Getting to know the basics of your computer.
Since a very full hard drive can produce unwanted and erratic behaviors on a Mac, I typically recommend keeping at least 10% of your hard drive’s capacity available. In other words, you want your internal storage to be less than 90% full. Determining the fullness of your Mac’s hard drive is not as easy as … Read more
Is your Mac’s hard drive getting full? Have you ever noticed that Apple designates some of your storage space as purgeable space? What is purgeable space? Apple introduced the concept of purgeable space in macOS 10.12 Sierra. If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or newer, you can easily see if it has so-called purgeable … Read more
Years ago I wrote an article about cleaning your Mac or iPhone screen. Given concerns about COVID-19 and the flu, it’s useful to point out that Apple provides cleaning guidelines for all of your Apple products. In particular, Apple appears to have recently updated their article with guidance on how to disinfect your Apple products. … Read more
Did you Mac fail to adjust its clock this morning when Daylight Savings Time ended? If so, please configure your Mac to automatically adjust it’s date and time, by doing the following:
Read moreHave you ever had your Mac or iPhone recalled by Apple? Fortunately, this is a rare event. I believe I have personally bought about 10 Macs over the past 35 years and 4 iPhones over the past 12 years. One of my Macs and one of my iPhones needed to be repaired under an Apple recall. … Read more
If you’ve upgraded your Mac to macOS High Sierra or macOS Mojave you have likely seen an alert that looks like the one shown below. I’ll explain what this alert means and how you should handle this situation. Microsoft Word 2011 is only one of many applications that can trigger this alert, but Word 2011 … Read more
Would you like to make sure that your Mac is not configured to automatically install updates to the Mac operating system (macOS)? If so, follow the instructions for the version of macOS installed on your Mac. To determine which version you have installed, please click on the Apple menu, in the upper left corner, of … Read more
Do you need to store many Terabytes (TB) of data or does your business operate a server that needs to be available to your staff at all times? If so, you might want to understand the basics of RAID. A RAID is a group of hard drives working in tandem to give you increased storage … Read more
Is your Mac’s internal storage nearly full? If so, you may have seen an error message indicating that your startup disk is nearly full. I typically use OmniDiskSweeper to free up storage space on a Mac. One of the easiest techniques I use to free up some storage space is to remove backups of iPhones … Read more
Did you know that there are thousands of invisible files on your Mac? Have you ever needed to locate or delete one of these invisible files? Here are a couple of ways to be able to access the invisible files and folders on your Mac. A cautionary note, Apple makes these files invisible for a … Read more
Do you want to schedule a Genius Bar appointment to talk with Apple about repairing your Mac or iPhone? Over the past few years, Apple has made it harder to schedule a Genius Bar appointment. There may be a good reason for this, such as Apple has learned that many issues that customers bring to … Read more
Are you confused by messages from Malwarebytes about the need to update or upgrade? If so, you’re not alone. My general recommendation is that you always want to update Malwarebytes, but you probably don’t need to upgrade it.
Read moreDoes your Mac need more memory? If you’re not sure of the difference between memory and storage please review my article about this. Briefly, a computer’s memory is a computer’s working space. The computer temporarily stores open files and open applications in memory. If your Mac doesn’t have enough memory then its performance can be … Read more
Would you like to change the initial page displayed when you open Safari on your Mac? If so, follow these instructions. Fortunately, Apple hasn’t changed how this is done in many versions of Safari. These instructions will certainly work on Safari versions 5-11 on Mac OS X version 10.6.x up to macOS High Sierra (aka … Read more
A kernel panic refers to a very specific type of computer freeze. A variety of things can cause kernel panics. Below is a description of how your Mac behaves when it experiences a kernel panic so you can recognize it if this happens to you.
Read moreWould you like to make the text on your iPhone or iPad easier to read? I believe the following 3 ways to enlarge text have been available since at least iOS 7 and they continue to be available in the current version of iOS. To turn on any of these options do this: Tap on … Read more
In most situations, I tend to recommend that you buy Apple’s extended hardware warranty, called AppleCare. Apple enhanced AppleCare in 2017 so I think it’s an even more compelling option.
Read moreYou are the weakest link in your computer’s security! Please keep reading this important Tech Tip. If you’re not already aware of this fact, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the easiest way for a hacker to get into your Mac is through you. Tricking you into divulging information, installing software … Read more
Would you like to access free video training courses on Mac OS, iMovie, Keynote, Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, WordPress, GoogleDocs and other topics? For about 20 years, Lynda.com has offered video-based training on thousands of business, software, and creative skills. Typically, a monthly subscription costs $20-$30. I recently learned that the Seattle Public Library offers access to Lynda.com video … Read more
Please watch out for tech support phone scams. There are two types of scams. The first type are scammers who call you at home and fraudulently claim to be from some group like Apple or Microsoft. The second type are groups that you mistakenly call when you’re seeking technical support.
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