Do you remember being eight years old and building a log cabin with Lincoln Logs or a crane with an erecter set? Wanna have some fun building what is called a shortcut on the iPhone that can be very useful? You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to do this, and it’s very easy and a lot of fun.

We’re going to ask Siri to take a picture on your iPhone without touching anything. All you have to do is say, “Hey Siri, take a picture.”

This sure beats the old way of opening up your iPhone, looking around for the camera icon, pressing on it, then pressing again to take a picture.

Let’s face it: we’re all lazy, and waiting for that to happen, you could have gone to Lahaina Fish Company and had dinner. So, now I’m going to show you how to do it.

First, you need to download the Shortcuts App from the App Store. Click on the App Store icon and in the search box type in “Shortcuts.” It takes you to a place to tap and download it. Once on your desktop, click on it; you’ll see the library and a square box with Create Shortcut in it. Don’t be scared. Go ahead and click inside the Create Shortcut box. A new screen shows up, and you’ll see a search box. Type in the word “CAMERA” and hit Search. A new menu pops up called Photos & Video. Now tap on TAKE PHOTO.

Great… you’re doing well, so don’t fall asleep yet. The best and fun part is coming up, and it’s really easy.

The first part is pretty much complete, but how about we add one more thing for this shortcut to do? Let’s save that picture that we’re going to take to your photo album. So look down and see the words “Photos & Video” underneath the Search box, scroll down to “Save to Photo Album” and click on it. Good! We’re almost done. We now have two things showing: 1) Take a Photo; and 2) Save to Photo Album.

That’s enough for now so let’s finish by clicking up on the far top right just below the “DONE” word, where are two tiny blue tubes. Click on either of the two blue tubes.

A new menu pops up where the word “Name” is; click on it, and the word “Untitled Shortcut” appears. Lets’ change that and type in “Take a Picture.”

To do that, just click on the “X,” which removes “Untitled Shortcut,” type in “Take a Picture,” and hit “Done” on the top right.

The last and final menu appears, so click on Add to Siri, and you’ll see the big red button. Hit the button and say “TAKE A PICTURE.”

If you blow it, you can hit the Re-record Phase and say it again. Hit Done, Done, Done… and you’re done!

Okay, after all this, you need take a drink and get ready for this mind-blowing experience to happen. As long as you have Siri turned on, all you have to do is hold up your iPhone and say, “Hey Siri, take a picture.” Now go look in your photos album, and there it is. If you don’t have Siri turned on, go to the Settings Icon, scroll down to Siri & Search, and click on Listen for “Hey Siri.”

Have some fun – go walk around the town and take pictures of the Front Street cosmetics shop people simply by holding up your phone to their smiling faces and saying,”Hey Siri, take a picture!”

Send your computer-related questions to mauimist8669@yahoo.com.