Category: Mac-related
How to deal with email addresses in your mail program
A dedicated email program can make it so much easier to deal with our electronic correspondence. A hidden function that most people don’t realize exists is something called the Previous Recipients list. Your email program will remember all the people who have emailed you in the past, as well as any fresh email addresses you…
A very sophisticated scam on the App Store
A client just reported to me about how they were using Safari on their iPhone. They must have accidentally come upon a junky webpage while reading the news, because they got a message saying their iPhone was infected with viruses. They must have clicked on something that took them to the iOS App Store where…
How to check on Subscriptions through your AppleID/iTunes account on your phone
It can feel very uncomfortable to not know what subscriptions you maybe are getting charged through your Apple account. We all know the feeling— perhaps you downloaded some app Apple’s app store and it just feels sketchy. Perhaps you received a spam email telling you that you are being charged some outrageous fee through your…
7 steps to making your Mac run better
I am a long time Apple Mac user and I have become set in my ways. Apple has made changes to their default settings over the years, and I don’t always like all the changes that Apple has made. Turn on scrollbars— Even though I really like to be use a 2–finger swipe to scroll…
Protecting yourself from expiring objects
I use a program called 1Password to keep my life more secure and more organized. One of the nice features it has is that you can add an expiration date to anything you add to 1Password. This works great in conjunction with a separate, optional feature of 1Password called WatchTower which will automatically alert you…
How to add an Apple Magic Keyboard to your Mac
Apple has done their best to make setting up one of their Bluetooth enabled Magic Keyboards as easy as possible. Here’s a step–by–step guide for you. 1) Go to the menu and click on System Preferences. 2) You will see a list of Bluetooth devices that are in range. The little spinner…
Migrating to a new Mac
Guide to Apple’s Migration Assistant It’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of buying a new Mac, but then feel intimidated about the details of how you will actually move your data from your old Mac to your new one. Here’s an illustrated guide to help. Things you will need: Your old computer’s…
How to download old operating system installers directly from Apple
Where to download operating system updates from Apple. It used to be that the only way to download older operating system updates was to have “purchased” them in the first place so that they would exist in your purchase history. Thankfully, Apple has made a single webpage to download the systems from Mac OS X…
Using Apple’s Keynote App presentation to PMUG on September 14, 2020
I had the honor of presenting at the PMUG General Meeting on September 14th, 2020 where I talked about how to use Apple’s free Keynote program. It’s a great program that I have used to make all my presentations to the group. One of the key thoughts I wanted to convey is that Keynote is…
Instrumental Concentration Music 2
Did you know that you can now embed Apple Music links on the web? I believe that Apple is moving towards making music streamable straight from the web without having to have a Mac or iOS device. This would allow them to sell their services to more people, so it makes sense. Here’s a link…
The Clipboard— your invisible, infallible assistant
How would you like a helper who always watches over your shoulder and never forgets? I woke up one day in mid-February to read the sad news that Larry Tesler had passed away. I knew him as the luminary who had worked at Apple for many years, and before that had worked at Xerox’s PARC…
The best defense against Scammers
One of my customers recently contacted me about a nasty letter they got saying that someone had gone in an signed them up for a Netflix account. The possibility that they might have been hacked both startled them and also made them anxious enough to click on the link right in the email. They were…
How to use Zoom on your Apple Device
With all the increased interest in online conferencing these days it seemed like a good idea to make a video that helps people to download and install Zoom on either their Mac or their iPhone/iPad. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for most people is that Apple has been increasing the security privacy protections in…