If you use Dropbox, the very popular file sharing service, you might have noticed that some of your files have the words Conflicted Copy appended to their file name. There are two circumstances which can cause conflicted copies. They most commonly occur when two people edit the same file at the same time. They can … Read more
Update December 2016 – CenturyLink, WaveG and Frontier Communications have offered fiber-optic based Internet service for a while. Service is not available in all neighborhoods and towns. Use the links, above, to check availability in your neighborhood. I’m not aware of any smaller players who are offering such service. Update: January 2014 – Seattle’s deal with Gigabit … Read more
Do you use your iPhone’s Notes application? Would you like to view those notes on your Mac? If your Mac is running OS X Mountain Lion, you can view them easily. In Mountain Lion Apple added a new Notes application. You can sync your iPhone notes to the Mac Notes application using your iCloud account. … Read more
Here’s an overview of how to retrieve a custom iPhone voicemail greeting. A client recently changed her data plan with AT&T. Somehow, as a consequence of this change, her custom outgoing voicemail greeting was lost. Typically, this greeting is stored on AT&T’s system, so it can be played to a caller even if one’s iPhone … Read more
Would you like to type in another language on your iPhone? Would you like to add Emoji to your email and text messages? Emoji are a collection of picture icons. This all started with smiley faces, but Emoji goes far beyond that.
Read moreWhen you type a word into a Spotlight search field on your Mac, your Mac will perform a search of the contents of your files by default. Personally, I tend to search for files by file name most often. Here’s an easy way to get your Mac to search by file name instead of file content. … Read more
In last week’s Tech Tip, I provided an overview of a few ways a person can remotely access their own Mac, including LogMeIn. I tend to use LogMeIn to provide my clients with remote support. If you’d like to set up your Mac to allow me to remotely control it, please follow these instructions for downloading and installing … Read more
Do you want to remotely access your Mac so you can open applications and edit files on it? This is an increasingly common request. Here’s a quick overview of a few ways to remotely access your Mac.
Read moreWould you like to improve the security of your online accounts such as your AppleID, Gmail, FaceBook, PayPal and Dropbox accounts? If so, you should consider turning on two-step authentication for these accounts. Two-step authentication is also called two-factor authentication. Typically, two-factor authentication requires you to enter your password as well as a code sent … Read more
Is your external backup hard drive full of Time Machine backup data? In last week’s Tech Tip, we talked about how Time Machine automatically deletes your oldest backups to make room for new backups. Time Machine typically does this, but I’ve seen it misbehave also. Alternatively, you might want to manually delete some of your old … Read more
Has your Time Machine backup hard drive filled up? Are you seeing the “Time Machine deleted one or more backups to make room for new backups” notification? If so, don’t worry. This is perfectly normally and is probably just fine. Let me elaborate and explain.
Read moreWhen was the last time you looked at your Downloads folder? More importantly, when was the last time you cleaned it out? Unless you have reconfigured settings in both Mail and Safari, as well as some other applications, any file that you download gets put into the Downloads folder. I recommend that all users regularly … Read more
Do you ever need to rent a meeting room in Seattle? Many of my clients run home-based businesses and they sometimes need to rent a room where they can conduct trainings, interviews or depositions. Here’s a list of some organizations which rent rooms in the Seattle area. While I try to list a few highlights, … Read more
Would you like to secure your Internet connection when you’re using a public wireless network at a hotel, coffee shop or airport? If so, you should consider using a personal VPN service like Cloak or TunnelBear.
Read moreWould you like to quickly reduce the size of a PDF file so it’s small enough to send as an email attachment? Here are some easy step-by-step instructions to do this on your Mac.
Read moreWould you like to create a questionnaire, sign-up form, quiz or other type of form that people can fill out on their computer? If so, here are some general instructions on how to create a form using Microsoft Word 2011 or Word 2016 on your Mac.
Read moreWould you like to turn a word in an email message into a web page hyperlink? If you use Apple’s Mail, use these simple instructions.
Read moreHard drives are the component of a computer that fail most often. Every hard drive will eventually fail. This is why it’s so important to backup your Mac’s hard drive. It’s also prudent to periodically check the health of your Mac’s internal hard drive. I recommend two applications for this purpose: Onyx (free) and SMARTUtility (free … Read more
Are you pleased with your company’s email and web hosting company? Email is a critical business tool for many businesses, thus one should not change hosting companies on a whim or without adequate preparation. Here’s an overview of the migration process, including pre-migration planning, day-of-migration tasks and post-migration tasks.
Read moreWould you like to quickly delete files from your Mac using a few keystrokes on your keyboard? Here’s how to do it.
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