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Sunday, August 10, 2014

How to improve Mac performance: OS X Mavericks edition

How to improve Mac performance: OS X Mavericks edition


Millions of Mac users are upgrading to the free Apple [AAPL] Mavericks edition of OS X. That's fine for most, but some claim slower Mac performance, if that’s you here's some tips that should help improve system performance. If you're simply having problems installing the OS


[ABOVE: Please backup before you upgrade.]
Don’t Panic
Before we begin, don't panic: Apple's OS teams are likely working hard to address any generalized system glitches identified since launch. A future Apple update will address most widespread problems, meanwhile there are a few steps you can take to figure out what's slowing you down.
Warning: please backup your system
Note: Many users like to create a bootable OS X disk on a flash drive. You can use this to launch from external storage. 
Update everything
Run Software Update after you've installed Mavericks. You should do this to ensure all your Apple software is now running the latest edition. You should also apply all App updates available via the Mac App Store.
Check your apps
Not every application on your system will come from the App Store. This means it is possible a rogue third-party app is eating system performance. One quick way to find out if your apps are Mavericks-compatible is to take a look at the Roaringapps Application Compatibility list. It makes sense to avoid using incompatible applications until they are upgraded for the OS.
The big four: R, S, C, A
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to run a healthy Mac. Now you've updated your system and its apps, please take the following steps:
Number One: Command-R
Restart your Mac while depressing the Command-R key. Your Mac will launch in Recovery Mode. While in this mode, run Disk Utility to Verify and Repair your Disk and Disk Permissions. Restart your Mac.
Number Two: Check Spotlight
OS X will rebuild the Spotlight index after a major System upgrade. The process takes time and degrades performance while it takes place.
Click on the Spotlight (looking glass) icon to the top right of the display to see if indexing is taking place. If indexing is in progress you should see a dot in the middle of the looking glass icon and/or be told the operation is taking place. Allow the process to complete and you should see immediate performance improvement.
Number Three: Console and Activity Monitor
If things still seem slow, launch Console and Activity Monitor (both available in Utilities).
Activity Monitor will show you those apps using the most memory (usual culprits are Mail and Safari).
Console offers a more complex series of system events.
Between the two you should be able to figure out if one of your applications isn't running efficiently -- watch for apps leaving inordinate numbers of messages in Console, or those that quickly use large amounts of Memory in Activity Monitor.
Standard ppractice
There are several standard steps that generally improve Mac performance.
Increase memory: put more RAM in your Mac
Free your memory: Use the award-winning Memory Clean app (free) to free up your existing RAM.
Check for space: OS X likes to create temporary files on the drive in normal use but in order to do so it requires you keep at least 10% of existing drive space free. Being unable to create these files will degrade system performance.
There's numerous additional steps you can take to improve your Mavericks Mac performance. I'll take a look at several Mavericks-specific ones later on, for example, it may be worth reducing the number of automatic Notifications you receive.

OS X Mavericks, iOS 7: Text Shortcuts explained

OS X Mavericks, iOS 7: Text Shortcuts explained

Mavericks and iOS 7 let you use the same Shortcuts for text entry on your Mac as on your mobile device. Here's how to enable and use the feature.
Enabling Shortcuts
You've been able to sync your text shortcuts between devices since iOS 6, with Mavericks your Mac will also use (and share) these text shortcuts. 
To enable this feature on your Mac simply launch System Preferences, open iCloud prefs and check the Documents & Data setting.
To enable your iOS device, open Settings>iCloud, and check the Documents and Data toggle switch to green (active).
In future any shortcut you set on your iPhone or iPad will work on your Mac, and vice versa. Delete a shortcut on one system and it will be deleted across your others.
Creating Shortcuts (iOS)
You can create new shortcuts on iOS within Settings>General>Keyboard and tap Shortcuts at the bottom of the screen.
Your iOS systems probably already have one shortcut set up, "omw", type this and your device will write "On My Way".
To add a shortcut tap the blue + (Plus) button at top right of the Shortcuts screen. You'll be asked to enter the Phrase you want to use in the Phrase box and a shortcut for that phrase in the Shortcut field. Save your new Shortcut and in future whenever you type those letters on your Mac or mobile device your chosen phrase will appear.
To delete a shortcut press the blue Edit button on the lower left corner of your device, you can then delete any shortcuts you no longer need. Those changes will be applied across all your enabled systems (Mac or iOS device).
Creating Shortcuts (Mavericks)
You control Shortcuts on Mavericks systems inside System Preferences. Select Keyboard and select the 'Text' tab at the top of the pane. Mavericks systems usually have some common fractions (½, ¾, ¼) already set-up.
To create a new shortcut press the + button in the lower left corner, in the main pane you will see two editable fields appear, Replace and With.
Type the shortcut you intend using in the Replace box and type the word or phrase you intend using in the With box. Then hit Return.
The new shortcut is now available on all your systems.
To delete a shortcut select it and press the - button.
Using shortcuts
To use a Shortcut on iOS, just type the letters and the shortcut should pop up in your Autocorrect box. Press space after you enter the letters and your device will use the shortcut.
To use a shortcut on Mavericks, just type the shortcut's letters and the full phrase should appear in autocorrect. To use that shortcut press the spacebar and write something else. If you don’t want to use the shortcut on a Mac you must either press the small X beside the suggestion in autocorrect (which is bit fiddly) or press the Escape key on your keyboard (easiest method).
Limitations of shortcuts
There's some ways in which Apple could improve shortcuts. For example, when you don't want to invoke any shortcuts on your iOS device, it would be nice if you could tell Siri to deactivate the feature on your device for a set period. Some users will use shortcuts to automatically fix mistakes made by autocorrect when writing technical terms, slang expressions or names.
I hope you find shortcuts useful.

