by Terry McAdams | Jul 27, 2021 | Battery, iPad, iPhone, Mac, troubleshooting
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 22, 2021 | Email, How-To, productivity, troubleshooting
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 20, 2021 | productivity, troubleshooting
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 15, 2021 | Mac, privacy, Security, Tip
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 13, 2021 | Apple Pay, Apple Watch, productivity, Tip
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 8, 2021 | Backup, Tip, troubleshooting
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jul 6, 2021 | Apple Music, Control Center, iOS, iPad, iPhone, productivity, Siri, Tip
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 29, 2021 | privacy
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 22, 2021 | Bluetooth, iPhone
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 17, 2021 | Home screen, iPhone, Tip
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,...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 15, 2021 | iCloud, iCloud Drive
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 9, 2021 | Mac, Tip, troubleshooting
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 8, 2021 | FaceTime, iPad, iPhone, Mac, privacy, productivity, Siri
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 7, 2021 | Apple Pencil, How-To, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mac, productivity
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...
by Terry McAdams | Jun 3, 2021 | iOS, Mac, Messages, Tip
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...
