Category: Average Joe’s Tips

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Average Joe's Tips

The Basics and More: Terminal

 

Basics

            Terminal to most people seems very complex, but there are ways that the average Joe can have fun on it too.  Simple commands like “man” which is used as a manual are easy to do. The basic way to type something in on Terminal is by typing your command and after it if there is further typing needed like if you use the command “man”  just press the spacebar once and type in what you want Terminal to explain to you.

 

Commands

  • Touch

            Using the command Touch may seem hard at first, but once you do it for a while it will become easier. To start, open terminal and type in “cd Desktop/” and press enter (Desktop/ can be interchangeable depending on where you want your file), doing this allows you to change directories so that you can choose the destination of where you want your file. After that type in “ls” to list all of the items on your desktop. Then type “touch (name of your file)” and it will automatically make a Text Edit file or if you want you can make a folder by typing in “mkdir (name of your folder)” and selecting Enter. For files if you want to write in them all that you have to do is type in “vim (name of your file)” and select Enter. Then you can start writing, but first select “a” on your keyboard. After you are done writing click “esc” and you should not be able to type anymore, and from there type in a “:wq.” The “w” in the command is to save it and the “q” is to quit it.

 

  • Man

            This command is very easy and helps you out because it is a Terminal manual. The way to use this command is to type “man” then a space and after that type in the command you want to learn about like “ls” or “cd.”

 

Conclusion

Obviously, Terminal is great for anyone. It can be very simple or complex depending on how you use it. Also, it can make you more productivewith commands like touch that allow you to write files in Terminal not to mention the many other Terminal commands.

 

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Securely Delete Your Trash

When you have private content that you do not want people to ever be able to access, Secure Empty Trash is the best way to do it. There are two ways to do it. The first way is to be in Finder, then click on the Finder menu option in the top left, and scroll down to Secure Trash Empty. The next way to do this is by again going to the top left Finder menu option, then selecting preferences. After that go into the Advanced section of the newly opened window, and select the box next to Empty Trash Securely. The way this works compared to just regularly deleting your trash is that it will immediately write over the file other than doing it over time.

Thanks to: OSXdaily for this great tip.

Stay connected at my new twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do youthink? Let us know in the comment section.

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Use Parental Controls

Parental Control is a great way to keep your children supervised without having to watch their every move. Parental Control is located in System Preferences under System. To use Parental Control, you will first need to create or use an existing account that does not have administrative controls, and then use an Administrator’s account to control the other account. Parental Control is able to limit computer usage time, websites, and many other things parents may worry about. A feature that I feel many parents will appreciate is the Weekday and Weekend time limiter and bedtime controls. These allow you to choose how many hours your child will be allowed to use his or her computer during the weekend or weekday. Setting the time is easy enough, just click the Limit Computer Use box and drag the bar to how many hours you will allow. The bedtime setter can be used to make sure your children are not up all night playing on their computers. For setting Bedtimes, select the checkbox and then punch-in the bedtime to wakeup time. In the Web section you are able to choose from allowing all web sties or customizing which websites to allow access to. Customizing websites can be a long task because you will need to type the URL of every website into the system, yet is viable if there are specific websites you would like your child to refrain from using. To do this click Customize in the Web section of Parental Controls. A new window will be brought up, and after there will be two sections, with an “always allow” and a “never allow” option. To add a website, just click the plus sign and type the URL in, and to take out a website press the minus sign. These are just a few of the many features Parental Control offers, check it out in System Preferences.

Stay connected at my twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.

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Average Joe's Tips Reviews

For Those of You Who Have Trouble Sleeping

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Having trouble sleeping at night? One problem might be that you are using your computer before you goto bed. Instead of going into the complex science of eye stimulation (which I do not quite understand myself), I will give you the brief over view. On f.lux’s website they explain it to us that the blue lights that your computer emit can keep you up late at night, so the purpose of f.lux was to eliminate these blue lights. They have done this by making your computers screen adapt to the time of the day. For example, on there website they state: “When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.” Overall, f.lux has personally been a great help with my tendency to work late into the night. So for all of you people out there like me I would recommend downloading f.lux. For more information behind the science of f.lux click here.

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Check Your Computers Log In Times

Checking your login times are very helpful in many way. For example, if you feel like someone maybe a friend or family member has been snooping around on your computer, you can check to see if someone logged in and at what time it occurred. Another way this is helpful is if you want to see how often you use your computer. To do this just go and open Console. To open your Console application go into your Application folder, then into your Utilities Folder. After that is open, you will see your activity on your computer and type in “wake” to see logins. On the very left you will be able to see the time to check and see when someone logged in. By looking at the time you will be able to compare and see if you remember logging in at the time or not before blaming someone for snooping around on your computer.

Thanks to : OSXdaily.com for this great tip!

 

Stay connected at my new twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do youthink? Let us know in the comment section.