Archive for November 2013

Train iOS Autocorrect to Stop Correcting Specific Words




The iOS Autocorrect feature is notorious for being very aggressive in correcting certain words, particularly those words with colorful, offensive, or controversial meanings – basically any curse word. If you get fed up with autocorrects persistent mouth (finger?) soap, you can either use shortcuts to automatically replace the words that autocorrect struggles with, try to force learning with word repetition, or, perhaps easiest and new since iOS 7; use the excellent Safari Search trick outlined below to train autocorrect to stop correcting specific words, and to also learn new words:


  1. Open Safari in iOS (yes, the web browser) and open a new window / tab

  2. Tap in the topmost “Search” box and type the word you want autocorrect to stop correcting, then tap on “Go” to search for it

  3. Now go back to any text editor, Messages, etc, to type the originally intended word – no more autocorrecting it!


This is extremely effective if you’ve been struggling with the iPhone / iPad autocorrecting certain names, or the many infamous curse word corrections of duckings, tucks, ducks, shots, ships, bass wholes, and all the rest. (excuse the language)


If you put a typo into the Safari search box and now autocorrect is making things even worse, you can always start over again by resetting the entire autocorrect dictionary within iOS to the defaults, just keep in mind that everything autocorrect related will be cleared out and all of your typing corrections and learning will start from scratch with that approach.

Overall this is probably a better trick than using the shortcuts method because it won’t clutter up the Keyboard Shortcuts and text expansion, which is better used as intended for quickly typing out things like email addresses, long names, and phrases.

Heads up to Gizmodo for the excellent find! source

Correct How Siri Pronounces Names in iOS

 While Siri is great at pronouncing some common names, Siri can also completely blunder on others, turning a first or last name into an almost unrecognizable mess of noises that barely resembles the way the name actually sounds. Fortunately, iOS now makes it very easy to correct Siri directly and verbally, so the next time Siri messes up you can instantly fix the pronunciation and get her to speak the right way. Or you can preempt any mistake, and with names that you anticipate Siri to mispronounce you can correct before the virtual assistant has a chance to screw it up by teaching her (or he!) the right way to say a name.

Correcting Siri Name Mispronuncations


Use this trick after Siri has messed up a name:


  1. Summon Siri as usual, either by holding down the Home button or the earbud button

  2. Tell Siri “That’s not how you pronounce [name]“

  3. Provide the proper pronunciation for the name in question

  4. Let Siri provide three alternate pronunciations for the name based upon your verbal input, listen to the three, and choose “Select” for the most accurate method of pronunciation


Teach Siri How to Properly Pronounce a Name


Would you rather teach Siri of the proper way to pronounce a name?


  1. Summon Siri and say: “Pronounce the name [name] as [pronunciation]“

  2. Let Siri confirm the name from the contacts, choose “Yes” or “No” as needed to move to the next step

  3. Select the best of the three options Siri has offered as the pronunciation based upon your speech

If the three pronunciation examples that Siri provides are way off, tap on “Tell Siri Again” to offer the proper way again. For the most part it will offer a close-enough option in at least one of the initial three, but if Siri completely fails then tap the Tell Again option and annunciate each distinct syllable a bit closer.

Repeat this as necessary for names that Siri is mispronouncing, and you can also choose to correct either the first name and last name, or go all in one and correct the entire names pronunciation if the assistant is butchering the whole thing. Fixing the pronunciation is also important for improved name recognition for contacts with defined relationships, and just natural language commands in general.

This works the same on the iPad and iPhone, so long as the device as Siri support and at least iOS 7.0 or newer. Prior to iOS 7, users had to go about adding the phonetic spelling of a name to fix (or at least improve) how Siri pronounced names. The phonetic spelling trick continues to work, and if the verbal pronunciation correction doesn’t fix how she/he speaks the name, it may still be the only option.
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Move Dashboard To Another Space Location in Mission Control for OS X



Move Dashboard within Spaces in OS X


Dashboard is the largely under loved and unappreciated feature of Mac OS X that gives you quick access to a variety of widgets, providing things like weather info, quick unit conversion, a dictionary, world clocks, and whatever else you have setup in there. The newer versions of OS X have turned Dashboard into a dedicated Space, making it a unique virtual desktop of sorts and throwing it in with desktops and fullscreen apps, and up until OS X Mavericks it was stuck on the far left of Spaces within Mission Control. Now that has changed, and since OS X 10.9 the Dashboard can be moved to a new space location, just like any other Desktop Space or app in full screen mode:



  • Open Mission Control, typically this is done with a three-finger swipe up gesture on a trackpad or MagicMouse, or by hitting the F3 key

  • Click and hold on the “Dashboard” space, and drag and drop it to a new location


You can choose to place Dashboard between existing desktop spaces, full screen apps, or to the far right end or left side (the default).


Move Dashboard in OS X Mission Control with a drag and drop


Rearranging the placement of Dashboard will change where it shows up when skipping between desktop Spaces and Full Screen Apps, whether you’re using the swipe gestures or control key tricks to navigate around or jump between them. If you’re accustomed to a specific workflow with those, adjusting Dashboard position in Mission Control may not be the best idea.


