Here's a nifty keyboard shortcut: You can cycle through windows in one program without using the mouse. Just press ~ (that is, the tilde key, to the left of the number 1 key). With each press, you bring a different window forward within the current program. It works both in the Finder and in your everyday programs, and it beats the pants off using the mouse to choose a name from the Window menu.
Consider this radical, timesaving proposal: Never quit the programs you use frequently. Instead, simply hit command-H whenever you're finished working in a program. That way, the next time you need it, the program launches with zero wait time. There's a limit to this principle; if you have only 512 megabytes of memory and you keep 10 programs open, for example, and one of them is Photoshop, you'll incur a speed penalty. In more moderate situations, though, Mac OS X's virtual-memory scheme is so good that there's almost no downside to leaving your programs open all the time.
In Leopard more than ever, Spotlight (keyboard shortcut: command-spacebar) makes a spectacular application launcher. That's because, as you'll notice, Job #1 for Spotlight is to display the names of matching programs in the results menu. Their names appear in the list nearly instantly--long before Spotlight has built the rest of the menu of search results. If some program on your hard drive doesn't have a Dock icon, for example--or even if it does--there's no faster way to open it than to use Spotlight.
You know what's really nice? The keystroke to open the Preferences dialog box in every Apple program is always the same: command-comma. Better yet, that standard is catching on with other software companies, too; Word, Excel, Entourage, and PowerPoint use the same keystroke, for example.
When you use drag and drop to move text within a document, the Mac moves the highlighted text, deleting the highlighted material from its original location. If you press Option as you drag, however, you make a copy of the highlighted text.
When you're writing, ever find yourself searching for that elusive copyright symbol, TM (trademark) sign, or Euro symbol? Summon the character palette. In most programs, to make it appear, choose Edit→Special Characters. If you want permanent access, add the Keyboard menulet to the top of your screen: Open System Preferences, click the International icon, click the Input Menu tab, and turn on the Character Palette checkbox.
The primary purpose of your Mac's Keychain program is, of course, to type in passwords for you automatically. However, it's also an excellent place to record all kinds of private information just for your own reference: credit card numbers, ATM numbers, and so on. Simply choose File→New Password Item (if it's a name and password) or File→New Secure Note (if you just want to type a blob of very, very private text).
Here's one for the technically inclined. Open your Web browser and enter this address: <ulink url="http://127.0.0.1:631"/>. You find yourself at a secret "front end" for CUPS (Common Unix Printing System), the underlying printing technology for Mac OS X 10.5. This trick lets your Mac communicate with a huge array of older printers that don't yet have Mac OS X drivers. Using this administration screen, you can print a test page, stop your printer in its tracks, manage your networked printers and print jobs, and more--a very slick trick.
In the Displays pane of System Preferences, you'll find a Color tab. Its Calibrate button is designed to create a profile for your particular monitor in your particular office lighting--all you have to do is answer a few fun questions onscreen and drag a few sliders.
Want to take an instant screenshot? Press Shift-command-3 to create a picture file on your desktop, in the almost-universally recognized PNG format, that depicts the entire screen image. A satisfying camera-shutter sound tells you that you were successful.
Q: Turkey is one of the best things to eat if you want to promote sleepiness.
A: False: Turkey may be loaded with tryptophan, the amino acid that can cause drowsiness, but it has no more of it than many other high protein food items like chicken, beef, and soybeans. Plus, eating high protein meals without a corresponding truckload of carbohydrates ensures that tryptophan will never enter the blood-brain barrier.
Q: The REM (for "Rapid Eye Movement") stage of sleep, when the most vivid dreaming usually happens, occurs during the deepest stages of the dream cycle.
A: False: REM sleep actually occurs at the very end of the sleep cycle, when the brain returns to a much lighter stage of sleep.
Q: Contrary to conventional wisdom, memories are not "stored" in the brain as recordings or as discrete "data", but are instead the result of the brain's constant rewiring of neuronal connections.
A: True: There's no static "memory storage" in the brain, but instead a fluid, constantly readapting process of establishing, reinforcing, and fading links between neurons.
