Clients often ask me how often they should backup their Mac. They also ask me which files they should backup. My answer is short and sweet. Everybody should backup all files on their Mac’s hard drive every day. Why? Because you never knows when disaster will strike and you’ll need to rely on a recent backup to retrieve one or many files. Whether you use your Mac for business or personal purposes, increasingly most of us have sentimental or important files on our computers which need to be backed up so they can be recovered if a disaster occurs. Read More from “How Often Should You Backup Your Mac?”
Comcast Extends Low-Cost Internet Service to Low-Income Seniors
I recently learned that Comcast has offered a low-cost Internet service for low-income families since early 2014. Comcast calls this the Internet Essentials program. As of April 2015, Comcast indicates that they’ve enrolled 480,000 families across the country. In August, 2015, Comcast started a pilot program in San Francisco to extend this program to low-income seniors. I wasn’t able to find a list of requirements for low-income seniors, but the requirements for low-income families indicate the primary requirement is having a child who is eligible for the National School Lunch Program. The monthly Internet service costs $9.95 plus tax and provides speeds of 10 Megabits. If I learn that the low-income seniors service is extended to other cities, I’ll update this Tech Tip.
Taking the Giant iMac Wheel for a Spin
I know you subscribe to my Tech Tips to get pearls of wisdom and nuggets of knowledge. Not this week. This Tech Tip is just for fun. Hope you enjoy it.
If you’ve ever wondered what you could build with a big collection of iMac boxes then check out the Giant iMac Wheel in this YouTube video.
Converting Outlook .PST files to Apple Mail
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 More from “Converting Outlook .PST files to Apple Mail”
Two Ways To Detect Bogus Emails
Do you ever get emails from a real company like Apple, HP, Adobe, Bank of America, Chase or PayPal that look real, but you’re not sure if they are legitimate emails? If so, here are two things you can look at in order to determine their authenticity. Read More from “Two Ways To Detect Bogus Emails”
Create An iTunes Allowance For Your Kids
[UPDATE: April 2016. Apple has announced that they’ll stop offering iTunes allowances but existing allowances with balances will remain intact until used. Instead of iTunes allowances Apple recommends using iTunes Gift cards. ]
Do your kids have their owns iPhones, iPads or iPod Touches? Do you want them to be able to buy apps, music and other items from either the iTunes Store or the App Store? Do you want to avoid giving them your AppleID password which would give them unfettered access to buy things? If so, consider setting up a monthly iTunes allowance. Read More from “Create An iTunes Allowance For Your Kids”
Quickly Find And Open An iPhone Or iPad App
Do you have dozens of apps on your iPhone or iPad? Do you spend lots of time swiping back and forth between screens looking for the right icon? If so, you should instead use the built-in search function since it is much faster. If your iPhone or iPad is using iOS 7 or newer then you access the Spotlight search feature by swiping your finger down on your devices screen. Read More from “Quickly Find And Open An iPhone Or iPad App”
Quickly Send An Address Book Contact From Your iPhone Or iPad
Have you ever wanted to share a contact from your iPhone or iPad address book with a friend? iOS has a built-in feature that makes this very easy to do. Read More from “Quickly Send An Address Book Contact From Your iPhone Or iPad”
FollowUpThen: A Multifaceted Email Reminder System
Do you want to be able to email reminders to yourself or to others? Consider using FollowUpThen. A few weeks ago I wrote a TechTip about SendLater, which lets you schedule emails to be sent to you or somebody else in the future. While there is overlap between these two products, FollowUpThen has some additional features. Read More from “FollowUpThen: A Multifaceted Email Reminder System”
Beware of Bogus Alerts When Visiting Web Sites
Be aware of a myriad of bogus pop-ups that might appear when you are visiting web sites. Typically these pop-ups contain messages that indicate that your computer has been compromised or some sort of security issue has been detected. Often the message include a phone number to call to get assistance. Furthermore, these pop-up windows are often difficult to dismiss and they hijack control of your your web browser, so you can’t view any other web pages.
