Every Kindle user probably has their own routine for managing e-books: buying books, organizing them, sending them to the Kindle reader, and backing them up. Over time, you develop a routine you're used to. At first, like most people, I used Calibre to manage my e-book files. But once I got a second Kindle reader, I started to notice many inconveniences in relying only on Calibre and transferring files to the reader over USB, such as: ...
Didn't expect that, right? Kindle actually has a built-in screenshot feature. It has never appeared in any documentation. I stumbled on it by accident while looking for Kindle tips. Just tap the top-left and bottom-right corners of the screen with your finger, and the screen flashes briefly. At that point the screenshot has been taken. The file is saved on the Kindle. Connect a USB cable and you can view the screenshots on your computer. This method works the same on the Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Oasis. You can take screenshots while reading, or on other screens such as Settings or the home page. ...
Every time I recommend a Kindle to a friend, they hesitate on the purchase page for ages. Should they get 8GB or 32GB? Should they get the Special Offer version with ads, or the ad-free version? A $20 difference is not huge, but compared with the $129 price of the Kindle Paperwhite, it's not small either. So here's my advice, no more hesitation: buy the Kindle with ads, the Special Offer version! Why? Because Amazon quietly put an option to turn off ads in the settings page! Even if you buy the Special Offer version with ads, you can turn them off without hacking or flashing the firmware, and easily remove the ad shown on the screen when the device is off. There is also a nice bonus: from then on, pressing the power button no longer requires swiping right to unlock the screen! ...
After installing Google Drive on macOS, I suspected it was a bug in the program. Even though my system language is set to Traditional Chinese, Google Drive displayed Simplified Chinese. It looked really unfamiliar, so I researched it and found a fix to share with everyone. Just open Terminal and enter the following command, then restart Google Drive, and it will switch to Traditional Chinese: defaults write com.google.GoogleDrive AppleLanguages '("zh-TW")'
macOS has a handy Notification Center. You can write a program to send messages to it, and they’ll appear on screen just like on iOS. But if all you want to do is send a message, you can do it with a single command in Terminal! You don’t need to learn Objective-C or Swift to use macOS’s notification feature. For example, while you wait for tests to run, you might want to make good use of the time by reading some documentation. In that case, you can use Notification to tell you when the tests have finished. You don’t have to worry about getting so absorbed in your reading that you forget the tests are still running, and when they finish, you’ll get a notification right away, so not a moment is wasted! Of course, tests aren’t the only use. Because this Notification works as a command, any program run in Terminal can do the same thing! ...
One of the reasons I like the Mac is that it comes with many useful built-in features, such as screenshots and image editing. Windows has these features too, but they’re pretty much useless, so you end up installing a bunch of apps anyway. Today I’ll show you that Mac OS already has a very powerful screenshot feature! You can even set where screenshots are saved, their format, and more! ...
Sometimes when we install apps on Mac OS, the system shows the message ““OOO” cannot be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.” In the past, we all knew that you only had to go to the Security & Privacy settings in System Preferences and allow apps downloaded from anywhere. But after macOS Sierra, the “Anywhere” option mysteriously disappeared! In fact, Apple hid this option to keep users from installing malicious programs. But an unverified app isn’t necessarily malicious. Many useful apps aren’t certified by Apple for various reasons. For example, some apps use system permissions, or the developer hasn’t bought a developer program (because it costs money!!!), so they can’t get Apple’s certification. It’s hard to justify not letting us use them just for that, right! ...
Online courses are very popular now, and many people record their courses as videos to share online. Whenever I record this kind of “computer tutorial video,” I always wonder how to show the keys you press. Sometimes you’re used to pressing Ctrl + C to copy a piece of text, but viewers can’t tell what you did when they watch the video. Some recording software can capture keystrokes too, by building a virtual keyboard into the recording whenever you press a key. But besides recording software itself, there are also apps that can display the keys you press directly on screen! Besides live streaming and online courses, it’s also very handy for in-person lectures and talks! ...
A while ago I got a real scare from a herniated disc. It made me look into how I use my computer, and I found that most of my posture had been wrong all along. This time it was caused by sitting for long periods, but sitting isn’t the only problem. Looking down at your phone, hunching over your laptop, or having your monitor at the wrong height can all lead to even harder-to-treat herniated discs in the neck! Laptops in particular: most people don’t notice that they use them with the wrong posture. Because laptops are small, using one on a desk means you have to hunch your head down, which puts stress on your neck. Using one for long periods can cause a herniated disc in the neck or other problems. Besides neck herniated discs, I’m sure you’ve also felt your shoulders and neck getting very uncomfortable while hunching over a laptop. In fact, all you need is a suitable laptop stand at a comfortable height, so you don’t have to look down at the screen. That helps a lot with these problems. ...
Since I’m really sleepy, let’s keep it simple and share something small today! Whenever I use vim or Terminal and run into a super long command, I find it annoying to press the arrow keys forever just to get to the position I want. Today I’ll share three ways to quickly move the cursor to a specific spot. ...