Monday, 02 August 2021 11:01
Ransomware Is on the Rise: Learn How to Protect Your Macs
Written by Adam Engst
In cybercriminal circles, ransomware is all the rage. Once it has infected a computer, it encrypts all the files and then presents a ransom demand—pay up to get the decryption software necessary to recover the data. Ransomware has been in the news all year, with the Colonial Pipeline attack in particular spending weeks in the […]
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Don’t you hate it when a familiar song is playing but you can’t think of what it’s called? Or worse, when you hear a new track you really like but have no one to ask what it is? Never worry about that again, thanks to your iPhone or iPad. Back in 2018, Apple bought the […]
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It’s tempting to think that most external storage devices—whether simple hard drives or more complicated network-attached storage (NAS) units—are relatively similar because they all do roughly the same thing. However, a recent problem with older Western Digital My Book Live NAS devices highlighted that there can be large differences. In that case, hackers figured out […]
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Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:06
Live in the Future by Using Apple Pay on Your Apple Watch
Written by Adam Engst
With mask wearing over the past year rendering Face ID ineffective at cash registers, we’ve become fond of using the Apple Watch for contactless payments with Apple Pay. We recommend it highly since it’s so fast and convenient. Once you’ve set up a credit card in the Wallet app on your iPhone, switch to the […]
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Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:05
Disable Unused Sharing Options on Your Mac If You’re Not Using Them
Written by Adam Engst
Many security breaches—even high-profile ones—stem from simple oversight. There’s one spot in macOS that has long been particularly susceptible to such lapse: the Sharing pane of System Preferences. In it, you can enable a wide variety of sharing services, some of which could allow another user to access your Mac remotely. They all let you […]
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Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:04
Reopening Your Office? Now’s a Great Time to Evaluate Your IT Infrastructure
Written by Adam Engst
As vaccination rates climb, many businesses are starting to think about reopening their offices and bringing back employees who have been working from home for the last year. That’s a big decision that will undoubtedly vary from company to company, but we’d like to suggest a few things to consider. Please contact us early in […]
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Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:03
Going on Vacation? Learn How to Write an Effective Out-of-Office Message
Written by Adam Engst
For many people, increasing vaccination rates mean that long-delayed vacations are now possible, and in-person conferences are slowly starting up again too. But before you head out for the beach or the convention center, you’ll want to write an out-of-office email auto-reply message to send to everyone who tries to get in touch while you’re […]
Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:02
Don’t Cook Your Digital Devices in the Summer Heat
Written by Adam Engst
As climate change continues to wreak havoc on our weather, many areas are seeing record temperatures this summer—Seattle just recorded its hottest days ever. You may be able to trade your business suit for shorts or skirts to stay more comfortable, but your electronic gear can’t do the same. Keeping your tech cool is about […]
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Thursday, 01 July 2021 10:01
Reduce Your Email Load with Three Features in Apple’s Mail: Mute, Block, and Unsubscribe
Written by Adam Engst
Complaining about getting too much email is like complaining about bad traffic—we brought it upon ourselves, and while it’s impossible to escape entirely, it’s worth knowing how to reduce it. Apple is fully cognizant of the issue, too, and has built features into the last couple versions of Mail—on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad—to help […]
Tuesday, 08 June 2021 13:32
The Ten Upcoming Mac/iPhone/iPad Features We Think You’ll Most Like
Written by Adam Engst
At its Worldwide Developer Conference keynote on June 7th, Apple shared details about what we can expect to see later this year in macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, tvOS 15, and HomePod Software 15. It was a firehose of announcements, but one thing became clear: Apple wants to spread its technologies […]
A new feature of Messages in both iOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur is the option to pin up to nine conversations at the top of the conversation list for easy access. No longer do you have to worry about them scrolling out of sight. On an iPhone or iPad, touch and hold a […]
Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:07
Two Tricks for Fixing a Mac That’s Restarting Unexpectedly
Written by Adam Engst
Although extremely uncommon, it’s not unheard of for a Mac, particularly an older model, to restart unexpectedly. If it happens once, chalk it up to cosmic rays and move on. But if it happens multiple times, try these two things right off. First, use compressed air to remove dust from cooling vents or the inside […]
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Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:06
Looking for More iOS 14 Widgets? Be Sure to Launch Seldom-Used Apps
Written by Adam Engst
Home screen widgets are one of the coolest features of iOS 14. They enable apps to offer quick access to features or at-a-glance previews of changing information, such as the Weather app’s widget providing a quick look at upcoming weather. What you may not realize, however, is that an app’s widgets become available for adding […]
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Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:05
Share Your Apple Card with People in Your Family Sharing Group
Written by Adam Engst
Apple did a good job rethinking some aspects of credit card use with the Apple Card, but one omission was the inability to share it with other family members. With the new Apple Card Family, once everyone has upgraded to iOS 14.6, you can add members of your Family Sharing group to your Apple Card […]
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Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:04
What Is This “App Tracking Transparency” Apple Added to iOS 14.5?
