. 4. Bluetooth Tetrachloride May 2020 #1
Thank you! cwydro May 2020 #3
back up back up back up... mitch96 May 2020 #2
Thanks! cwydro May 2020 #4
+1000000 CloudWatcher May 2020 #11
iPad Air or MacBook Air? HuskyOffset May 2020 #5
MacBook Air. cwydro May 2020 #6
One thing you could try HuskyOffset May 2020 #7
Good idea. cwydro May 2020 #8
Learn the keyboard shortcuts PJMcK May 2020 #9
Yes, and Emacs key bindings too! CloudWatcher May 2020 #10

Tetrachloride

(8,486 posts)
1. 1. Notifications. 2. Battery. 3. Brightness. 4. Bluetooth
Wed May 27, 2020, 01:17 PM
May 2020

1. open Settings
2. choose notifications
3. turn off: 90 % of notifications. (this may quite a while to get the way you want. like weeks , fine tuning your battery usage and annoying notifications)
-----------------------------------------------
all of these will save your battery. your style will be your own.

4. in Setting, Choose Battery. choose low power if u are not in constant use and don't have charger plugged in.

5. lower your brightness at night

6. turn off bluetooth if no bluetooth accessories

7. turn off cell data if u use exclusively at home.

======

Is your iPad wired or wireless charging ?

mitch96

(14,774 posts)
2. back up back up back up...
Wed May 27, 2020, 02:57 PM
May 2020

My friends 5 year old apple laptop is giving her some problems.. She backed everything up so if she needs a new drive or logic board, no biggie.. Oh did I mention back up??
m

CloudWatcher

(1,933 posts)
11. +1000000
Fri May 29, 2020, 12:16 PM
May 2020

Backups. If something is worth saving, it's worth saving in at least two places. And not all in the same room!

Disks fail, computers are stolen, keyboards take coffee baths, houses burn and even clouds can lose your files. Plan ahead

HuskyOffset

(912 posts)
5. iPad Air or MacBook Air?
Wed May 27, 2020, 05:41 PM
May 2020

I'm nursing along a mid 2011 iMac and a 2013/2014 iPad Air 1. If you take care of it, Apple gear will last a good while. Enjoy!

 

cwydro

(51,308 posts)
6. MacBook Air.
Wed May 27, 2020, 05:43 PM
May 2020

I still have my iPad, but it's been floundering lately. Not sure what's up with it.

HuskyOffset

(912 posts)
7. One thing you could try
Wed May 27, 2020, 05:53 PM
May 2020

is to back up your iPad, then do a complete wipe & restore it from the backup. I did this a while back and got some of the storage space back that was in the mysterious grey "other" category. Of course, as time goes on, that grey block is getting bigger again. I think it's stuff like local cache of web data.

Unfortunately, that wipe & restore didn't do anything to speed my iPad up (which I didn't expect), but I was trying to get some storage space back. It is possible that doing that wipe & restore might help your iPad correct some sort of software problem, it's worth a try. Just be sure to import any pictures or videos you've taken with it that you haven't transferred to your computer yet.

PJMcK

(23,011 posts)
9. Learn the keyboard shortcuts
Fri May 29, 2020, 05:45 AM
May 2020

They'll save you a lot of time.

I have a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air. I've had Mac laptops since 1992. I'm probably going to buy a new MacBook Air in the next couple of weeks. You've made an excellent purchase! Good luck and enjoy your new machine!

CloudWatcher

(1,933 posts)
10. Yes, and Emacs key bindings too!
Fri May 29, 2020, 12:06 PM
May 2020

And beyond copy/paste and undo ... if you can touch-type and plan on doing more than a little bit of typing, learning at least some of the ancient emacs-style key shortcuts can save a lot of time! I was recently shocked that my kids (in their 20s, Mac users since they were infants) didn't even know they existed

They let you navigate and edit without having to leave the keyboard and use the mouse/trackpad. And they work in almost all editing situations in macOS. Even with a trackpad, I find I'm using them all the time. E.g. it's faster to position the cursor and hit control-d to delete a character than to carefully drag over a single character and then hit delete.

They all use the control-key ... so if you're not comfortable hitting control with a pinky finger, you can stop reading now.

But ... some of the more useful ones:

control-d delete the next character
control-a go to beginning of the line
control-e go to the end of the line

There are the same as the arrow keys, but faster to hit:

control-f go forward a character
control-b go backward a character
control-n go to next line (trying to leave x-coordinate the same)
control-p go to previous line (trying to leave x-coordinate the same)

Using the kill buffer:
control-k delete from cursor to end of line (*)
control-y yanks back the text deleted by control-k (inserts at current cursor position)

(*) if the line is empty, it deletes the line (the linefeed). Else it deletes up to but not including the linefeed. And you can hit control-k several times to delete a small number of lines. Each time you control-k it adds the deleted text to the end of the "kill" buffer. Doing another control-k deletes more and adds it to the end of the buffer. Moving the cursor and doing a control-k in a new "place" will discard the kill buffer and replace it with the newly killed text. Note the kill buffer is not the same as the normal copy/paste buffer!

Ok, probably too much info. But I feel more people should know about the editing shortcuts too

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