Note this won’t have any effect if you choose to use Dashboard outside of Mission Control, meaning used alone and not as a Space. Personally, I prefer that latter option and to have Dashboard overlay atop the desktop screen and whatever is currently active on the display. This is obviously a matter of personal preference, but to me that provides for the quickest access to things like world clocks, weather, and the dictionary/thesaurus. Nonetheless, for those who prefer Dashboard as a dedicated Space, this can be a handy trick. Thanks to Pete R. for sending in the tip!




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Use a Swipe Gesture to Go Back in Many iOS 7 Apps



Swipe to go back with a gesture in iOS apps


iOS 7 has introduced a new gesture-based method of navigating back to prior pages, screens, and panels throughout many apps on the iPhone. Essentially, this gesture can be used to replace the “Back” button, and though not all apps support the swipe-to-go-back gesture yet, plenty of Apple defaults do. For now, you can definitely use the trick for going backwards in Safari to a prior web page, back in Settings panels, App Store screens, within the iTunes Store, and a handful of others too. It’s a simple swipe back gesture similar to what would be used to navigate around the home screen panels of icons, but it does require a tad more precision and thus may take a little bit of practice to get right:



  • Navigate within a compatible app so that a “Back” choice is optional, be it to a new web page or deeper in a Settings screen panel

  • Swipe to the right to go back, try to make the swipe as horizontal as possible


The right-swipe gesture really must be almost perfectly horizontal to trigger the back movement, otherwise you’ll likely scroll slightly down or up instead.


Go back with a right swipe gesture


It does take a bit of practice, but usually after a few tries you’ll perfect it rather quickly, even if it’s not nearly as forgiving as some of the other iOS 7 gestures, like the one to quit an app. It’s likely more strict to avoid accidentally triggering, but it does give it a slight learning curve to master.


Once you get the hang of it, you’ll find the back-swipe gesture can make it easier to go back a page/panel when using a smaller screened device with a single hand, like an iPhone or iPod touch, since it can be activated with just a move of the thumb. It’s still handy on the iPad too, but be sure to use a single finger or touch point, otherwise you may wind up unintentionally triggering the app switcher or one of the other iPad specific gestures instead.


Swipe navigation and touch based gestures aren’t particularly new, they’ve been on the iPad for a while, and for Mac users with trackpads or a Magic Mouse, within OS X too for navigating within Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Mission Control, skipping between Spaces, moving about the Finder, and, pretty much identical to this trick for iOS yet for OS X, go back within a lot of Mac apps too.




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Navigate Through the Home Screens of iOS with a Quick Tap







Just about every iPhone and iPad owner knows that you can navigate between pages of icons on the iOS Home Screen by using a left or right swipe gesture (if you don’t know this, well, now you do). But if gestures aren’t your thing, there is another lesser known option to flip home screens, and all it takes is a simple tap.




From the iOS Home Screen, tap near the lower corners of the screen, directly above the Dock

Tap left to jump left, tap on the right to jump to the right





Describing this is one thing, but it really should be tried yourself to get the hang of it and to determine the precise touch points on your device. The image below demonstrates the general region that is tapable to flip between home screens:









The tap targets are fairly generous on both the iPhone and iPad, almost anywhere left of the little ••• dots will flip another screen to the left, and almost anywhere to the right of the ••• dots will flip over to the next screen to the right. When you wind up at the further screen one way or another, the tap targets no longer do anything.




Whether or not this is quicker than using a swipe gesture really depends on your individual usage situation, habits, and needs. This can be a great solution for those unable to use traditional gestures as well, which in some ways makes this a valid accessibility tip just as much as an alternative to the swipe, since for some users it’s easier to do a single tap than a complete swipe. Along those lines, remember that a single tap on the home button from the icon views will return to the primary home screen of icons, which can also be mimicked with a keyboard shortcut for navigation for those using external keyboards with their iOS devices.




One small oversight pertains to the dot based tap targets within Folders, where they seemingly do not function as intended and will often just close the folder instead. That does feel like an oversight though, so one may expect a change to resolve that issue in a future iOS update.













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How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line

FileVault is a security feature that offers full disk encryption for Macs. Identifying Macs that are using FileVault is fairly easy in person for machines that have a logged in user account, all you have to do is check System Preferences to see if has been enabled or not. But what if you the Mac is either not logged into a user account, or what if you need to identify Filevault usage remotely? Both of these situations can call for using the command line to figure out the status of disk encryption.




From the command line (either remotely, or locally) enter the following command string:




sudo fdesetup status




There are only two possible responses to that command query, and the results are impossible to misidentify because you’ll either see:




FileVault is On.




Indicating FileVault encryption is enabled on that specific Mac, or you’ll see:




FileVault is Off.




Which of course tells you the Mac is not using the full disk encryption.