Q: Despite huge life changes that temporarily create radical shifts in personal fortune (either good or bad), the brain will always drift back to an inborn "happiness" set point.
A: True: Regardless of whether you win the lotto or suffer catastrophic tragedy, you'll always return to the same chipper or grumpy temperament that sustains throughout your life.
Q: With most traits, heritability (the influence of genetics) decreases through childhood and adolescence, reaching its lowest point in adulthood.
A: False: The reverse is true--genetic links actually get stronger with age (meaning you're more similar to your parents as an adult than as a child), though there is no scientific consensus as to why this is so.
Q: T/F: IQ scores are highly heritable
A: True, page 242
Q: Your brain's energy use is roughly:
a.) 20 watts
b.) 40 watts
c.) 75 watts
A: 20 watts--enough to power a dim light bulb, page 29
Q: Microsleep is a phenomenon that occurs when the brain?
A: Shuts off for a second or two usually due to lack of sleep, page 52
Q: The art of improving memory is called?
A: Mnemonics, page 107
Q: T/F: Chronically sleep-deprived individuals have a greater incidence of obesity?
A: True, page 40
New Live Reports lets you edit sorted data and see the changes in real time. Edited records change categories and your summaries update in real time. Just make sure you're using subsummary parts to create the layout, summary fields to do the math and that your reports are sorted by the same field you set in the subsummary part.
Make your layouts more professional by lining up elements using the Object Info palette. When any object is selected you can see the top position, left position, height and width measured in your choice of pixels, inches or centimeters. Make sure that all objects that exist on the same layout have the same size and position, and your users won't even notice when you switch layouts.
FileMaker Pro 10 now supports Excel 2007 files for import and export. Just make sure to choose the version you need in the appropriate pop- up menus when you're sharing data with spreadsheet fans.
FileMaker's button tool makes a pre-formatted button to which you can attach a script step or script. For a custom, polished look, create a button in a graphics program, and then choose Insert -> Picture to place the graphic on your layout. Then choose Format -> Button Setup to attach a script.
Use container fields to create an asset management system. Store almost any file, including PDFs, graphics, word-processing documents, video, sound, and even other FileMaker files in a container field. You can view many file types without leaving FileMaker, but if you double-click on the container field, the file opens directly.
Help users with data entry with Conditional Formatting. First, select all the "required" fields on a layout, and then choose Format -> Conditional. Add a condition, and then choose "Value is" and "Empty" from the condition lists. Set a contrasting color and then click OK. When data's in them, the fields look "normal," but when empty, users see the fill color.
The Web Viewer lets you show the contents of a web page without leaving FileMaker. Use your data to control the web page that's shown. For example, track package sent to your customers by using the Shipper and Tracking Number in the calculation that tells the web viewer what to show.
Finding the records you need is easy with FileMaker Pro 10's Saved Finds. The Find icon on the toolbar has a handy pop-up menu that remembers your last 10 finds -- re-do the find by selecting it. Or make any recent find permanent with the Create New Find command.
These days, aspiring Web site creators like you pick up a lot of Web-design theory before you start working on your pages. But as deadlines loom and the value of "do it right" falls victim to the imperative to "do it right now," even the best of us sometimes toss good practice out the window.
That's perfectly understandable and no cause for panic--after all, if Web weavers waited until their pages were perfect before uploading them, the Internet would be a very lonely place indeed. However, sometimes innocent-seeming shortcuts can cause triple-Tylenol headaches later on. Here are a few pieces of Web advice that site creators ignore at their own risk:
1. Always include a doctype.
Even if you develop your site pages with classic HTML (with its less rigorous standards) rather than up-to-date XHTML, you can use the same structuring and formatting features in your pages, and browsers will process them effortlessly.
But if you forget to include the doctype--the short instruction at the beginning of a page that tells a browser what type of markup (HTML code) you're using (see the figure)--your pages will appear annoyingly inconsistent. That's because some browsers, including Internet Explorer, switch into a backward-compatibility state known as quirks mode when they encounter unidentified markup; in essence, they attempt to act like an outdated browser from the 1990s. Common problems that result include text that appears at different sizes in different browsers and layouts that wind up in different configurations depending on your browser. To read up on doctypes and make sure you're using the right one, check out Fix Your Site With the Right Doctype!
