If you own an iPhone make sure your Find My iPhone feature is enabled. Find My iPhone is one of the services offered by Apple’s iCloud service. The Find My iPhone feature helps you locate your iPhone, lock it and potentially erase it. Best of all, Find My iPhone is a theft deterrent since this feature makes your phone essentially useless to anybody else. Specifically, it enables a feature that Apple calls Activation Lock. However, all of these benefits require that you enable this feature before the iPhone gets misplaced or stolen. Read More from “Enable Find My iPhone”
How To Restore A Time Machine Backup On To A New Hard Drive
At some point, everyone will experience a hard drive failure. When this happens, a Time Machine backup can save your data. Here are instructions on how to restore all applications and personal files from a Time Machine backup onto a new hard drive. Time Machine is a backup application made by Apple. It comes bundled with every Mac that shipped with OS X 10.5 or higher. It can be used to backup the contents of your Mac’s internal hard drive to an external hard drive or to an Airport Time Capsule. I’ve written previously about the importance of backups and how to set up and monitor Time Machine. The restore process requires you to first install OS X onto the new hard drive and then restore everything from your most recent Time Machine backup.
(If you’re looking for instructions on how to restore an entire Time Machine backup on to a new Mac read this.)
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How To Identify Your iPhone or iPad Model
Have you ever wondered how to identify which iPhone or iPad model you have? While there are some physical characteristics that might help you generally differentiate one model from another, these differences are often subtle and aren’t always sufficient. Here are a two ways to definitively identify your iOS device. Read More from “How To Identify Your iPhone or iPad Model”
How To Set Up CrashPlan On Your Mac
CrashPlan is a backup application, made by Code42. I use it and recommend it to create off-site, cloud-based, backups. To backup to Code42’s servers, one needs a subsciption. Code42 used to offer both home and business plans, but they stopped selling home plans in August 2017.
A Business subscription costs $10 per computer per month and provides unlimited storage.
With a paid subscription to CrashPlan, CrashPlan runs every 15 minutes and creates multiple backup copies of your files. Every time you edit a file a new backup copy is made.
Consider Buying Your Cable Modem
If Comcast is your Internet Service Provider, you are likely renting your cable modem from them. In the Seattle area, the rental fee is currently about $10 per month. If you’re renting, you should consider buying your own cable modem. Here are the pros and cons of renting a cable modem, as I see them. Read More from “Consider Buying Your Cable Modem”
Clean Your ScanSnap
Do you use a Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner? Have you ever cleaned it? I recently cleaned my ScanSnap and it fixed a paper feed issue I was having. I’ve previously recommended Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners. I’ve owned my ScanSnap S500M since the beginning of 2007 and I’ve never cleaned it since it has performed nearly flawlessly. This summer, after racking up over 7000 scans, my ScanSnap started to have problems properly feeding documents, so I looked at the manual for recommended cleaning instructions. I learned that it’s recommended that you clean your ScanSnap every 1000 scans! Read More from “Clean Your ScanSnap”
How To Scan Using Image Capture
You should consider using Apple’s easy-to-use Image Capture. Image Capture can both copy photos off of digital cameras and control a scanner to scan paper documents. Today’s tech tip focuses only on scanning. Image Capture can control hundreds of scanners made by Brother, Canon, Epson, HP and other manufacturers. Image Capture is one of many free applications that comes bundled with every Mac computer. I typically prefer to use Image Capture instead of the scanning applications that come bundled with scanners. In other words, if you already have a scanner connected to your Mac, simply open Image Capture and see if it’s able to communicate with your scanner without doing any additional setup. [Note: Check out my Tech Tip about how to scan using your iPhone or iPad if you don’t have a scanner connected to your Mac.] Read More from “How To Scan Using Image Capture”
How To Recover Deleted iPhone Text Messages
Have you ever deleted a text message from your iPhone and then quickly regretted doing this? If so, here’s an overview of some options that might let you recover that text message. Unlike deleted voicemail messages or deleted email messages, there isn’t a Trash or Deleted Items folder for text messages. In other words, you can’t quickly recover your text message from your iPhone yourself. Instead, your can try to recover the text message from another device or to buy a product like Mac FoneLab or iExplorer, which currently cost $90 and $35, respectively. Read More from “How To Recover Deleted iPhone Text Messages”
Magnifying Glass With Light iPhone App
Do you ever need a magnifying glass or a bit of light to read a menu or medicine bottle? If so, check out Magnifying Glass With Light or Glasses. Both are free iOS apps for your iPhone. Both of these apps are easy to use, and you would be wise have one on your iPhone.
Glasses has an elegant design and no ads. Magnifying Glass With Light has banner ads across the bottom. If they bug you or if you want to get some advanced features then you could upgrade to Magnifying Glass With Light Pro, which is currently $1.99. Read about the additional features available in the Pro version.
How Often Should You Backup Your Mac?
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”