source :http://blogs.computerworld.com/mac-os-x/23541/os-x-mavericks-ios-7-text-shortcuts-explained

A List of New iOS 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

A List of New iOS 7 Keyboard Shortcuts


With iOS 7, Apple has introduced the possibility for third-party developers to support custom shortcuts with external (Bluetooth) keyboards in their apps. Keyboard shortcuts, longtime favorites of OS X power users, can now be enabled in iOS apps and, in the past few months, we've seen some notable examples such as OmniOutliner by The Omni Group adding supportfor this feature.1
Apple itself has been experimenting with keyboard shortcuts in built-in iOS 7 apps, and I thought I'd provide a list of the ones that I've found to be working on iOS 7.0.3 with my iPad mini and a Logitech tablet keyboard due to the lack of official documentation. This list was inspired by Rui Carmo, who first found out about keyboard shortcuts in Safari for iOS 7. Since Rui's post (and my link to it), the issues with the Logitech keyboard that he described have been fixed (the Spotlight key works on iOS 7.0.3) and I've collected some new shortcuts.
Right now, new keyboard shortcuts have only been added to Safari, Mail, and Pages in a very limited fashion. While they are consistent with their OS X counterparts, Apple has only brought a few of the Mac's shortcuts to its iOS 7 apps, leaving other apps like Messages or Reminders without shortcut support. It's likely that, with time, Apple will bring more shortcuts to Safari, Mail, and other stock apps. I couldn't find official documentation on Apple's website and I've tested every possible shortcut with a simple trial and error procedure on my iPad.
I will update this list regularly as Apple adds more keyboard shortcuts to its iOS apps. If you have discovered other keyboard shortcuts that are new to iOS 7 and haven't been mentioned here, please ping me on Twitter or send me an email.
Update 11/11: New shortcuts added thanks to Steven Troughton-Smith.

Safari

  • ⌘L to Open Location (like Safari for Mac, this selects the address bar so you can start typing to open a URL or search. You can't move up/down with the keyboard to select results though)
  • ⌘T to open a new tab
  • ⌘W to close the current tab
  • ⌘R to refresh the current tab
  • ⌘. to stop loading the current tab
  • ⌘G and ⌘⇧G to move between Find In Page results (activate Find In Page with touch from the address bar, tap the search field at the bottom, then try the shortcuts)
  • ⌘[ and ⌘] for navigation
Note: Safari can't switch between tabs or search in the current page with keyboard shortcuts in iOS 7.0.3.

Mail

  • ⌘N to create a new message
  • ⌘⇧D to send a message (from the Compose screen, it also works in other apps that implement a Mail sharing feature)
  • ⌦ (backspace) key to delete the currently selected message
  • ↑/↓ arrows to select suggested email address in To/CC/BCC popover fields

Pages

  • ⌘⇧K to comment
  • ⌘⌥K to show next comment
  • ⌘⌥⇧K to show previous comment
  • ⌘I/B/U to make text italic, bold, or underlined
  • ⌘D to duplicate the current object (such as an inline photo)
  • ⌘↩ to end editing and select parent (in table cells)
  • ↩ to insert a new line, ⌥↩ to select next cell (in table cells)
  • ⇥ to move to next cell, ⇧⇥ to move to previous cell
  • ⇧↩ to select cell above the current cell
  • ⌥↑/↓/→/← (arrow keys) to create a new row or column
  • ⌘↑/↓/→/← (arrow keys) to first/last cell in current row or column
Note: several keyboard shortcuts are shared across all the iWork apps, but we'll repeat them in individual sections for clarity purposes.

Numbers

  • ⌘⇧K to comment
  • ⌘⌥K to show next comment
  • ⌘⌥⇧K to show previous comment
  • ⌘I/B/U to make text italic, bold, or underlined
  • ⌘D to duplicate the current object (such as an inline photo)
  • ⌘↩ to end editing and select parent
  • ↩ to select next cell
  • ⇥ to move to next cell, ⇧⇥ to move to previous cell
  • ⇧↩ to select cell above the current cell
  • ⌥↑/↓/→/← (arrow keys) to create a new row or column
  • ⌘↑/↓/→/← (arrow keys) to first/last cell in current row or column
Note: It's possible that these shortcuts were enabled before, but I've added them for the sake of completeness because I haven't seen them documented anywhere else.

source :http://www.macstories.net/tutorials/a-list-of-new-ios-7-keyboard-shortcuts/