Friday, 01 June 2018 06:07
How to Recover Space by Offloading Unused Apps in iOS 11
Written by Adam Engst
Running low on space on your iPhone or iPad in iOS 11? This problem may be easier to deal with than you expect because Apple has added a quick way to free up storage space by removing unneeded apps. Go to Settings > General > iPhone/iPad Storage, where you’ll see a Recommendations section. This section [R30;]
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Friday, 01 June 2018 06:06
Did You Know Your EarPods Work as a Remote Shutter Button for Photos?
Written by Adam Engst
Have you ever composed the perfect photo in the iPhone’s Camera app and then been unable to tap the shutter button without jiggling the iPhone and blurring the image? That can be especially difficult with macro shots that require physical contortions to position the iPhone properly. Sometimes, pressing one of the physical volume buttons on [R30;]
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Friday, 01 June 2018 06:05
Look Up All Sorts of Information with a Quick Click or Tap on the Mac
Written by Adam Engst
Apple makes it easy to look up information about any word you can see on your Mac, in nearly any app. To access this information, Control- or right-click the word and choose Look Up “word”, use the trackpad to tap the word with three fingers, or hover the pointer over it and press Command-Control-D. macOS [R30;]
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Friday, 01 June 2018 06:04
What OS Version Are You Running? Here’s How to Find Out.
Written by Adam Engst
In Troubleshooting 101, one of the first questions is always, “What version of the operating system are you running?” There’s a big difference between Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and macOS 10.13 High Sierra, and the solution to any particular problem will likely revolve around knowing what operating system is in play. The same [R30;]
As iPhones have become ever more prevalent, one of Apple’s bundled apps—Find My Friends—has become significantly more useful. Although there are legitimate concerns about sharing your location willy-nilly, Find My Friends gives everyone full control over what they share, making it truly helpful for families and close friends. So if you’ve ever thought it would [R30;]
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Friday, 01 June 2018 06:02
Try Trello for Group Collaboration and Project Management
Written by Adam Engst
Nearly all of us have to work together in a group at some point. Whether it’s for your job, a PTA, a club sports team, or a family trying to organize a vacation, it’s helpful to have a spot where everyone in the group can contribute information, comment on what others say, and build a [R30;]
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Friday, 01 June 2018 06:01
How to Deal with macOS Server Losing Many of Its Services
Written by Adam Engst
For many years, Apple has sold macOS Server (previously called OS X Server) for those who wanted to run various Unix-based Internet services on a Mac. Server became popular because it put an easy-to-use graphical interface on top of the Unix apps, allowing Mac users to avoid complicated configuration files and reducing the need to [R30;]
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Siri is supposed to be a competent voice assistant, but sometimes Siri can’t even pronounce your own name correctly! Luckily, it’s easy to fix Siri’s pronunciation for any name. Just say to Siri, “Learn how to pronounce Jill Kresock.” (Siri defaults to “krehsock” rather than the correct “kreesock” in this case.) Siri first asks you [R30;]
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Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:07
Enable Theater Mode to Prevent Your Apple Watch from Lighting Up at a Show
Written by Adam Engst
Attend any live theater presentation, and someone will ask the audience to silence their cell phones. But what about your Apple Watch? You don’t want it lighting up or making noise during the show either. To ensure that doesn’t happen, swipe up on the face to display Control Center, and then tap the theater masks [R30;]
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Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:06
Here’s How to Hide All Windows on Your Mac So You Can Work on the Desktop
Written by Adam Engst
If your Mac is anything like ours, you end up with lots of apps open, each with one or more windows that obscure the Desktop. For those people who like to save in-progress documents to the Desktop and keep current project folders there, all those windows get in the way. macOS has a solution. Open [R30;]
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Finder freezes. They shouldn’t happen at all, and they don’t happen often, but it’s not unheard of for your Mac’s Finder to freeze, freak out, or otherwise stop responding properly. To bring it back to life, hold down the Option key, click and hold the Finder icon in the Dock, and choose Relaunch. (If the [R30;]
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Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:04
Moment Helps You Gauge Your iPhone Use and Offers Parental Oversight Option
Written by Adam Engst
Smartphone addiction is real. Do you check your iPhone before you get out of bed? During family dinners? Right before you go to sleep? Constantly during the day even when you’re on vacation? If you—or your family members—feel that you’re disappearing into your phone too often or at inappropriate times, it may be time to [R30;]
Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:03
What Is The Best Hard Drive to Use for Your Backups?
