Change Google Chrome’s Homepage On Your Mac

Would you like to change the initial page displayed when you open Google Chrome on your Mac? If so, follow these instructions. Fortunately, Google hasn’t changed this very much over the past few years.

These instructions will certainly work on Chrome versions 49-72, and maybe newer versions.

  • Open Chrome, click on the Chrome menu and select Preferences
  • Scroll down to the On Startup section and choose the option named Open a specific page or set of pages
  • Choose Add a new page and then type in the web page address in the Site URL field. Older versions of Chrome don’t have an Add a new page option. Instead, click on Set pages then type in the web page address in the Enter URL field.
  • Click the Add button. In older versions of Chrome click the OK button.

If Apple’s Photos Application Doesn’t Meet Your Needs Consider Adobe Lightroom CC

Do you use Apple’s Photos application to store and edit your photos on your Mac? Photos is a capable Mac application and Apple continually slips in new features and refines the interface since they introduced it in April 2015. For example, in Photos version 3.0, introduced as part of macOS High Sierra in October 2017, Apple added the ability to let you use an external photo editor such as Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Photoshop and others. However, if you find that Photos isn’t robust enough to meet your needs, consider Adobe’s new application named Lightroom CC. Don’t get confused, Adobe has had an application named Lightroom CC for a number of years, but it has now been renamed Lightroom Classic CC. Adobe has supplemented it with a new application named Lightroom CC. This new Lightroom CC is positioned between Apple’s Photos and Lightroom Classic CC in terms of capabilities. So, if Photos isn’t enough for you but the previous Lightroom was too intimidating, it could be time to look at the new Lightroom CC. Tidbits has written a great article about the new Lightroom CC and why it’s a step up from Photos as well as Lightroom Classic CC.

Change Safari’s Homepage On Your Mac

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 OS X 10.13).

  • Open Safari, click on the Safari menu and select Preferences
  • Click on the General icon on the top row of icons
  • Locate the section named Homepage and type in the address of the page that you want to be your homepage, such as www.nytimes.com, www.google.com or www.duckduckgo.com (Note: you do not need to type the http:// at the front of address that you type, Safari will automatically add http://.)

Are You Prepared If Your Mac Is Stolen?

Are you prepared to handle the theft of your Mac? Unfortunately, I had to test my own disaster recovery procedures when my laptop was stolen this past week. In situations like this, I believe there are two priorities. First, is the data on the Mac inaccessible? Second, can one get up and running on another Mac with all of one’s data? Let me tell you how I faired and the systems that I relied upon. Read More from “Are You Prepared If Your Mac Is Stolen?”

Review All AppleID Purchases Within The Last 90 Days

Have you ever wanted to view a list of items you’ve recently purchased using your AppleID? This would include all purchases made within iTunes, the iPhone App Store or the Mac App Store. Perhaps you need a receipt for your bookkeeper. Perhaps you want to review what your kids have bought. Perhaps you do not recognize a charge on your monthly credit card bill. Apple now offers an easy way for you to view all purchases made over the past 3 months.  Read More from “Review All AppleID Purchases Within The Last 90 Days”

How To Shutdown CrashPlan After You’ve Switched to BackBlaze

Were you using the CrashPlan Home backup service? Have you now switched to BackBlaze or some equivalent backup service? Once you know that BackBlaze has completed its initial backup of your Mac then it’s safe to get rid of CrashPlan. It is my understanding that it is not possible to actually shutdown or close your CrashPlan account. Instead, we will just unlink all of your Macs from your CrashPlan account and then we will let your CrashPlan account expire.  Read More from “How To Shutdown CrashPlan After You’ve Switched to BackBlaze”

Manually Remove Remnants Of Mac Malware

Have you used MalwareBytes to remove malware from your Mac? Malwarebytes does a great job of removing harmful software from your Mac, but it sometimes leaves bits and pieces of the malware on your Mac. These remnants are not harmful to your Mac, but I like to get rid of them anyway. If you are one of our clients and we sent you a list of some files that need to be manually removed here are instructions to guide you. Read More from “Manually Remove Remnants Of Mac Malware”

Enable BCC In Apple Mail

Would you like to be able to use the blind carbon copy (Bcc) feature in Apple Mail? It is easy to enable this feature, but not necessarily obvious how to do so. By default, when you create a new email message in Mail, it only displays lines named To, CC and Subject. To add a Bcc line, click on the View menu and select Bcc Address Field. The two images below depict both the default configuration and how things look once Bcc has been enabled.

Mail without BCC lineMail with BCC line

Reinstall Mac Operating System From The Recovery Partition

Do you want to completely erase a Mac and reinstall its operating system? Perhaps you are about to give away this Mac. Or, perhaps your Mac is acting up and you want to start with a clean slate. Here are instructions on how you can erase the hard drive and reinstall OS X, recently renamed macOS.

