In this country, you need a license to do anything that might get you into trouble—like driving a car, owning a gun, or getting married.
But when it comes to technology, they shove you out of the nest without so much as a learner’s permit. Somehow, you’re supposed to be able to intuit how to use your camera, phone, e-book reader, GPS, printer, Web browser, email system, and social network. The more features tech companies add, the more complex these machines get, and the less equipped the average person is to muddle through.
Don’t you wish there were such thing as a standard curriculum for technology? A course that teaches you the essentials?
Here, for your reviewing pleasure, are the ten tips I shared in my TED U talk at TED 2013 in Long Beach, California. Enjoy!
Tap the Space bar to scroll down one screen full on a Web page.
Add the Shift key to scroll up again. Much more convenient than groping for your mouse.
When you’re filling in a form online, press the Tab key to jump from box to box. For a pop- up menu, just type the first letter of your state or country.
Type that letter key repeatedly to cycle through the different state names that begin with that letter.
For example, to choose Texas from a “State” pop-up menu, type the letter T key twice. For California, just type the letter C key once.
For bigger text on a Web page, press Ctrl-plus repeatedly.
That is, while you’re pressing the Ctrl key, tap the + key as necessary to enlarge the text. Use the – key instead (also with Ctrl) to make the text smaller again.
On the Mac, use the c key instead. That is, press c-+ to make the text larger.
On a smartphone, end a sentence by tapping the Space key twice.
That shortcut creates a period; adds a space; and automatically capitalizes the next word you type. (Works on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone.)
To call somebody again, tap the Call button on the dialing pad.
Now Jony’s putting his mark on Apple’s software too, which makes you wonder if there’s any area of design Jony can’t master. Time just released its list of the 100 most influential People in the world, and Ive is the only Apple employee that made the list.
Here’s what Bono had to say about Sir Jony:
Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed steel, polished glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot but also how he applies it. To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple’s design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. Jony is Obi-Wan. His team are Jedi whose nobility depends on the pursuit of greatness over profit, believing the latter will always follow the former, stubbornly passing up near-term good opportunities to pursue great ones in the distance. Jony’s values happen to add value — emotional and financial. It takes a unique alchemy of form and function for millions of people to feel so passionately about the robot in their pocket.
Read more at http://www.cultofmac.com/#JGuAsVQqTKvxd8xW.99