Written by Adam Engst
Backing up your Mac is like flossing your teeth: everyone knows they should do it every night, but too many people never get around to it. Unlike flossing, once you set up backups, they don’t require daily attention. And turning on Apple’s Time Machine backup feature is easy—simply open System Preferences > Time Machine, click [R30;]
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Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:02
Overloaded by Work Email? Give the Slack Messaging Tool a Try.
Written by Adam Engst
Don’t get us wrong—email is great. But sometimes there’s too much of it at work, as colleagues share information too broadly or chime in unnecessarily, and as marketing offers and other junk fills your inbox. Over the past few years, lots of organizations—including small and large firms, non-profits, academic departments, student project teams, and government [R30;]
Tuesday, 01 May 2018 08:01
Taking Out the Garbage: Tips for Working with the Trash on the Mac
Written by Adam Engst
One of the great innovations of the Mac, way back when, was the concept of the Trash. Instead of deleting files immediately, you’d put them in the Trash, where they’d sit until you either took them out or removed them for good by emptying the Trash. You undoubtedly know the basics of working with the [R30;]
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Wednesday, 04 April 2018 17:44
Use an external graphics processor with your Mac
Written by MBS Web TeamYour Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 can access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor (also known as an eGPU).
Monday, 02 April 2018 13:08
Solving the Mystery of Missing Messages Notifications
Written by Adam Engst
A client got in touch recently with a maddening problem. When he received texts on his iPhone, Messages displayed notifications for messages from everyone…except his wife! Needless to say, this was a problem. Since notifications appeared correctly for other people, it wasn’t related to overall settings. It turned out that he—or someone else, or iOS [R30;]
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Monday, 02 April 2018 13:07
Use Modifier Keys to Do More—a Lot More—with Mouse Drags
Written by Adam Engst
Dragging files and folders around is core to the Mac experience—drag a file from one folder to another to move it, drag a folder from one drive to another to copy it. But did you know that if you hold down the Option key while dragging a file in the Finder, you’ll get a green [R30;]
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Monday, 02 April 2018 13:06
There’s a Hidden Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet in Your iPad
Written by Adam Engst
If you’re working on an iPad with a physical keyboard—either a Bluetooth keyboard or an iPad Pro with Apple’s Smart Keyboard—there are quite a few keyboard shortcuts you can use to work faster. Many are what you’d guess if you have Mac experience; for instance, Command-F generally maps to Find. But to see a list [R30;]
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Monday, 02 April 2018 13:05
Wondering Where Your Past Events in the iOS Calendar App Have Gone?
Written by Adam Engst
When it comes to calendars, we’re mostly concerned with the future. But sometimes you want to travel back in time too, to see when you had that doctor appointment or last went to the gym. If you scroll back in the Calendar app in iOS, you might discover, to your consternation, that after 2 weeks [R30;]
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Monday, 02 April 2018 13:04
iOS 11.3 Introduces New Battery Health Feature, Business Chat, and More
Written by Adam Engst
At the end of March, Apple released updates to all four of its operating systems, but iOS 11.3 was the most notable. It boasts a variety of new features and other changes—you can think of it as the midpoint update between iOS 11’s first release and iOS 12, probably coming next September. All remaining updates [R30;]
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Monday, 02 April 2018 13:03
Here’s How to Lock Down Your Facebook Privacy Settings—to the Extent Possible
Written by Adam Engst
Facebook has dominated the news headlines of late, but not for good reasons. There were the 50 million Facebook profiles gathered for Cambridge Analytica and used in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook has long been scraping call and text message data from Android phones. And within the Facebook iOS app, the company pushes the Onavo [R30;]