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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Use GarageBand’s “Learn to Play”

Apple has made it easier then ever to learn how to play an instrument at home. Through GarageBand you are able to learn the fundamentals of how to play a basic, rock or even a blues guitar. Did I mention that those lessons are free. You can even learn along side one of your favorite artists, but this one will end up costing you about $5 for every lesson (lessons go from Beginner to Advanced). All of this should be located in GarageBand’s Lesson Store.

“Intro to Guitar” should already be pre-installed into GarageBand. To start the video just click on it and a full screen demo should appear. On the timeline (located under the video) you are able to control which sections you would like to go over. On the top right of the full screen demo are a Glossary (for music terms), a Tuner (if you have your guitar plugged into your computer), a Mixer (for volumes of teacher’s voice, guitar, ect…), and Setup (for music notations or how you would like to view your music notes while in Play mode). When you feel ready to take a take on the song that you have been practicing in the video, hover over the video screen and click Play. In Play mode you are also able to pause, repeat, and slow down parts of the song to make it easier to learn. After a little practice you can record yourself and listen to what you sound like by hitting the circular Record button on the bottom middle. In no time you will be a rock legend!

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Average Joe's Tips

Apple’s “Find Out How” Videos

For those of you who do not like to read, I will keep this short and say that Apple has many “Find Out How” videos, so that you can fully learn how to master your computer. For the link to the website click here or you can find it by typing in “Find Out How” in the search bar in Apple’s website. Now, for those of you who do not mind reading I will go on further to explain the many depths of Apple’s “Find Out How.” To start, Apple has conveniently listed a few categories to choose from. It starts with Mac Basics, Photos, Movies, Web, Music, and ends with iWork. Under each category is a subcategory, containing a list of all the videos. After, you have watched a video the site will automatically check mark the name of the video so that you know which you have already watched. For, those of you who took the time to read this all the way through, I hope this helps and you learn how to master your Mac.

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Customize System Preferences’ Panes

System Preferences’ panes use to be stuck the way it was, but now it is possible to hide the default panes. To do this just open System Preferences, select View in the top menu bar, and then click on Customize. From there check mark boxes will show up on the bottom right of all the panes. To hide it from view deselect it and press Done. If you want to get the pane back just repeat the steps except instead of deselecting you will select the hidden pane.

 

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Transfer Your Old iPhone/ iPad Information to Your New One with iCloud

With the recent launch of the new iPad I thought that this would be a great new way to show how to transfer your information. First, starting on your old iPad. You will need to start by go into Settings, then selecting iCloud, and taping on Storage and Backup. Then tap on “Backup Now” and let it finish. On to your new iPad. From the Set-up screen select Restore From iCloud Backup. Login to your iCloud account, select your most recent backup, and select restore. Then let the transfer load. This a lot easier then the traditional way of going through iTunes. matheson IrinaallenStay connected at my new twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.

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News

What will Apple do with all that cash?

On March 19th, Apple announced that it would give dividends and buyback about $10 billion dollars of stocks a year for the next three years. Apple has approximately $100 billion in cash and will begin to pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share beginning in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins on July 1st. On September 30th, which is the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year, the company will begin buying back shares. The dividends will attract more investors who only look for companies that give dividends. The stock repurchases will increase the earnings per share and will prevent earnings-per-share dilution caused by future employee stock grants and purchase programs. Apple has stated that it will use domestic cash holdings to pay for the dividend payments and stock repurchase program instead of using overseas funds due to repatriation tax penalties.

Apple hasn’t paid dividends since 1995. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 when it was near bankruptcy and brought the company up. Jobs opposed the idea of giving dividends, but with Tim Cook as the CEO, Apple is changing. This change has worried some investors, but Cook has reassured them that there is plenty of money to finance the product pipeline and insure innovation.

Apple dividends would make it one of the top dividend payers in the nation, but in comparison to percent annual yield per stock, it is relatively low at 1.8%. One key reason that Apple dividends may not attract investors as much as other companies is that the percent annual yield is so low. Many investors buy stocks with dividends to later reinvest that money into more shares, but with Apple at such a high stock price and such a low dividend yield, it would be impractical to do that.

If you are thinking about buying Apple shares because of the dividends and share buybacks, that may not be the best reason to purchase shares. If you are thinking about buying Apple shares because of large revenue growth rate, then that is more realistic.

Feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

Photo Credit: Yahoo! Finance