2. Keep formatting instructions out of your markup.
In a rush, it's easy to get lazy and apply inline styles (or even worse, formatting tags like ) to a page's XHTML or HTML. But it's a rare Web site that uses a particular format just once. Most often, you'll use a design--say for a column, heading, or note box--elsewhere on the same page or on another of your site pages.
To ensure consistency across your site and to make it easier to fine-tune the look and feel of your pages, move all your formatting instructions to a central location: an external style sheet. That way, when a browser processes a page, it grabs this central set of instructions and applies them to the page (see the illustration for the sequence of events).
At their best, style sheets let you create a site you can effortlessly restyle in a thousand ways, as you can see in the super-flexible pages impressively demonstrated at CSS Zen Garden.
3. Be under renovation, not under construction.
Think of your favorite store. Now imagine shopping there if you had to wander around half-lit floors, dodging ladders, pylons, and heavy-duty construction equipment to find the aisles that still have products on the shelf.
It's a similar story on the Web, where a site with empty pages, "under construction" messages, and vague promises of upcoming content will send visitors away in droves. Yes, it's true that your Web site won't be complete when you first upload it. But make sure that what's there is genuinely useful on its own, and don't draw attention to gaps and shortcomings. Instead, keep improving what you've got.
4. Think twice before you adopt copy-and-paste design.
Typically, Web sites use the same page design across all their pages. For example, noodle around Amazon.com and you'll always see a menu header at the top of the page and a sidebar on the left.
There's a very special circle in Dante's Inferno reserved for Web developers who try to achieve consistent design by copying and pasting their XHTML (say, a set of <div> elements or a <table> element) from one page to another. It's almost impossible to manage or modify this mess across all your pages without making a mistake, even if you have a small Web site.
If you need a repeating page design, pick a suitable solution from the available options, each of which comes with its own caveat. Your can use server-side includes (which require Web host support), page templates (provided you have a Web design tool like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Web), frames (which can exhibit quirks), or a Web development platform (if you're willing to take a crash course in programming).
5. Keep an eye on your visitors.
Is anyone here? There's no point in having a Web site if you're not willing to pay attention to what content draws and keeps visitors and what falls flat on its face. Remarkably, the best way to do that is with a free yet industrial-strength service called Google Analytics (see the screen shot). You simply copy a small bit of tracking code to each of your pages and within hours you'll be able to answer questions like "Where do my visitors live?", "How long is a typical visit?", and "What pages are their favorites?"
Whether you want to keep a simple online diary or sell products e-commerce-style, Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual takes you from writing your first Web page to building a complete, cross-linked, professional-looking site using nothing more than an ordinary PC and raw ambition. Expert Web developer Matthew MacDonald provides all the hands-on, take-it-to-the-keyboard guidance, advice, and techniques you need.
1. Quick black-and-white with color tint. Photoshop lets you easily convert a color image to black-and-white without harming the original image. First, create a Black & White Adjustment layer by clicking the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of your Layers panel, and then choose Black & White. Tweak the various sliders in the resulting Adjustments panel for maximum contrast, and then add a color overlay by clicking the Tint checkbox at the top of the panel. Photoshop assumes you want to give your image a brown (sepia) tint. To use another color, click the little brown color swatch to the right of the Tint checkbox and pick a new color from the resulting Color Picker.
2. Partial color effect. To really draw viewer's eyes to the focal point of your image, make the focal point colored and the rest of the image black-and-white. By using the layer mask that tags along with each Adjustment layer, you can hide the effect of a Black & White Adjustment layer and bring back the original color. (Think of a layer mask as digital masking tape.) To create this effect, add an Adjustment layer by clicking the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of the Layers palette, and then choose Black & White. Tweak the sliders for maximum contrast, and then, on the Layers panel, click once to select the Adjustment layer's mask (the white thumbnail to the right of the layer thumbnail). Press B to grab the Brush tool and, at the bottom of Tools panel, set the foreground color chip to black. (In the realm of the layer mask, painting with black conceals and painting with white reveals.) Next, mouse over to your document and use the Brush tool to paint over any area you want to bring back its original color. If you bring back too much color, press X to flip-flop your color chips so you're painting with white, and then paint that area to make it black and white again.
