Useful Tips and Tricks for iPad Users

The iPad is a great tool for both entertainment and productivity. To get the most out of it, however, you have to know its secrets, and here are  of the best ones:

1: Using the sidebar

According to Time, the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro sport a cool new feature: the ability to open apps up in a special sidebar without leaving your existing app. All you have to do is swipe a finger from the right to bring up a list of all apps compatible with this feature. Click your desired app and begin multitasking right away!

2: Use your iPad as a virtual card table

Many people don’t realize the amount of traditional tabletop games that the iPad can replace – including a deck of cards! According to Business Insider, the Card Table app allows users to view their hand of cards on their compatible smartphones and use the iPad as a virtual table. Just like that, you’ve got the fun of 52 cards without the worry of picking them up!

3: Hands-free messaging

According to Apple’s own website, one of the simplest iPad tricks is to let Siri handle your messaging. She interacts with your contact list and allows you to send messages by referencing a person’s name, such as telling the iPad “Tell Brad that dinner is at 6:00.” This is great when your hands are occupied by those same dinner preparations.

4: Never stop watching video

From cute cat videos to insightful instructions, we live in a world where video dominates everything. It’s annoying to stop what you are watching to accomplish more mundane tasks like responding to emails. According to Time, the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro let you do both at the same time. Simply press the home button when you are watching videos or using Facetime and the video minimizes to the bottom right corner of the screen while you use other apps.

5: Instant exposure adjustment

One of the greatest abilities of the iPad is to take photos and immediately edit them. With iOS , adjusting exposure is easier than ever. According to Apple, you simply tap where you want to establish the automatic exposure and focus. Then, all you have to do is slide your fingers up and down to adjust the picture’s exposure.

6: Create a second monitor

According to Business Insider, you can use apps such as Air Display 2 to create a second monitor. This is great for those who want extra productivity or just want to double their onscreen fun, all for a fraction of the price of an actual new monitor.

7: Browse all of your files anywhere, anytime

The Apple website notes that the iCloud drive app allows you to browse and open all of your files via compatible applications on your iPad. This helps save time and space in not having to keep the files you want on your iPad at all times.

8: Use virtual buttons

No one likes to imagine their shiny new iPad getting damaged. After all, a broken button can feel like a death sentence for electronics. However, Business Insider notes you can enable Assistive Touch and begin creating virtual buttons for things like the home button, volume buttons, and screen lock buttons. This ensures your device can live long past its outer shell!

9: Sketch on your iPad

Whether it’s killing time in a classroom or laying the conceptual foundation for your next work of art, sketching is a time-honored pencil and paper tradition. As the Apple website notes, you can keep this tradition alive on your iPad as well by using the drawing tools in the Notepad app. This lets you use your finger to doodle. Mess up your sketch? The eraser is just a touch away!

10: Read more easily at night

It doesn't take long for iPad users to see that reading at night can be downright painful as read black letters against a blinding background. Business Insider notes you can go to your Accessibility settings and invert colors. Now, the background is black and the letters are white, making night reading a breeze!

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Twitter Shortcuts Must Know

Twitter is the second most used social networking website after Facebook with lots of unique visitors each month. Huge Number! also you too have an account on (Twitter) and if not an active user you must be reading tweets, posting new tweets or re-tweet or favorites etc at least once every day. Despite of your daily tour to twitter, am sure many of you are not aware of keyboard short-cuts that can actually save tons of your time which can be used for other productive work.

These keyboard shortcuts are not discovered but, are actually listed on the main site of Twitter. Follow the below steps to check the shortcuts listed on your twitter home page.

Step 1 – Login to your twitter account. Step 2 – Scroll to the top right corner of the page and click on your profile image. Step 3 – From the drop down select “Keyboard shortcuts” and you we see the short cut window as featured below.

Twitter shortcuts for various twitter actions

1. n “create a new tweet”

You can compose a new tweet by just clicking that letter ‘n’. No playing with the mouse. Just click ‘n’ and start writing.

2. r “Reply”

If you want to reply to a tweet, just click r. A word of caution, you have to first select the tweet in order to revert. As other shortcuts, it does not work on Home screen.
Quite obvious! how can you reply while at the home screen.

3. f “Favorite”

Favorite a tweet is although simple by mouse click, still in case your mouse isn’t functional, use ‘f’ to favorite any tweet but, do select it using J-k as ‘f’ also does not function on home page.

4. t “Re-tweet”

Press ‘t’ and you are done wit re-tweeting. Same as ‘f’ and ‘r’, you first have to select the tweet in order to re-tweet, quit logical! isn’t it..

5. u “Mute user”

There is always if not more, 1 user who’s tweet we cannot withstand. Your best pick in this situation is the key “u”. Go to the users’s profile or select the tweet and press “u”.

6. b “block user”

As you mute the user, you also have an option to block the user. Try it yourself.

7. m “Direct message”

Send direct message to any one on your list by pressing ‘m’. Simple and Direct!

8. Enter “open tweet details”

Hit enter while navigating through different tweets in order to open them.

9. l “close all open tweets”

”l’ in twitter stands for closing all the open tweets. Press ‘l’ and close all the opened tweets at once. Big time saver!

  10. / “Search”

Pressing /”Forward slash key ” take you to the search dialog box on the top right corner of the page where you can enter your query.

11. Ctrl+Enter “Send tweet”

We generally use Enter key to send emails, messages etc but, the same isn’t true in case of twitter. Hitting Enter will only lead you to next line nothing else. So club ‘Ctrl’ key with ‘Enter’ in order to post your tweet.

Navigation twitter shortcuts

12. k “traverse to previous tweet”

The letter ‘k’ will allow you to go to previous tweet.

13. j “traverse to next tweet”

Similar to ‘k’, ‘j’ allow you to move to next tweet. K- J back and forth

14. ? “shortcut key Menu”

If you are unable to memorize all the shortcut keys listed in this post, its not a big deal just remember to press “?” key and shortcut key page will be opened on your screen.

15. Spacebar “page down”

Give rest to the mouse wheel, instead press space-bar to scroll your twitter page down.

16. “.” load new tweets

Whenever you see a message “45 new tweets” “100 new tweets”, no need to drag all the way to the top of the page, just press “.” and full-stop that counter.

Timelines shortcuts

17. g+h “Home”

Press ‘g’ followed by ‘h’ and go to your homepage.

18. g+n “notifications”

Press ‘g’ followed by ‘n’ and open the notification page at a wink.

19. g+r “mentions”

Wanna know who all are talking about you? Hit ‘g’+’r’.

20. g+p “profile”

Open your own profile and make all those much awaited changes by pressing ‘g’ and then ‘p’.

21. g+f “Favorite”

Check what all tweets you have favorite by pressing ‘g’ followed by ‘f’.

22. g+l “list”

Check the lists being created by you through this “g+l” shortcut and save your precious time.

23. g+m “messages”

Check all your messages quickly by pressing ‘g’ then ‘m’.

24. g+s “settings”

Press ‘g’ followed by ‘s’ and bypass that drop down menu.

25. g+u “go to user profile”

Searching a specific person through twitter search bar is such a waste of time, rather press g then u and type twitter handle.
This list of keyboard short-cuts would definitely save you a lot of time and still spend much more on Twitter. Let us know which one’s you use more frequently.

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