Macinstruct

So you've read a book or PDF file on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Now how do you get rid of it? This tutorial shows you how to quickly and easily delete any book or PDF file from the iBooks app. It's a great way to free up space, because these files can take up precious space on your device, especially if they contain a lot of embedded pictures.

Here's how to delete book and PDF files from an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch:

1. From the iPad's home screen, tap iBooks to open it.
   
   

Just like in Mac OS X, you can change the DNS servers on your iPad. This can significantly speed up Safari and other iPad apps that use the Internet. For a general introduction to DNS, and to learn why you would want to change the DNS servers on your iPad, see How to Change Your Mac's DNS Servers.

If you are reading this wonk in my neck of the woods, the American Southwest, you can stop right now and go back to Facebook. In fact, wherever the climate is very hot and very dry you, too, can probably skip it, at least if the term “swamp cooler” or “evaporative cooler” is familiar to you. But a swamp cooler was new to me when I came here many years ago* and it underscored the fact that I wasn’t in Kansas (well, Pennsylvania) anymore, Toto.

In another tutorial, we discussed how to save PDF files on an iPad. But where do you find the PDF files that you've saved on your iPad? They're stored in the iBooks app, but you might have to change collections to see them.

Ready to learn a fun trick that has absolutely no practical value whatsoever? A trick that you can use to impress your friends and show off your Mac skills? Then you've come to the right tutorial! We're about to teach you how to minimize windows to the Dock in slow motion. In other words, we're going to take the default minimize window action and slow it way down by a factor of 100 or so.

Here's how to do it:

If you own an AirPort Extreme and use it as a router, you can specify default DNS servers for all of the devices connected to your wireless network. This is a great way to enforce enterprise network policies using OpenDNS, which allows you to implement security and filtering controls.

Are you tired of seeing the boring white background of the Finder windows? Change it! You can spice up your Desktop by setting a folder's background to a picture or a solid color. Note that this only works when the layout of the folder's window is set to the icon view. You won't see the background if you view the items in the list, column, or cover flow views.

Setting a Solid Color Background

Here's how to change the background of a Finder window:

1. Switch to the Finder. Open the folder you'd like to change.
   
   

Your Mac uses something called the Domain Name System (DNS) to access websites. It's a system invisible to you, the user, and most people don't even know it exists. But if the DNS servers you're using are slow or unavailable, websites will load slowly or won't load at all. That's why it's important to learn about DNS and consider changing your DNS servers. In this tutorial, we'll show you everything you need to know about DNS to speed up surfing and ward off potential problems.

DNS Crash Course

Maybe I'm just a wuss after all. After all, I survived EMD as did so many others who were not physically crippled or emotionally scarred by the experience. And it wasn't the physical labor, the "hoppin' like a bunny," that made the pre-load such hell. In fact, I regret now that I didn't take up serious running until ten years later. With the legs that EMD gave me, I'll bet I could have run a marathon in under three hours! When I got home in the small hours, my legs used to tingle wonderfully and I weighed 130 pounds, tops.

You probably know that you can read PDF documents on your iPad, but did you know that you can also save PDF files to the iBooks app on your iPad? This is useful for saving free ebooks in PDF file format from websites like Open Library. You also can save anything from bank statements and college course syllabi to scanned documents and tenant agreements. It's not a stretch to say that your iPad could become a portable document management system!

Here's how to save PDF files on your iPad: