An Easy Way To Print Selected Text

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Miscellaneous

Do 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.

  1. Select the text that you want to print
  2. Press Command-Shift-Y. This will create a new Sticky Note and paste the selected text on it. Text formatting will be retained.
  3. Press Command-P to bring up the print window. Click the Print button to send the sticky note to your printer.

That’s it. If you’d like to delete the Sticky Note click the tiny square in the note’s upper left corner. If you’d like to keep the Stick Note simply quit the Stickies application.

Tara Gimmer Offers Professional Affordable Headshots

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Miscellaneous, Seattle

Do you need an affordable, professional photo of yourself for your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook profile or your own web site? Do you hate having your picture taken? If so, you should consider working with Tara Gimmer. Tara recently created an updated headshot for me and I’m pleased with the results, but judge for yourself. Read More from “Tara Gimmer Offers Professional Affordable Headshots”

Put Your Commonly Used Wireless Networks At The Top Of The List

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Networks

Do you know that your Mac automatically builds a list of every wireless network to which it has been connected? When your Mac wakes up, it scans the airwaves to see which networks are available and then runs through this list of known networks trying to find a match. For this reason, you should make sure that networks that you frequently use, such as your home and work networks are at the top of this list. By putting frequently used networks at the top, your Mac will find them and connect to them a bit more quickly. Read More from “Put Your Commonly Used Wireless Networks At The Top Of The List”

Equip Your Next Mac With Enough Memory

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Computer Basics, Hardware, Macintosh

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 to add more memory at a later date, which used to be a very common upgrade. Consequently, I increasingly recommend buying a custom-configured Mac that has enough storage space and memory instead of a pre-configured, off-the-shelf Mac.  Read More from “Equip Your Next Mac With Enough Memory”

How To Recycle Styrofoam In Seattle

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Recycling, Seattle

Do you have styrofoam peanuts or large blocks of styrofoam that you’d like to recycle? I order a lot of computer products online and unbox a lot of new computers that clients have bought. For many years, I’ve dropped off styrofoam peanuts at my neighborhood shipping company, Sip and Ship in Ballard. Many neighborhoods have private shipping stores or a FedexOffice store that I would assume would be happy to receive this material. It’s been tough to find options for recycling large blocks of styrofoam, but I’ve found some. Read More from “How To Recycle Styrofoam In Seattle”

Use Malwarebytes To Remove Genieo and Other Malware

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Security/Privacy, Software, Virus/Malware, Web Browsing

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 in your web browser. The good news is Malwarebytes for Mac, can be used to remove most adware as well as other types of malware from your Mac. Use these instructions to download a copy of Malwarebytes and scan your Mac. Read More from “Use Malwarebytes To Remove Genieo and Other Malware”

5 Tips To Avoid Common DNS Problems

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Domain Names, Services

Last week’s Tech Tip explained how the DNS system works and introduced you to the most common DNS records: NS, MX and A records. This week’s Tech Tip lists 5 DNS management tips for small business owners to avoid common problems. If you follow these tips you’ll reduce the chances that your company’s web site or email will ever stop working.  Read More from “5 Tips To Avoid Common DNS Problems”

Understanding DNS Basics

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Domain Names, Services

Understanding DNS (Domain Name System) is important because it determines if your business can send and receive emails and if your business’ website is visible to the world. This Tech Tip explains basic DNS terminology like domain names, name servers, DNS lookup and common DNS records like NS, A and MX. I believe that most small business owners should understand the basics of how DNS works.  Any time you ask an employee or contractor to make changes that will affect your DNS records, you should be sure that this person knows what they are doing. Even if you aren’t a small business owner, I think you’ll find this overview of the DNS system useful. Read More from “Understanding DNS Basics”

Comcast Now Offers IMAP Email Accounts

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Email, Services

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 or smartphones. (Read this previous Tech Tip about IMAP if you’d like to learn a bit more.) Comcast started to support IMAP around the end of 2013.

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Tips For Taming Your Email Inbox

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Email, Email, Services, Software

Do you struggle to stay on top of the high volume of email messages that arrive in your Inbox every day? Many people struggle with this, including me. Here are some suggestions on how you can start to tame your Inbox. You don’t need to implement all of these suggestions. Instead, just pick a few that sound like they would be effective for you and use them. If you have your own suggestions, please send them to me and I’ll update this list. Read More from “Tips For Taming Your Email Inbox”

Options For Archiving Email From Entourage Or Outlook

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Email, Software

Do you use either Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Entourage as your email application? Do you store thousands and thousands of email messages? Do you infrequently access many of these messages? If so, you could consider archiving these messages. Once the message has been archived then you can delete them from Outlook which will remove them from Outlook’s or Entourage’s mail database. This makes the database smaller, faster and less prone to having problems. The messages can still be accessed, typically from within the archiving application.

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What Is Stored In The “Other” Category On My iPhone And How Can I Get Rid Of It?

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Computer Basics, Hardware, iPhone and iPad, Maintenance

Have you ever noticed that the “Other” storage section on your iPhone or iPad is quite large? Have you ever wondered what comprises this “Other” category? When you connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, you’ll see a bar like the one pictured. This bar depicts the primary storage categories and shows their relative size.

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How To Set Up An Auto-Reply If You Use Rackspace Email

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Email, Services

When you’re on vacation or out of the office for a day-long meeting would you like to send an auto-reply to email messages that you receive? If your email provider is Rackspace then follow these instructions. Rackspace is a premiere email provider and I regularly recommend Rackspace to my clients.  Read More from “How To Set Up An Auto-Reply If You Use Rackspace Email”

How To Search Your Entire Mac’s Hard Drive

Posted on by Tim Hannon in Software, Utilities

Did you know that Apple’s built-in search tool called Spotlight doesn’t search the entire hard drive? There are good reasons why Apple does this (which I won’t go into now), but there are also times when you want to be able to search the entire hard drive. When I’m troubleshooting a problem on a client’s Mac, I often need to search through various folders that Spotlight doesn’t search. I use Devon Technologies’ EasyFind or Thomas Tempelmann’s Find Any File.

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Use The Recovery Partition to Securely Erase Your Mac’s Mechanical Hard Drive

Posted on by Tim Hannon in macOS (formerly OS X), Security/Privacy, Software

Are 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.

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