3. Portrait popper. You can make Photoshop add a soft, darkened edge around any photo in seconds...if you know which filter to reach for. Choose Filter > Distort > Lens Correction, then grab the Vignette slider and drag it all the way to the left. To darken the edge color even more, grab the Midpoint slider and drag it slightly to the left. Click OK and you're finished!
4. Background swap. If you want to add a colorful background to a photo that has a white background, don't waste time creating a selection to delete the background or hide it with a layer mask. Instead, swap backgrounds with the flick of a layer blend mode (blend modes change the way color on one layer interacts with the color on other layers). Simply place the colorful background at the top of your layers stack and use the pop-up menu at the top of the Layers panel to change that layer's blend mode to Darken. Like magic, wherever the two layers intersect, only the darkest colors will remain. If necessary, you can use a layer mask to hide parts of the new background, as shown here.
5. Quick color boost. Photoshop CS4 gives you a quick new way to make the colors in your image pop without harming the original image. It's called the Vibrance Adjustment layer, and you can find it on the right side of your screen in the new Adjustments panel (or by clicking the half black/half white circle at the bottom of your Layers panel). Once you've created the Vibrance Adjustment layer, drag the Vibrance slider all the way to the right, and it intensifies the colors in your image. Happily, it has less of an effect on bright colors (because they're already highly saturated) than on lighter tones, yet it leaves skin tones relatively unchanged.
Now Hear This
The iPod's volume-limit controls let you lower the player's maximum loudness level to help protect your (or your child's) ears. On the Nano, set your sonic limits by choosing to Settings→Playback→Volume Limit. On the Classic, choose Settings→Volume Limit. On the Touch, choose Settings→Music→Volume Limit.
Art Collecting By Hand
To make the Cover Flow feature in iTunes look great, use the Advanced→Get Album Artwork command to have the program round up missing album covers for songs in your music library. If you get an alert box with the number of things iTunes couldn't find, click the triangle or plus icon in the box to see what's missing. Click the Save button to dump the notes into a text file that you can use as a shopping list. Now you know what art you need to snag off of the Web from Amazon.com or other cover-rich sites.
The iPod as Pocket Watch
Have your iPod Classic or Nano tell you the time on the main screen--without having to fumble down to the built-in clock. Just choose Settings→Date & Time and select the Time in Title option to always have a clock displayed in the top bar on the iPod screen.
Return to the Beginning
The iPod Shuffle has no screen to tell you what song you're on, but you can get back to the first track in the playlist by quickly pressing the Play/Pause button three times.
Playlist Shortcuts
Right-click (or control-click) any track in the iTunes library and choose Add to Playlist to instantly place that song on an existing playlist. And if you want to see just how many playlists include a particular song already, right-click (or control-click) the track and choose Show in Playlist.
A Touching Story
Turn your iPod Touch into a pocket ebook reader with Lexcycle's free Stanza program, available in the iTunes App Store. Once the app is on your Touch, you can download all kinds of free books and classic works from Stanza's online catalog. The program also lets you adjust the font size and spacing of the onscreen text to make it all easy on the eyes.
A Nano Battery Booster
Want to squeeze out all the music you can between battery charges on that new Nano? Choose Settings→Playback→Energy Saver→On. With Engery Saver on, the Nano's battery-hogging screen gets quickly turned off when you aren't actively clicking buttons or scrolling around menus.
Sort iTunes Music Your Way
Press Control-J (Command-J on a Mac) in iTunes to open up the View Options box--which gives you all sorts of useful columns you can add to iTunes. Some of these include Equalizer settings, Last Played, and Date Added. Click the top of any column in the iTunes window to sort your collection based on that factor. Sorting by Play Count, for example, lets you see which tunes are in heavy rotation and which songs you've been neglecting.
Clip and Save Time
Tired of having to go to Safari first to get to your bookmarked Web faves? The iPod Touch lets you add one-tap shortcut icons called Web Clips right to the Home screen. When you have a site you want to add, tap the + button and then on the "Add to Home Screen" button. When you tap that new icon on the Home screen, Safari opens automatically and takes you right to the part of the page that was on display when you saved it.
