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 moreHas your Mac suddenly become slow or started having trouble doing the usual daily tasks? If so, you might have some accidentally installed app that isn’t helpful to your Mac. Not all of these apps are malicious, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll call them malware here. Malware behavior ranges anywhere from giving annoying pop … 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
Are 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
Did you recently upgrade your Mac to OS X version 10.10.3 and find that iPhoto stopped working? Have you tried Apple’s new Photos application and decided that you didn’t like it? If so, you can revert to using iPhoto if, before you installed OS X 10.10.3, you had been running iPhoto version 9.6 and a previous … Read more
Do you print a lot of mailing labels so you can send envelopes to clients? Do you have all of your client’s and friend’s street addresses stored in Apple’s Contacts application? If so, you might want to consider a label printer like the ones made by Dymo.
Read moreDo you sometimes want to print a paragraph of an email message, Word document or web page? If so, here’s an incredibly fast and easy way to do this on your Mac. Select the text that you want to print Press Command-Shift-Y. This will create a new Sticky Note and paste the selected text on … Read more
If you’re going to be buying a Mac soon, please make sure you equip it with enough memory (RAM) when you buy it. Increasingly, Apple is soldering memory into the computer. The advantage of doing this is that computer cases can be thinner and one can get a bit better performance. The disadvantage is that it will no longer be possible … Read more
Is your web browser acting oddly all of the sudden? Do funny windows pop-up showing you ads? Do your Google searches look weird? If so, you might have inadvertently installed some adware on your Mac. Starting in late 2014 I noticed a rash of Macs infected with adware. Adware is software that makes ads pop-up … Read more
Do you use a Comcast email account? If so, you might be interested to know that Comcast email accounts are now IMAP-enabled. IMAP refers to the way your email application, such as Apple Mail, interacts with the mail server. IMAP offers more sophisticated email management if you access your email account using multiple computers, tablets … Read more
Sophos is a great anti-virus application for Mac users. Sophos is free for home users and quite affordable for business users. Sophos updates itself daily and scans every file that you download or open.
Read moreAre you retiring an older Mac that has a mechanical, spinning hard drive and its running macOS version 10.7 or higher? If so, here are instructions on how you can securely erase the Mac’s hard drive before you donate your Mac or sell it.
Read moreDo you use Gmail? When you click an email link on a web site does Apple Mail or some other email client open? If so, you should follow these instructions to make Gmail your default email client. I’ve provided instructions for the 3 most widely used web browsers: Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Follow the instructions … Read more
Below are instructions on how to change your OS X user account picture. When you took your new Mac out of the box and turned it on initially, you were lead through creating a user account and either had one of the built-in photos randomly assigned to your User Account or you were offered the choice of … Read more
Restarting fixes a variety of problems. It’s true! You might have heard the adage, When in doubt, restart or if you’ve ever called for computer support you’ve likely been asked Have you tried restarting yet? I know I ask my clients this question almost daily. If you’re having a problem with a device, please restart it. … Read more
This Tech Tip is a cautionary tale. As a general rule, I recommend that you avoid installing apps that claim to tune-up or optimize your Mac. Last week, I worked on two Macs whose performance was negatively impacted by MacKeeper, MacBooster and TuneUpMyMac. A third Mac’s web browsing had been hijacked by Conduit Search. It’s not clear … Read more
Would you like to use a wireless keyboard, mouse, or trackpad with your Mac? Bluetooth is a wireless technology that lets one connect various devices such as keyboards, mice, printers and speakers. The maximum range of Bluetooth is about 30 feet. People like the idea of Bluetooth devices since it reduces cable clutter. However, Bluetooth devices use batteries, so … Read more
If you use Time Machine to backup your Mac to an external hard drive, here are some basics that you can check if backups are no longer occurring.
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