You should consider using Apple’s easy-to-use Image Capture. Image Capture can both copy photos off of digital cameras and control a scanner to scan paper documents. Today’s tech tip focuses only on scanning. Image Capture can control hundreds of scanners made by Brother, Canon, Epson, HP and other manufacturers. Image Capture is one of many free applications that … Read more
Have you ever deleted a text message from your iPhone and then quickly regretted doing this? If so, here’s an overview of some options that might let you recover that text message. Unlike deleted voicemail messages or deleted email messages, there isn’t a Trash or Deleted Items folder for text messages. In other words, you … Read more
Do you ever need a magnifying glass or a bit of light to read a menu or medicine bottle? If so, check out Magnifying Glass With Light or Glasses. Both are free iOS apps for your iPhone. Both of these apps are easy to use, and you would be wise have one on your iPhone. Glasses has an elegant design and … Read more
Clients often ask me how often they should backup their Mac. They also ask me which files they should backup. My answer is short and sweet. Everybody should backup all files on their Mac’s hard drive every day. Why? Because you never knows when disaster will strike and you’ll need to rely on a recent backup to … Read more
I recently learned that Comcast has offered a low-cost Internet service for low-income families since early 2014. Comcast calls this the Internet Essentials program. As of April 2015, Comcast indicates that they’ve enrolled 480,000 families across the country. In August, 2015, Comcast started a pilot program in San Francisco to extend this program to low-income … Read more
I know you subscribe to my Tech Tips to get pearls of wisdom and nuggets of knowledge. Not this week. This Tech Tip is just for fun. Hope you enjoy it. If you’ve ever wondered what you could build with a big collection of iMac boxes then check out the Giant iMac Wheel in this YouTube … Read more
Are you switching from a PC to a Mac? Did you use Outlook on your PC? Do you want to convert your Outlook email messages, calendar appointments, and address book contacts into Apple’s Mail, Calendar, and Contacts applications? If so, you should consider PST Converter Pro ($40).
Read moreDo you ever get emails from a real company like Apple, HP, Adobe, Bank of America, Chase or PayPal that look real, but you’re not sure if they are legitimate emails? If so, here are two things you can look at in order to determine their authenticity.
Read more[UPDATE: April 2016. Apple has announced that they’ll stop offering iTunes allowances but existing allowances with balances will remain intact until used. Instead of iTunes allowances Apple recommends using iTunes Gift cards. ] Do your kids have their owns iPhones, iPads or iPod Touches? Do you want them to be able to buy apps, music and other items … Read more
Do you have dozens of apps on your iPhone or iPad? Do you spend lots of time swiping back and forth between screens looking for the right icon? If so, you should instead use the built-in search function since it is much faster. If your iPhone or iPad is using iOS 7 or newer then … Read more
Have you ever wanted to share a contact from your iPhone or iPad address book with a friend? iOS has a built-in feature that makes this very easy to do.
Read moreDo you want to be able to email reminders to yourself or to others? Consider using FollowUpThen. A few weeks ago I wrote a TechTip about SendLater, which lets you schedule emails to be sent to you or somebody else in the future. While there is overlap between these two products, FollowUpThen has some additional features.
Read moreBe aware of a myriad of bogus pop-ups that might appear when you are visiting web sites. Typically these pop-ups contain messages that indicate that your computer has been compromised or some sort of security issue has been detected. Often the message include a phone number to call to get assistance. Furthermore, these pop-up windows are … Read more
Have you ever received a warning that your email account is almost full? If so, here are instructions on how to learn which folders (aka mailboxes) in your email account are taking up space. Once you know which folders are taking up space, you can target these folders for cleanup. You can either move the … Read more
Have you noticed that Safari version 8, that comes with OS X Yosemite, no longer shows the full website address in the address field at the top of its window? For example, if you visit https://soundsupport.biz/ and then click on a link to visit some page within my website, Safari will only display soundsupport.biz in the address … Read more
Would you like to schedule emails to be sent in the future? You can by installing Feingeist’s SendLater plugin (see update below) for Apple’s Mail application. Once installed SendLater adds a button in Mail. Cleverly, the button’s name is Send Later! When you click this button you’ll see the window pictured below.
Read moreAre you having problems accessing your Gmail account from Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook? Over the past 6 months I’ve encountered a number of clients who have had problems reliably accessing their Gmail account via these apps. Here’s a list of symptoms my clients experienced and how I fixed the problems.
Read moreIf you have a relatively new Mac running OS X Yosemite (OS X version 10.10) and an iPhone running iOS 8 you may have noticed that your Mac rings when you receive a call on your iPhone and the two devices are close to each other. This feature is part of Continuity, which is a … Read more
If you use Dropbox, you might want to know about its Selective Sync feature. Dropbox is a file sharing system. I gave a brief overview of Dropbox previously. The Selective Sync feature lets you select which files you want to download and store on a given computer. This can be handy if you have a laptop … Read more
Do you miss how Labels used to work? Do you miss having colorful shortcuts in your Sidebar? If so, then consider using XtraFinder. Starting with OS X Mavericks (OS X 10.9) Apple changed how Labels work. In fact, they renamed the feature from Labels to Tags. Labels used to add a background color to a … Read more