Written by Adam Engst
You’ve likely seen mention of the dispute between Apple and Facebook. It revolves around App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a technology Apple released in iOS 14.5. The goal of ATT is to give iPhone and iPad users more control over the extent to which app makers can track their data and activities across apps and websites […]
Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:03
AirTag Basics and How to Protect Yourself from Stalking
Written by Adam Engst
Apple’s new AirTag tracking device is an amazing bit of technology—it’s an elegant disc about the size of a stack of four US quarters that communicates its location with other Apple devices using Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband. Pair an AirTag with your iPhone and put it in your laptop bag, and from then on, you […]
People talk about “the cloud” all the time these days, but what do they really mean? There’s no agreed-on definition, which can render some conversations nearly inscrutable. We can’t pretend to have the final answer—if there will ever be such a thing—but here’s how we think of “the cloud.” (And now we’ll stop quoting it.) […]
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Tuesday, 01 June 2021 13:01
How to Digitize Your Signature So You’re Ready for Online Document Signing
Written by Adam Engst
Over the last decade, and particularly during the last year of pandemic life, documents have become more likely to arrive in email or as downloads than on paper. If you need to return a signed document on paper, it’s easy to print and sign it before popping it in the mailbox. But what if you […]
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Monday, 03 May 2021 12:08
Privacy Tip: Don’t Post Vaccination Record Cards on Social Media
Written by Adam Engst
So you’ve gotten your COVID-19 vaccination. Congratulations, and thank you for nudging the planet closer to the herd immunity needed for life to return to normal! It’s a good idea to take a photo of your card as a backup before filing it with your other important papers, just in case. (If you lose the […]
Monday, 03 May 2021 12:07
Learn How to Paste Text So Its Style Matches the Surrounding Text
Written by Adam Engst
When you copy text from a Web page, PDF, or word processing document, macOS usually includes the associated formatting, so the words you paste may end up in 68-point blue italic if that was what the source text looked like. That’s often undesirable. More commonly, you want the text to take on the styling of […]
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Monday, 03 May 2021 12:06
Intuit Has Stopped Updating the QuickBooks Online Mac App; Switch to a Web Browser
Written by Adam Engst
If you’re using QuickBooks Online with the service’s Mac app to manage your business’s accounting, you may have seen a message like the one below announcing that Intuit has stopped updating the QuickBooks Online app. This doesn’t affect your QuickBooks Online account, which you can and should use via a Web browser at qbo.intuit.com now. […]
We’ve all gotten that panicked “Where are you?!?” text message at some point. Sometimes it’s an easy question to answer, but at other times, the answer is “Well, right here, wherever that is.” That’s unsatisfying, of course, but using Messages on your iPhone, you can do better. Tap the person’s name at the top of […]