OS X 10.7 and newer includes a feature called the Recovery Partition. This is a normally invisible part of the Mac’s hard drive. The Mac can start up from the Recovery Partition, and it can be used to erase the hard drive and then reinstall OS X onto that hard drive. Read More from “Reinstall Mac Operating System From The Recovery Partition”

Time To Plan Your Upgrade To Office 2016

[Update: February 2019 – A few months ago Microsoft released Office 2019 for both Windows and Mac so you should buy Office 2019 now, instead of Office 2016. Microsoft has announced that support for Office 2016 ends on October 13, 2020.]

If you use Office 2011, it’s time for you to start planning your upgrade to Office 2016. Office for the Mac includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, if you buy the Business version. There are a few reasons for you to start planning to switch to Office 2016. Initially, as of October 10, 2017, Microsoft will not release any more updates for Office 2011. This means they won’t fix any more bugs, release security updates or provide email or phone support. Additionally, Microsoft indicated that they have not tested Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook with macOS High Sierra (aka OS X 10.13) which Apple released in September 2017. Thus, if you choose to use Office 2011 in High Sierra, you might encounter issues. Lastly, Apple has indicated that High Sierra is the last version of the Mac operating system that will fully support 32-bit apps.

[Update October 2019 – While Office 2011 was no longer supported by Microsoft it continues to function reasonably well with macOS Mojave (aka macOS 10.14). Office 2011 does not function at all with macOS Catalina (aka macOS 10.15)]

So the writing is on the wall. Make your plans. When the time comes, you could either buy a copy of Office 2016 or you could subscribe to Office365. Office Home & Student 2016 costs $150. This includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Office Home & Business 2016 costs $230 and adds Outlook. If you want to subscribe to Office365 you can choice from either Office365 Home or Office365 Business plans.

 

Options For Migrating Off CrashPlan Home

If you use CrashPlan Home then you need to make a change. Code42, the company that makes CrashPlan sent out emails announcing that they are sunsetting their CrashPlan Home product and will focus on CrashPlan for Business. As of August 22, 2017 it’s no longer possible to renew or extend an existing CrashPlan for Home subscription. Additionally, everybody’s subscription was extended by 60 days at no additional cost. This way, everybody has at least 60 days to take action. If you recently renewed your annual subscription, say in August 2017, then you have 14 months, until October 2018, to take action.

Read More from “Options For Migrating Off CrashPlan Home”

See If You Rely On Older Apps Before Upgrading To iOS 11

Before you install iOS 11 on your iPhone or iPad, please check to see if you rely on older apps which are not compatible with iOS 11. iOS 11 is Apple’s latest major release of software for iPhones and iPads, released at the end of September, 2017. For many years, I’ve recommended holding off on installing major upgrades since Apple often introduces major redesigns to the user interface and major upgrades often have anmnoying bugs. With the upgrade to iOS 11 there is another reason to hold off on upgrading. iOS 11 no longer supports 32-bit apps. This means that older applications that haven’t been updated in several years will no longer work. Here’s how you can check to see if you have any incompatible apps on your device. Read More from “See If You Rely On Older Apps Before Upgrading To iOS 11”

Make Sure You Backup Your iPhone While Traveling

When you are away from home, you need to make sure your iPhone connects to wi-fi networks to ensure that it’s getting backed up. This tip assumes that you have automatic backups to iCloud enabled. If you need help turning on this feature or checking to see if it’s on, then please refer to my previous tip, How To Backup Your iPhone or iPad. Read More from “Make Sure You Backup Your iPhone While Traveling”

Make Your iPhone Easier To Read

Would 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 Settings
  • Tap on General
  • Tap on Accessibility
  • Then tap on either Bold Text, Larger Text or Zoom.

I’ll talk about each in turn.

Bold Text – If you tap on Bold Text to turn it on, you’ll be notified that you need to restart your iPhone. Go ahead and do this. Upon restart you’ll see that the text names of apps is bold. In fact, this is a systemwide adjustment. Text everywhere will be a bit thicker.

Larger Text – If you tap on Larger Text you’ll be able to turn on this feature and adjust a slider to control how much larger you want the text to be. Unlike Bold text, this is not a systemwide adjustment. Only apps which support Dynamic Type will use larger text. The Contacts app is an example of one app that uses Dynamic Text so use it to figure out where you want to position the slider. I recommend that, for starters, you position the slider to the right of center.

Zoom – If you tap on Zoom, you’ll be able to turn on this feature. Once this feature has been enabled you then need to know how to invoke it. You must double-tap 3 fingers on the screen. When you do this, the entire screen will zoom in. Thus, you’ll only be able to see a portion of the screen. To move around the screen, you can drag three fingers. Finally, to get out of zoom mode, double-tap 3 fingers again.

Share A Bluetooth Speaker With An iPhone and iPad

Have you ever wanted to share a Bluetooth device with 2 or more iOS devices? For example, do you want to share a Bluetooth speaker or a pair of Bluetooth headphones with both your iPhone and iPad? Sharing one Bluetooth device with multiple iOS devices can cause confusion. This tip will help you to understand and handle the confusion.  Read More from “Share A Bluetooth Speaker With An iPhone and iPad”