First, please don’t believe the messages listed in these pop-up windows. Whatever dire warning is listed, it is not true. The FBI has not locked your computer. Microsoft has not detected a problem with your computer. Please do not call the phone number listed. I’m not sure what you’ll be told by the person you call, but I’m sure it won’t be true. They might offer to help you for a fee and thus they might ask for your credit card number. Please don’t give them your credit card number or any other personal information.
The steps listed below will typically get rid of these bogus pop-ups and help you to regain control of Safari or whichever web browser you’re using.
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Use DetectX to Remove Malware from Your Mac
Has 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 ups all the way to tracking keystrokes on your Mac. None of this is good or helpful for your productivity. Read More from “Use DetectX to Remove Malware from Your Mac”
How Full Is Your Email Account?
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 contents of these folders into local folders in the “On My Mac” section of Mail or you can delete the contents if you don’t need the messages any longer. In the example below, I’m using Apple’s Mail application and I’m determining the fullness of my iCloud email account. Read More from “How Full Is Your Email Account?”
Show Full Website Addresses in Safari
Have you noticed that Safari version 8, that comes with OS X Yosemite, no longer shows the full website address in the address field at the top of its window? For example, if you visit https://soundsupport.biz/ and then click on a link to visit some page within my website, Safari will only display soundsupport.biz in the address field. Once you click in the address field Safari will show the full address, such as https://soundsupport.biz/group-mac-support/ Read More from “Show Full Website Addresses in Safari”
SendLater Lets You Send Emails In The Future
Would you like to schedule emails to be sent in the future? You can by installing Feingeist’s SendLater plugin (see update below) for Apple’s Mail application. Once installed SendLater adds a button in Mail. Cleverly, the button’s name is Send Later! When you click this button you’ll see the window pictured below. Read More from “SendLater Lets You Send Emails In The Future”
Fixing Access To Google Accounts From Your Mac
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 More from “Fixing Access To Google Accounts From Your Mac”
Why Is My Mac Ringing?
If 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 collection of features that integrate your Mac and iPhone. You can read more about all of Continuity’s features (and how to turn them off) in this article. While it sounds handy, a number of clients don’t like it and have asked me to help them turn it off. Here’s how:
Dropbox’s Selective Sync Feature
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 with a relatively small hard drive or if you store completed projects in Dropbox, but do not need to regularly access these files. Dropbox has written instructions about how to use the Selective Sync feature so I won’t provide step-by-step instructions. Just remember, if you want to access the files that you have deselected in Selective Sync, you have two options. You can visit the Dropbox website and login to your account or you could re-visit the Selective Sync settings and set the folders to sync, then wait for their contents to be downloaded to your Mac.
A word of caution. While you may choose to employ Selective Sync on one of your Macs, please make sure that you have at least one Mac that does not use Selective Sync. This way you’ll have at least one mac that has a full local copy of all of the data that you store in Dropbox. Also, make sure that this particular Mac is backed up so you have your own backup of all of the data you store in Dropbox.
Use XtraFinder To Get Back Colorful Labels
Do you miss how Labels used to work? Do you miss having colorful shortcuts in your Sidebar? If so, then consider using XtraFinder. Starting with OS X Mavericks (OS X 10.9) Apple changed how Labels work. In fact, they renamed the feature from Labels to Tags. Labels used to add a background color to a file or folder’s entire name. Now Tags only adds a small colored dot next to the filename. Many clients have told me that they don’t like this new style of Tags. Read More from “Use XtraFinder To Get Back Colorful Labels”
Revert To Using iPhoto Instead Of Photos
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 version of OS X Yosemite (aka version 10.10.x). Read More from “Revert To Using iPhoto Instead Of Photos”
Consider A Dymo Label Printer
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 More from “Consider A Dymo Label Printer”