So we have Siri and I’ve been playing around with Alexa (don’t tell Grace!) but now I have Dora, too. Dora is the computer from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls which were some of my favorite Sci-Fi as a kid.

I was helping a customer that has pretty bad arthritis and struggled to use the keyboard. I was straightening out her email and getting her off of AOL (something we do often!) and noticed how difficult it was to type a simple email. So, I showed her dictation on the Mac and wow, it was like a light just got switched on. Dictation has come a long way and if your are on Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan, Apple’s enhanced dictation works wonderfully.

Dictation will not be a satisfying experience for you if you have a lot of noise in the room, i.e. other people talking, music, etc, but if you are working alone in a relatively quiet environment it can be a great tool not only for dictating that email but you can also use spoken commands to direct your Mac to take action.

Setting up Enhanced Dictation

* Open System Preferences, then click on Dictation & Speech. Turn on Dictation and set up your options.

* Click *Use Enhanced Dictation*. This will download a 1.2GB file so that you can dictate without internet connection.

* Choose your language and dialect. Some languages, such as English, have multiple dialects.

* Choose the keyboard shortcut you will use to signal that you’re ready to start dictating. The default is pressing the function Fn key twice, which I find convenient but you can customize it.

* Choose your preferred microphone from the pop-up menu below the microphone icon. Normally, you use the internal microphone but if you are using a headset or external microphone you can choose that.

Using Dictation

* Go to a document or other text field and place the insertion point where you want your dictated text to appear.

* Press the keyboard shortcut for starting dictation. The default shortcut is Fn Fn (press the Fn key twice). Or choose Edit > Start Dictation. When your Mac is listening, it displays a microphone with an input meter that rises and falls as you speak.

* Speak the words that you want your Mac to type. Use dictation commands to add punctuation, formatting, and more.

* To stop dictating, click Done below the microphone icon, or press Fn, or switch to another window.

The more you use Dictation, the better it understands you. Dictation learns the characteristics of your voice and adapts to your accent.

I will go into some of the more enhanced features like Dictation Commands in next week’s Kibbles & Bytes but I can tell Dora to Open an App, select text, move up or down and much more. I think you will like dictation on the Mac, give it a try!

I got my start in using computers with CPM operating system and keyboard shortcuts were present there. I used them all the time so they come as second nature to me. But as I go out and talk with customers and help them with their Macs, I am surprised by the number of people that do not know that most of the things you can do with your mouse by clicking on a menu item can be done faster with keyboard shortcuts.

The first thing to learn about shortcuts are the symbols that are used to show these keys.

Command ⌘
Shift ⇧
Option ⌥
Control ⌃
Caps Lock ⇪
Fn

These work for your Mac Keyboard but if you are using a keyboard made for a Windows machine you need to substitute the Windows logo for the Command key and the Alt key for the option key. When you look at a menu in almost any application you will find the common commands for all these symbols next to them to indicate the keyboard shortcut. Here are some common ones:

Command-X **Cut** Remove the selected item
Command-C **Copy** the selected item
Command-V **Paste** the contents
Command-Z **Undo** the previous command
Command-A **Select all** items
Command-F **Find** open a Find window
Command-G **Find Again** Find the next occurrence of the item previously found
Command-H **Hide** the windows of the front app.
Command-M **Minimize** the front window to the dock
Command-M **New** Open a new document or window
Command-P **Print** the current document

Command-Space bar **Spotlight** show or hide the spotlight search field
Command-Tab **Switch apps** switch to the next most recently used app
Command-shift-3 **Screenshot** take a screenshot of the entire screen

As you can see, there are endless keyboard shortcuts to use, and these are only a small fraction of what you can do with “**keyboard shortcuts.**”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 So the next time you find yourself wondering what you can do if your mouse suddenly stops working or if your just looking for a more efficient way to do something, keyboard shortcuts might just be what your looking for!

You are visiting Key West, accompanied by your trusty iPhone and MacBook Air. Suddenly there’s an emergency at work, and you need to get online with your Mac. You can pick up a cell signal with the iPhone, but there’s no Wi-Fi that isn’t locked up. Well, my first thought might be “oh well, I’m on vacation!” but you are dedicated and need to be online.

