I explain what matters in plain English, with practical steps you can use and recommendations based on my experience helping clients.
Showing 379–396 of 589 articles
Today Apple released their annual software update for Mac. This is a free upgrade for anyone with a compatible Macintosh computer. This update has plenty of new features but it also has some speed, reliability, and security enhancements. I have been running the prerelease software and it feels
Feeling left behind because you don’t have the latest iPhone or iPad? Don’t, because Apple has a present for you in the form of iOS 12, released today. The new operating system promises to increase performance, particularly for older devices as far back as the iPhone 5s and iPad Air. Compatibi
When you double-click a document, macOS uses the document’s file extension to figure out which app should open the file. So, by default, a PDF file called laser-squid.pdf opens in Preview because the Finder knows that everything with a .pdf extension should open in Preview. But what if you would pre
If you've been following tech news lately you've likely heard that Apple has officially ceased development of their AirPort line of routers. This has been long rumored, and I'm sad to see this day come, but the alternatives have gotten much better in recent years. Here are the questions that c
Unless you can palm a basketball, you may not be able to use an iPhone single-handed. But sometimes one hand is all you can spare. If you find yourself in such a situation, give Reachability a try. On a Touch ID–based iPhone, tap (don’t click) the Home button twice to slide the iPhone’s interface
The System Preferences app on the Mac contains about 30 icons, each leading to additional settings panes. Rather than opening System Preferences, scanning the collection of icons, and clicking the one you want, you can jump directly to the desired pane. Just click and hold on the System Preferences
In a surprise move, Apple earlier this week released firmware update 7.8 for the most recent generation AirPort Express that adds AirPlay 2 support. AirPlay 2 adds support for multi-room audio. This was a surprise because Apple is no longer manufacturing AirPort devices and they have no more invento
Photos on the Mac provides so many editing tools that it’s easy to lose track of how an edited image compares to the original. You can always use the Revert to Original command and then undo it, but that’s fussy. Instead, Photos provides a Show Original button in the upper-left corner, between the
Some Web sites have separate desktop and mobile versions, each theoretically providing the best browsing experience for its platform. Unfortunately, mobile Web sites sometimes leave out necessary features or hide content. That’s especially annoying if you’re browsing on an iPad, where the desktop si
On the face of it, Apple’s Find My iPhone feature does what it says. If you lose your iPhone, you can identify its last known location by looking in the Find iPhone app or on the iCloud Web site, and you can make it play a sound. It’s great for tracking down a missing iPhone, whether you misplaced i
Productivity experts recommend offloading things you have to remember to a task-management app like Apple’s Reminders, which syncs your to-dos among your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. That’s particularly helpful for tasks you want to be reminded of in a few months or next year, but then those
Data breaches have become commonplace, with online thieves constantly breaking into corporate and government servers and making off with millions—or even hundreds of millions!—of email addresses, often along with other personal information like names, physical address, and passwords. I
There has been a recent rash of scammers using some very effective tactics to scare money out of people. They claim to have hacked your computer, and they include one of your actual passwords as part of the subject line to shake your nerves. I've been getting questions about this probably twice a we
As part of compliance with the European Union's new GDPR legislation which went into effect earlier this year, Apple has finally created a way for iCloud users to delete their account. This is welcome news for anyone who has accidentally created an additional iCloud account over the years. I know
Most Macs are busy places, with oodles of open windows cluttering the screen. If you want to look at the Desktop or do something different, you may find yourself clicking around or using keyboard shortcuts, but did you know that you can access many of the Mac’s special views with just a flick of you
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 10.15 Catalina, and the solution to any particular problem will likely revolve around knowing what operating sys
When a Mac folder contains a lot of files, the Finder’s List view often works best, since it lets you focus on a single folder and easily sort the contents by clicking the different column headers: Name, Date Modified, Size, and Kind. But did you know that you can resize columns, rearrange them, and
Apple’s Photos app on the Mac and iOS can identify thousands of different objects in your photos, so it’s easy to find photos based on their content. You can find objects (cars, trains, dogs, food), scenery (beaches and forests), and even some events (weddings and parades). This is both big fun and
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