In this article, I’ll show you how to save time when typing in a long message, like your address that includes your city, state, zip code and phone number. How would you like to do this by just pressing on one letter or symbol, like the dollar sign ($)?

Why did I use the $ symbol? Well, isn’t your house worth a lot of money?

So here is how you do it. Open up System Preferences or System Settings if you’re running the new Ventura system. Scroll on down to Keyboard and click on Text Replacements. On one side you’ll see “Replace” with symbols and letters, and on the other side “With.” So, let’s give it a shot and click on the + (Plus) key. A menu pops up with “Replace” on the top and “With” on the bottom. In “Replace,” type in your complete address. Okay, now in the “With” space, type in the $ symbol, then click on Add.

Great. Let’s try it out. Now open up your e-mail and start typing something to your new girlfriend — like your new address so she can come over and visit you. Just type in the “$” symbol and hit the Space Bar. Can you believe this? Your address is instantly typed out, and look at how much time you saved.

You can do this for many other things beside your address, like monthly renewed medical prescriptions that have long names.

So, wasn’t that really cool? I have something else that you won’t probably use, but play along with me and let’s have some fun.

We’ll cut out a person in a picture and place it in an e-mail. With your iPhone open, click on e-mail and get it ready to send a message to someone. Now open up Photos on your iPhone and choose a photo that has a person or an animal in it. This is going to require two fingers, so first take your finger and press on the photo that has the animal or person in it.

This is a bit tricky, and you may have to do it several times to get it right. My first try pressing down brought up a menu to Copy, Shared Delete. The trick is to hold your finger down and don’t let it go, and slowly slide your finger over a little bit. Now you’re going to see the cut out image start to slide over a little bit. Did you get it? Great — that means you captured the image and not the background… but don’t let go.

With your other finger, slide up from the bottom of the iPhone to return to your home screen and click on the Mail icon. Once Mail opens up, slide the image over to the middle of the e-mail screen and release it.

Are you blown away yet? That image you captured with that one finger is now pasted into your e-mail. Did you notice that you captured the person and not the background ? If you used Copy and Paste, the whole background would have copied over, but this method is fun using two fingers.

Hope you enjoyed doing that. Remember that I also repair PCs and Apple computers. You can e-mail me at mauimist@aol.com or call me at (808) 280-5055.