Don’t worry! You can use your iPhone’s cellular data plan to create a personal Wi-Fi hotspot that lets your Mac access the Internet through your iPhone. Also called “tethering,” it’s fast, easy, and can be a life-saver when you just have to get online with a Mac or your Wi-Fi-only iPad. It supports up to 5 users, too, which means you can get your team online, too!

Before we explain how to do set up a personal hotspot, note that most but not all cellular carriers allow tethering on existing plans. For some, you might have to pay more for tethering. Keep in mind that any data consumed by your Mac while tethered will count against your data allowance and may generate overage fees. Carriers with “unlimited” data, like T-Mobile and Sprint, generally throttle your bandwidth to slower speeds if you use too much data.

Along those lines, if you use a file sharing service like Dropbox or Google Drive, or an Internet backup service like CrashPlan or Backblaze, turn them off before connecting. Particularly if they haven’t connected in a while, those services can transfer a lot of data quickly, which could result in a hefty overage charge or awkward data throttling for the rest of the month.

With those warnings out of the way, follow these steps in iOS 9 to turn on Personal Hotspot:

1. On your iPhone, if you’ve never enabled the feature before, go to Settings > Cellular > Personal Hotspot. Once you’ve turned Personal Hotspot on once, it moves up a level, so you can access it from Settings > Personal Hotspot.

1. Tap on Wi-Fi Password and enter a password that’s at least 8 characters long and easy to type. It doesn’t need to be super secure because you can keep Personal Hotspot turned off unless you’re using it. But you do want a password so random people nearby can’t connect and use your data.

1. Once you’ve entered a password, slide the Personal Hotspot switch.

That’s it! The Personal Hotspot screen provides basic instructions for connecting to the iPhone via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB. Stick with Wi-Fi, since it’s the easiest and most reliable in most cases.

• To connect to your new Personal Hot Spot on your Mac, click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar and choose your iPhone’s name.

• On your iPad, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and choose your iPhone.

• Enter your password when prompted, making sure to select Remember This Network. That way, you won’t even have to enter your password the next time.

• The Mac or iPad then connects to your iPhone, showing a hotspot icon instead of the usual wave icon for the Wi-Fi menu.

Could it get any simpler? When you’re done, the safest thing to do, to ensure you don’t accidentally end up using too much of your data allowance, is to turn off the Personal Hotspot switch in Settings > Personal Hotspot. Your Mac or iPad will automatically disconnect.

Actually, it CAN be simpler! Your Mac can automatically use the personal hotspot on your iPhone to connect to the Internet when they’re within range of each other.

Use Instant Hotspot on your iPhone (with iOS 8 or later) to provide internet access to your Mac computers and other iOS devices (with OS X Yosemite or iOS 8) that are in range and signed into iCloud using the same Apple ID. Instant Hotspot uses your iPhone — you don’t have to enter a password or even turn on Personal Hotspot.

Make sure your iOS device and your Mac are signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID.

On your Mac, click the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar, then choose your iPhone or iPad.

After you connect to the iPhone or iPad Personal Hotspot, you can check the cellular signal strength and the battery status of the iPhone or iPad in the Wi-Fi status menu.

When you’re not using using the hotspot, your devices automatically disconnect to save battery life.

One more big advantage of Personal Hot Spots. When you are shopping for that new iPad, perhaps you don’t need the cellular model if you nearly always have your iPhone handy. That’s what I do. If I need internet access on my Wi-Fi iPad, I simply connect to my Hot Spot! Saves me the added cost of a cellular-enabled iPad and the monthly fees from the cell carrier!

Grace has tired of riding the little Vespa scooter so we are selling it. I bought an almost antique Victory cruiser so we both have bikes down here. I am going to Jasper, GA to pick it up this weekend and riding it back through the back roads of Georgia. It should be a nice little break.

I am going to miss Johnny Dread and the reggae show down here but I am sure Grace will be there. It is hard to believe that we are heading into March already. My granddaughter, Gracie, is a Feb 29 baby so she is celebrating her 4th birthday as a 12-year old. My other granddaughter, Khadija, was off this week visiting colleges in the Boston area. Sure makes me feel old. I remember announcing Khadija’s birth here in Kibbles with the line “just call me gramps” and they still do!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

_Don, Emily, Morgan & Hadley_