My Main Menu
You're not stuck with Apple's default items out on your iPod's main menu screen. If you want a shortcut to your calendar, games, or other favorite destinations, add
Geniuses don't just hang out at the Apple Store. With iTunes 8, you get your very own music-mixing expert. Once activated, the new Genius Playlists feature whips up instant song lists in your iTunes library that, well, play nice together. You select a song and the Genius pulls together other tunes that it thinks groove well together.
To use it, click the "Turn On Genius" button on the right side of the iTunes window, or choose Store→Turn On Genius. Be prepared to type in your iTunes account name and password, though, because Apple needs to "gather information" about your iTunes library before making Genius work for you. Once Apple's finished analyzing your collection, click a song title in your library and then click the Genius button down at the bottom of the iTunes window. In a flash, iTunes rounds up at least 25 songs it thinks would sound great with the one you clicked. You can change the number of songs in the playlist and save it for posterity by clicking the buttons at the top of the window. These new playlists now sit alongside all your other lists on the left side of iTunes.
Buy, Buy, Baby!
Having to log into the iTunes Store and get your music collection analyzed makes perfect sense when you see what else the Genius can do. In the Genius Sidebar on the right side of the window, you also get cheerful recommendations of other songs and albums for sale in the iTunes Store that Apple thinks would sound just great on your playlists. If you have an Internet connection, this list changes each time your current song does. Each track has a convenient "Buy" button next to it; if you're prone to impulse shopping but don't want to max out your credit card, close the Genius Sidebar by clicking the small square icon underneath it at the bottom of the iTunes window.
On the Grid
The new Grid view in iTunes 8 turns the main window into a catalog of album covers that you can look at and sort by Album, Artist, Genre, and Composer. Whereas Cover Flow lets you "flip" from one album to the next, Grid view gives you a nice birds-eye view of a much larger assortment of your music. (Activate this view by clicking the box-of-6-squares icon, to the left of the Search box.) Click a cover in a particular view and then click the Play Album (or Artists, Genre, or Composer) icon that appears on the cover. Your music starts up, pronto. And if you find those album covers too large or too small, make them just right by moving the slider at the top of the Grid panel to resize 'em.
Revisit the Visualizer
If you feel like you've seen all the hippie, trippy patterns in the Visualizer already after years of playing iTunes at your desk, check again. The Visualizer option under the View menu now offers an "iTunes Visualizer" submenu with new patterns -- many of which make you feel like you're flying through space while simultaneously burning up the floor at a disco. And if you miss the old laser light show, there's now "Visualizer Classic."
Shake, Rattle, and Rock
Instead of scrolling through menus to mix up your songs with the Shuffle option, just give the new iPod Nano a quick shake to shuffle up your tracks. It's a great way to randomize your music when you don't have time to even look at the iPod's menu. Just keep a tight grip before you shake things up.
Bring Your Game --And Your Movies, Music, and Photos, Too
Thanks to the iTunes App Store and the latest iPod software, the iPod Touch is now a pocket 3-D arcade. The touchscreen and built-in accelerometer let you tap and tilt your way through games so intensely that you may forget that the Touch plays music and movies, too. And you don't need to have headphones plugged in to hear the sound effects -- the new iPod Touch has its own speaker and external volume controls built right in.
1. It's still important to back up your photos. Elements 7 gives you a totally painless way with Photoshop.com. Sign up for a free account and you can set your albums to automatically back themselves up to your space at Photoshop.com. Once you set up album syncing, you don't have to think about it again. It happens automatically. If you have a computer disaster at home, just reinstall Elements on the new computer, turn on the backup/sync option, and sign in to photoshop.com, and your photos reappear on your new computer. This service has some limitations (all detailed in the book), but it's a terrific way to keep an extra copy of important photos. And you still have the regular Organizer options for backing up to CD, DVD, or a different hard drive.