This command line trick can be helpful when trying to identify a Mac using FileVault encryption when logged in remotely through SSH, Screen Sharing with VNC, or when booting into the command line through Single User Mode. A quick note about the latter situation; modern Macs with FileVault enabled will not allow a user to enter into Single User Mode without entering an administrator password beforehand, thus if the login screen pops up much earlier in the OS X boot process then you can also determine that the Mac has FileVault turned on.




Now that a Mac has been determined to be using Filevault or not, the next obvious question would be whether or not you can turn on FileVault through the command line as well. The answer to that is yes, and you’d need to be using the same fdesetup command. We’ll cover that more thoroughly in another article, but for those interested now you can turn to the fdesetup man page for more immediate information.













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Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks







A fair amount of Mac users running OS X Mavericks have discovered a peculiar slow speed issue when attempting to use various actions found in the File menu, including the Open, Save, and Export dialog boxes. The problem manifests as an intensely slow lag when trying to use the Open or Save dialog windows, where the spinning beachball shows up, spins aimlessly for 3-15 seconds, followed by a lengthy slow delay before any files or folders populate the file action windows and allow a user to proceed.









This behavior is almost certainly a bug and not all users of OS X Mavericks encounter the problem, thus if you have not experienced this issue there is no reason to make any changes. That said, plenty of commenters in our Mavericks Finder speed fix article also have the slow dialog box problem, and thankfully a workaround solution has been found on Apple Support Forums (thanks Droo!) that may work for some other users encountering the issue.




Note this solution is a workaround, not a proper fix. The slow Open/Save issue seems to pertain to accessing network drives, and this workaround prevents network shares from automatically mounting. Accordingly, this will not be a valid option for users who map network drives for auto mounting, or for users who rely on automating network shares in any way. You must edit a system file using the command line, if you are not comfortable with Terminal then waiting for an official bug fix is probably a better idea.




Launch Terminal and enter the following command:




sudo nano /etc/auto_master




Enter an admin password when requested, then find the line that says “/net -hosts ….” looking something like this:




/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid




Use the arrow keys to navigate to the front of that string, and then place a # (pound sign) in front of the / to signify that it has been commented out, it should now look something like this:




#/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid




The modified /etc/auto_master file should now look like this, the #/net has been highlighted:









Now hit Control+O to save the file, then Control+X to exit out of the nano text editor and return back to the command line.




Now you must flush the automount cache, so type the following command string:




sudo automount -vc




Now you should be good to go, so exit out of Terminal and try to access any Open, Save, or Export dialog box window again. The slowness should be gone completely, and you’ll be back to speedy file interactions through the dialog windows as expected.




This bug has been encountered and reported enough that we can assume a solution from Apple is likely to be due in a future OS X Mavericks update, be it 10.9.1 or otherwise. If you do use this automount workaround, remember to remove the # from the /net entry in auto_mount if and when an official bug fix arrives from Apple.













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Show the URL of ‘Safari Web Content’ Process ID in Activity Monitor for OS X







Regular users of the Safari web browser will be pleased to discover a great little trick that has been added to the Activity Monitor app in OS X Mavericks; the ability to see what URL is associated with each “Safari Web Content” process ID, thereby providing the ability to quickly find exactly which web pages are consuming resources or going errant. This is all done directly from the general Mac OS X task manager, which allows you to immediately kill a task if need be. Using this trick is super easy:




Open the Safari web browser and open a URL or two, they can be either in tabs or windows

Now launch “Activity Monitor”, found within /Applications/Utilities/ (perhaps easier to launch through Spotlight)

Use the search field to narrow down results by “Safari”

Hover the mouse cursor over each “Safari Web Content” process name to see the associated URL










This makes it so much easier to figure out what web site or web page is causing excessive CPU (processor) usage, memory use, or power drain, allowing users to target and kill a specific URL tab or window that is causing excess resource use. Once an errant process and/or URL has been identified, you can instantly take action and kill the task by selecting that individual “Safari Web Process” ID within Activity Monitor, then clicking the (X) button to initiate a specific kill for that given task. The specificity makes this greatly preferential to forcibly quitting the entire OS X Safari app, since you won’t lose the remainder of your browser session.




Unsurprisingly, the web page URLs that are the most frequent consumers of large amounts of system resources are those with tons of Javascript, Java, animation, Flash, or some other third party plugin or poorly constructed script. Web pages that are better optimized or lighter weight will typically not use significant system resources after the initial loading period has been completed.




Prior to this addition to Activity Monitor in Mavericks, longtime Safari users know it was basically a guessing game, where the only solution was to sort by CPU and then start killing processes, waiting to see which web page was the culprit of the heavy resource use. Safari’s integration with Activity Monitor is not quite as useful or as powerful as the Google Chrome Task Manager, which gives very specific information for each individual open URL within the Chrome browser. The Chrome Task Manager also is contained entirely within the web browser which prevents Activity Monitor from having to be opened separately (though users can still target individual Chrome tabs and windows too with, if desired), but overall the addition to Safari’s abilities through the general OS X task manager is a great step in the right direction.




Thanks to Joshua C. for sending in this great trick found over at MacWorld.













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