Type an em-dash on an iPhone
Typography and punctuation geeks rejoice! It's easy to type an em-dash on the iPhone's or iPod touch's virtual keyboard. To do so, tap the .?123 key to switch to the numeric keypad. Then touch and hold on the Hyphen key to reveal a pop-up strip showing an em-dash. Slide to the em-dash and release your finger.
Note that this basic trick works with many other keys on the virtual keyboard.
Written by
Tonya Engst
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TidBITS#880/21-May-07
The past and the present come together in this issue: we celebrate the anniversary of Samuel Morse's historic telegraph message with a 50-percent-off Take Control sale, Jeff traces the path of the now-stagnant FreeHand, Glenn marvels at the arrival of a 1 terabyte hard drive mechanism, Mark is surprised to learn how dependent he's become on his MacBook's two-fingered scrolling trackpad, and Matt looks at how the future of Drop Drawers lies with the long-standing DragThing. Elsewhere in the issue, Adam covers Microsoft news: the Mac BU's release of a converter for Word 2007 documents and how the company's legal department is going after open source with patent threats. On the Apple side of the fence, last week saw a minor update to the MacBook and FCC certification for the iPhone.
(Published 3 years and 18 weeks ago)
MacBook Receives Performance Bump
Almost exactly a year after its initial release (see "MacBook Fills Out Laptop Line," 2006-05-22) and six months after the last processor jump ("MacBook Gains Core 2 Duo Processor," 2006-11-13), Apple has updated the MacBook line of laptops with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors that add roughly .16 GHz to each model, a standard 1 GB of RAM across the line, and larger hard disksShow full article
Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter in Beta
If you find yourself needing to access Office Open XML documents created by Windows users in Word 2007, Microsoft now has a free beta converter that may helpShow full article
iPhone Receives FCC Approval
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has certified the iPhone for use. When Steve Jobs announced the new smartphone at Macworld Expo in January 2007, he said it would take some time to pass the necessary FCC tests (see "iPhone Seeks to Redefine the Mobile Phone," 2007-01-15)Show full article
Dropping Drawers Become Dragging Things
In what may be the first (and last?) press release datelined simultaneously "Glasgow, Scotland" and "Tel Aviv, Israel," TLA Systems and Sig Software have announced that, henceforward, the upgrade path of the latter's Drop Drawers is now the former's DragThing 5.8Show full article
Where No Drive Has Gone Before
My first computer, purchased in 1979, had 8K of RAM and 8K of ROM, BASIC baked in, and no persistent storage. My first hard drive was 60 MB and cost $600 in 1989Show full article
DealBITS Drawing: SmileOnMyMac's PageSender
Fax technology, as I mentioned in "PageSender 4.0 Shows Fax Isn't Dead" (2007-05-14), is alive and kicking, and a comment in TidBITS Talk also suggests that it's even healthier outside the United StatesShow full article
DealBITS Winners: Parallels on USB Drive from Small Dog
Congratulations to Angus Davol of mac.com, whose entry was chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS drawing and who received a copy of Parallels Desktop on a 512 MB Kingston USB drive, worth $69.99Show full article
Call Me 'Two Finger' Mark
I've been using a Mac for 20 years, and a mouse for even longer. Clicking is second nature to me. For the last 13 years, I've been using trackpads, on laptops and even as external devicesShow full article
Farewell FreeHand
I knew this day would come, but I honestly didn't think it would take this long. Earlier this week, Adobe's John Nack, senior product manager of Adobe Photoshop, confirmed on his blog that my favorite drawing application, Macromedia FreeHand, is no longer being updatedShow full article
Microsoft Acting Like a Patent Troll?
In an article in Fortune, several high-level Microsoft executives talked about the company's plans to take on the open source world - notably Linux - on patent infringement groundsShow full article
Telegraphing a 50%-Off Take Control Ebook Sale
It's time for a big Take Control sale, so you can save 50 percent on all our ebooks through 29-May-07 when you order with this link. Whether you're interested in setting up a solid backup strategy with the help of our best-selling "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups," getting the most from your new AirPort Extreme Base Station with "Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Extreme Network," or figuring out the best way to use Windows software with "Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac," we have the expert help you need, coupled with instant-gratification downloads, free minor updates, and a carefully designed ebook reading experienceShow full article
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/21-May-07
Powering down without losing state -- Apple's recent environmental announcements bring up the issue of leaving computers running all day and night, and what can be done to conserve energyShow full article