2. Find a size that fits. If you've been using Elements for scrapbooking, take a look at the new file size presets available in Elements 7. There's a whole separate category for scrapbook sizes in the New File dialog box. Now you can create a 12"-, 8"-, or 6"-square sized file without having to set up a custom size.
3. On vacation? Take a private tour. If your "staycation" this year takes you to a nearby tourist spot along with everyone else in your state, you can get rid of those strangers crowding into your photos--as long as you plan ahead a little. Start by getting a series of pictures that give you enough clear spots, even if there are people you don't know meandering somewhere through every photo. Then you can combine the pictures with the Elements 7 Scene Cleaner to create an image of Aunt Esmeralda and Cousin Wilberforce standing in front of the falls all by themselves, with nobody else around.
4. Make slideshows like a pro. With Elements 7 you can share your albums with dynamite, professional-looking galleries. Create a gallery where your photos appear as a pile of old-fashioned slides. Your friends can then sort through, and click the ones they like, to see a larger view. Elements has other gallery options that let you create a virtual book where your visitors "turn" the page with the mouse. And you can host these at Photoshop.com (Photoshopshowcase.com outside the US), burn them to a CD or DVD, or even post them on your own Web site if you don't want to use Photoshop.com.
5. Create beautiful skin. If you like glamour-type photography, check out the new Surface blur filter to create dreamy looking skin quality. It blurs without losing edge detail: perfect for smoothing skin in portraits.
6. Make dramatic skies. If you're a beginner, try the new Quick Fix/Touch Up tool for making the sky bluer--maybe too blue (and kind of green) if truth be told. Fortunately, you can soften up the effect once you're done. Go back to Full Edit and find the Layers palette (you don't need to understand layers for this maneuver). Click once on the layer that Elements just added to your photo (it's called Blue Skies), and then go up to the top of the palette and move the opacity slider to the left. Watch your photo as you move the slider. When it looks real, you're done. (Click the bottom layer, the one called Background, before you leave the Layers palette. That way you can make more edits to your photos.) Another option: You may prefer the results you get using the Smart Brush in Full Edit, if your sky has any clouds in it. In the tool presets in the Options bar, go to Nature->Cloud Contrast and drag across the sky. Presto, your clouds really stand out!
7. Never, ever work on your original photo. If you use the Organizer, good news: Elements already has your back. It creates version sets, which save different states of your image as you edit. You can create as many different versions of a photo as you like and go back to any one of them at any time. And if you're working with Raw files, even better news: You can't alter your original (only the conversion settings). If you don't use the Organizer, make a copy of the picture (File- >Duplicate) and work on that. This way you can always start over again if you get a better idea later on.
8. Sharing photos with the Organizer. There are all kinds of fun, creative ways to share photos in Elements 7, and the Organizer makes it super easy to explore them all. Try a slideshow with music and commentary, or upload your photos to EasyShare or one of the other online services to create mugs, bags, and other cool gift items with your photos on them.
9. Don't scorn the auto buttons. If you've never tried these one-click fixes--Auto Levels or Auto Color, for example--give 'em a try. Each version of Elements gets a little smarter and you may find that you like the results you get from one of these easy-to-use fixes.
10. Panoramas for everyone. You don't need to feel wistful anymore about the fact that your point and shoot camera's lens doesn't have a true wide-angle setting. Take a series of photos with, ideally, about a 30 percent overlap and Elements' Photomerge will automatically stitch them together into a panorama wider than you could have captured with the widest lens. Photomerge is really amazing--it's totally automated and it does terrific blending to eliminate visible seams between images.
The beauty of the new iPhone 3G is that you don't need one. Almost all of the juicy stuff actually comes with the iPhone 2.0 software and the online App Store, both of which run perfectly well on the old iPhone as well.
That, incidentally, is also the beauty of "iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition." It covers both the old and the new iPhones, because it covers the 2.0 software, the iPhone App Store, and so on.
Here are a few of my favorite tips from the book.
At the top of the screen, little icons indicate how you're connected to the Internet: an E for the vast but dog-slow AT&T Edge network, a 3G icon if you're on the faster but limited-area AT&T third-generation network, and radiating signal bars if you're on Wi-Fi.
