The apps that run on your Mac or iPhone/iPad.
Do you listen to either music or audio books on your iPhone or iPad as you fall asleep? If so, you could set the iPhone or iPad’s timer to stop playing music, then let the device go to sleep on its own a minute or two later. Here are the instructions:
Read moreHere are some simple instructions on how to enlarge the size of text on a web page when you’re using Safari, Firefox or Chrome on a Macintosh computer. I use this feature on a daily basis since web sites use a variety of font sizes. This is especially handy in low-light settings or if one typically … Read more
Would you like to change Safari’s Home Page? Apple typically sets Safari to open to this page on their own web site. You can easily configure Safari to show you any web page you’d like. Here’s how:
Read moreRSS is a convenient way to stay abreast of news stories or articles added to a particular web site. Rather then needing to visit your favorite web site over and over, you can use RSS to be notified when a new story or article has been added as well as read some or all of … Read more
I recently discovered a bug in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. If you insert a movie file into a PowerPoint presentation and you’re using the older .ppt file format, the link to the movie breaks when you close the file. I’ve confirmed that this problem occurs with .wmv and .mov movie files, and I assume it … Read more
Did you receive an email attachment named winmail.dat or winmail? Here’s a brief explanation of what this file is and instructions for opening it. Winmail.dat files are sent by people using Microsoft Outlook as their email application. Under certain circumstances Outlook will encode attached files, like Word or PDF files, in this winmail.dat format.
Read moreDo you want to know how to perform some routine preventive maintenance on your Mac? Here’s my recommendation of helpful preventive maintenance tasks as well as instructions on how to perform these tasks. You do not need to have advanced knowledge to perform these tasks.
Read moreDid you know that Apple’s Preview lets you easily annotate and merge PDFs as well as delete and re-order pages within a PDF? Preview is a free application which comes bundled with Mac OS X. Apple has been quietly updating over the years and it has become quite capable and user-friendly. Just a few years … Read more
Have you wanted to change your Mac’s behavior so Apple’s Preview is used, rather than Adobe Reader to open all .pdf files? You can control which application is used to open any given file type such as .xls, .doc, .jpg, .tiff, or .awk files.
Read moreHere are instructions on how to copy a DVD. Important Note: Using Disk Utility will NOT work for all DVDs. Most commercial DVDs intentionally have copy-protection mechanisms in place to prevent disk duplication. This method should work fine for DVDs you made using iDVD, for example.
Read moreUpdate March 2013: Added instructions for OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion. Update October 2014: Added OS X 10.9, Mavericks, to the instructions for Mountain Lion. Did you know that Mac OS X has a built-in zoom feature? This feature lets you zoom in on your screen so everything on the screen is larger. Of course, … Read more
Did you know that you can take pictures of what’s on your iPhone’s screen? For example, you can take pictures of a text message, a web page or an email configuration screen.
Read more[October 2022. See Sound Support’s updated post on Find Your Cursor Using Simple Mouse Locator] If you ever struggle to find your Mac’s cursor then I recommend that you use MouseLocator. This free application puts a halo around the cursor to help your eyes locate it. You can configure how long the halo is displayed. … Read more
Do you want to give your computer to another person, but before giving it away you want to remove all of your data? If so, here’s an easy way to accomplish this. We’ll create a user account for the person who’ll be using the Mac, then delete your user account.
Read moreHere are instructions on how to use Disk Utility to securely erase a hard drive connected internally or externally to your Mac. These instructions were written for Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.6. The process is very similar on older versions of Mac OS X, but the screens will look a bit different.
Read moreYou can use these instructions to retrieve any saved password from your keychain, such as the password to your wireless network. The keychain is a secure place to store passwords.
Read moreDid you know that Apple’s Mail application automatically builds a list of all recipients to whom you’ve sent email? I think it’s very useful to review this list a few times each year. By reviewing this list you can easily add useful email addresses to your Contacts and delete outdated email addresses or ones that … Read more
Here are instructions on how to remove and re-add a print queue. I commonly do this to fix printer issues. Somehow the old queue gets “damaged” and stops working properly. As long as you don’t mind losing any of the print jobs which may be sitting in the queue, go ahead and do the following:
Read moreHere are some examples of how I use QuickLook. I often have a Word or Excel file I need to reference. I don’t need to make a change to the document I just want to read some information from it or remind myself of some details.
Read moreHere are instructions on how to reindex your Quicken Data File.
Read more