The apps that run on your Mac or iPhone/iPad.
If you’re considering setting up a new email account and want a free one, here are my recommendations for Mac users. Get either an iCloud email account, from Apple, or a Proton Mail account from Proton, a Swiss company. Not all free email accounts are the same. As you consider your options please keep in … Read more
The discovery of two sophisticated iPhone exploit kits—DarkSword and Coruna—within weeks of each other signals a troubling shift. Unlike previous spyware attacks that targeted high-profile users, these exploit kits have been deployed via compromised legitimate websites, so anyone who visits an infected site could fall victim, with no additional clicks or downloads required. This suggests […]
Read moreIf you use Outlook for Mac, especially for business purposes, it’s time to seriously review your use and consider switching to another email client such as Apple Mail or eMClient or the recently released MailMaven. Legacy Outlook is moving towards being retired and New Outlook, in my opinion, is inadequate for business users and has … Read more
Do you have trouble reading the clock on your iPhone? After upgrading to iOS 26, the lock screen clock becomes transparent, which can make the time hard to read depending on your background image. Fortunately, you can fix this easily by making the clock solid, not transparent.
Read moreIn earlier eras of word processing, users were much more likely to encounter explanations of document structure—not because everyone had to become an expert, but because knowledge was shared differently. Software shipped with detailed manuals, user groups and training classes focused on how documents worked under the hood, and power users routinely shared mental models […]
Read moreIs your Mac abruptly restarting due to a kernel panic? A kernel panic is a very particular type of freeze or crash. The core of the Mac operating system (macOS) is called the kernel. When it gets confused it panics and the whole computer stops working. The computer then automatically restarts after a few seconds. … Read more
Google has created a free service that lets you see what of your personal and professional information has been published on the Web. Once you provide your name, address, phone numbers, and email addresses to Google’s Results About You website, Google will inform you if that info appears in search results. (Don’t worry, you’re not […]
Read moreAs more of our lives shift online, it becomes increasingly important to establish boundaries between different aspects of our digital activities. Many people maintain separate work and personal email addresses for this reason. But you don’t have to stop there. Modern Web browsers offer profiles, a powerful but often overlooked feature. Whether you’re juggling work […]
Read moreWith so many troubling things happening in the world, some clients have inquired about ways to enhance their security. While we don’t want to encourage paranoia, there are many legitimate threats, and everyone will have their own levels of worry about each one. The effort and inconvenience that different people are willing to endure also […]
Read moreIn every job that involves interaction with the public, amusing “Can you believe…” stories about customers abound. They’re often triggered by seemingly reasonable behaviors that experts recognize as problematic. A well-known example from the early days of personal computing is a college student who kept track of his floppy disk by attaching it to his […]
Read moreCloud-based email services such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 dominate the market for organizational email for good reason. Dealing with the constant onslaught of spam and online attacks is hard, as those traumatized by running mail servers in the “good old days” can attest. While email service providers excel at their primary functions of […]
Read moreThis is a guest blog post by Jim Emery of Elakha Consulting. He also helps support the operations of Sound Support. Jim is a Mac and iOS consultant in Port Townsend, Washington. He can be found at www.elakhamac.com. On the Mac, Apple’s Photos is the default photo storage and editing application. Among professional photographers, Adobe … Read more
Do you want to password protect a folder on your Mac? If it’s a folder you use regularly then you can use Disk Utility, a free application that comes bundled with your Mac. That’s the focus of this article. On the other hand, if you want to encrypt a file or folder for long-term storage … Read more
We recently wrote an article for those who manage their own Internet domain names about using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent your domains from being used in phishing attacks and enhance the deliverability of legitimate email. But what about other domains you own but don’t use for email? To make phishing attacks more believable, […]
Read moreDo you have some 20 year old documents that you created in Microsoft Word? Are you aware that today’s version of Microsoft Word likely can’t open them? If you have older Word documents that are important to you, please consider converting them to an open format file type such as PDF/A, so you’ll be to … Read more
For many of us, emoji are fun, but we don’t want to choose Edit > Emoji & Symbols whenever we want to insert one. A faster, better technique is to set up text replacements for emoji you insert often. Open System Settings > Keyboard > Text Replacements, click the + button at the bottom, and […]
Read moreSpam filters work pretty well—99% of the messages in your spam mailbox are probably spam. But it’s frustrating to miss an important message that was caught by an overeager spam filter. Here’s an easy way to find many good messages, also known as “ham,” amidst all the spam. Think of keywords that might appear in […]
Read moreThe latest versions of the Mac and iPad apps in Apple’s iWork suite—Pages 14, Keynote 14, and Numbers 14—have gained a helpful feature: non-contiguous text selection. By holding down the Command key, you can select chunks of text that aren’t next to each other. For example, imagine you want to make the first part of […]
Read moreThe ease of sending and receiving email makes it an attractive way to run scams like phishing attacks. One telltale mark of a phishing attack is the sender’s address not matching their purported domain; attacks that appear to come from legitimate email addresses are much more likely to fool the victim. You can protect your […]
Read moreDoes it feel like your Apple devices are always asking you to install operating system updates? You’re not wrong—from September 2022 to January 2024, we saw the following releases in Apple’s previous set of operating systems: macOS 13 Ventura: 20 releases iOS 16: 25 releases iPadOS 16: 20 releases watchOS 9: 15 releases tvOS 16: […]
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