If your WordPress site is stuck at the maintenance screen (“Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”), this tip will clear the issue up really quick. Read more…

iPhone: Make Voice Control More Useful

Jul 21, 2010 | Technology > iOS, iPhone, Tips, Voice Dialing 0 Comments

 

Since the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone has had the ability to dial a number or contact, start playing an artist or album in the iPod, and numerous other commands via Voice Control. After playing around with my new iPhone 4, I’ve learned a couple of tricks on making Voice Control work better for me. Read more…

When I’m going to check my email or Facebook, I tend to type a little too fast in the address bar. Often I’ll type http://gma or http://faceb and hit return too fast. This can cause a lot of issues in Safari (or any other browser, I would assume), because it keeps these incorrect (and non-existant) pages in its history (my ISP is a DNS-hijacker). Now if I go to type the first part of the domain (e.g. http://gma) to have the browser autocomplete the address, the browser won’t because of that mistyped entry. Read more…

For the most part, I’m in no real position to offer anyone financial advice. Almost everything I live by financially has come from “common sense” point-of-view, or from learning from other people’s mistakes. However, I do have a tip to share: check your statements; credit card or bank, checking your statements can be vital to your financial security. Thanks to this fast and simple rule, I saved myself from some possibly-large financial trouble. Read more…

Of all the rules in the English language, the battle between “who vs. whom” is the one I dislike the most. These two words are so similar, and normally I would just fall back on who, hoping no one would call me out or notice. Well, it’s time to put an end to that! Read more…

<WBR>: A Useful, but Little-Known, HTML Tag

Mar 25, 2010 | Technology > HTML, tags, Tips, wbr 0 Comments

 

A little-known HTML tag can save a lot of headache when it comes to displaying file-paths, lines of code, or other long lines of text: <WBR>. Read more…

Blackboard Tip: Have Messages Delivered via Email

Mar 4, 2010 | Technology > Blackboard, Ferris State University, FerrisConnect, Tips 0 Comments

 

Ferris State University uses Blackboard (sadly) for its online classes. For a while, there were times that I didn’t know if I was receiving a message from a teacher or other student. After digging through the settings, I found an option to automatically forward all messages to my personal email account. Read more…

Terminal Tip: Symbolically Linking Wildcard Filenames

Mar 2, 2010 | Technology > Bash, ln -s, Shell, Terminal, Tips 0 Comments

 

I am currently researching a Dropbox-based preference syncing solution for Mac OS X. In my research, I came across a really handy terminal tip. If you want to symbolically link (ln –s source target) a file or folder to another location that follows a named pattern, such as com.adobe.*, you can supply the pattern for the link source parameter. Read more…

If you use a Mac, there are tons of text navigation tools at your disposal. One of the little known is navigating text by word:

• Move your cursor between words: alt + Left or Right Arrow Key. This lets you jump between words in a sentence. This is helpful when you find that you mistyped a word earlier in a sentence, and you don’t want to use your mouse to move your cursor to the right spot.
• Move your cursor between paragraphs: alt + Up or Down Arrow Key. This lets you jump to the beginnings and ends of paragraphs, and is very useful when navigating large amounts of text.
• Delete the previous word: alt+delete. If you want to delete the last word you typed, this combination is handy.
• Delete the next word: alt+forward delete (fn+delete on laptops). Similar to the previous tip, this deletes the word in front of your cursor.

Do you have any other text navigation tips?

Update: Added the paragraph navigation tip.