The tip here: The two cellular icons (E and 3G) disappear whenever you're on Wi-Fi. That's not a mistake. The iPhone assumes that Wi-Fi is faster and better than any cellular network, and if you're on it, you don't care about E or 3G (and it's right).
Unfortunately, 3G is a battery hog. If you don't see a 3G icon on your iPhone 3G's status bar, then you're not in a 3G hot spot, and you're not getting any benefit from the phone's 3G radio. By turning it off, you'll double the length of your iPhone 3G's battery power, from 5 hours of talk time to 10.
To do so, from the Home screen, tap Settings->General->Network-> Enable 3G Off. Yes, this is sort of a hassle, but if you're anticipating a long day and you can't risk the battery dying halfway through, it might be worth doing. After all, most 3G phones don't even let you turn off their 3G circuitry.
More ways to save power: turn off more features. In Settings, you can turn off Bluetooth; Wi-Fi; GPS; "push" data; and the cellphone radio. Each saves you another bit of power.
When typing on the on-screen keyboard, you can save time by deliberately leaving out the apostrophe in contractions like I'm, don't, can't, and so on. Type im, dont, cant, and so on. The iPhone proposes I'm, don't, or can't, so you can just tap the Space bar to fix the word and continue.
To produce an accented character (like é, ë, è, ê, and so on), keep your finger pressed on that key for 1 second. A palette of accented alternatives appears; slide onto the one you want. (Keys that sprout these alternative versions: A, E, Y, U, I, O, S, L, Z, C, N, ?, ', ", $, and !.)
Even if you've engaged the silencer switch on the side, the iPhone still sounds any alarm you've set. Good to know.
You probably already know that you can rearrange your Home screen, and even set up multiple Home screens (up to 9). Just hold your finger down on any one icon until they all begin to wiggle. Now you can drag them to rearrange them (even onto the Dock of four special icons at the bottom), or drag off to the right to create a new Home screen.
And what if, in the process of downloading and then deleting new App store programs, you wind up with unsightly gaps on your Home screens? Here's a quick way to consolidate them onto a smaller number of full Home screens, without gaps: tap Settings->General-> Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout. If you'd put 10 programs on each of four Home screens, you wind up with only two screens, each packed with 20 icons. Any leftover blank pages are eliminated.
If you come to the iPhone from another, lesser GSM phone, your phone book may be stored on its little SIM card instead of in the phone itself. In that case, you don't have to retype all of those names and numbers to bring them into your iPhone. In Settings->Contacts, the new Import SIM Contacts button can do the job for you. (The results may not be pretty. For example, some phones store all address-book data in CAPITAL LETTERS.)
If you've indulged yourself by downloading some goodies from the App Store, then you may find yourself wondering where you're supposed to adjust their preferences. Turns out they often get stashed away in a completely different program--in Settings. That's where Apple encourages software authors to locate their own setting screens. For example, here's where you can edit your screen name and password for the AIM chat program, change how many days' worth of news you want the NY Times Reader to display, and so on.
Don't type http://www or .com when entering Web addresses. Safari is smart enough to know that most Web addresses use that format--so you can leave all that stuff out, and it will supply them automatically. Instead of http://www.cnn.com, for example, just type cnn and hit Go.
Don't type .net, .org, or .edu, either. Safari's secret pop-up menu of canned URL choices can save you four keyboard-taps apiece. To see it, hold your finger down on the .com button. Then tap the common suffix you want.
The iPhone can now geotag the photos you take with it. Geotagging means, "embedding your latitude and longitude information into a photo when you take it." After all, every digital picture you've ever taken comes with its time and date invisibly embedded in its file; why not its location? So the good news is that the iPhone can geotag every photo you take. How you get to see this information, is a bit trickier.
Once the photos are synced to your computer, you can view the geotag information in iPhoto (the Get Info command reveals latitude and longitude), Preview (the Inspector window shows a map), Picasa (use the Tools->Geotag menu to see the photo's location in Google Earth). Unfortunately, the iPhone strips away the geotags whenever you send a photo by e-mail. That's a good argument for using the free downloadable program AirMe instead of the iPhone's built-in camera program. It avoids that geotag-stripping problem and many others.
