Need to Clear Space on an iPhone or iPad? Here’s How to Do It in iOS 12

Little is more frustrating than running out of space your iPhone or iPad. You can’t take new photos, you can’t download new apps, some things may not work at all, and iOS will nag you repeatedly about how you can “manage” your storage in Settings. Luckily, over the past few versions of iOS, Apple has […]

Collaborate with Colleagues in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote

We talked last month generally about real-time collaboration and why it’s so efficient and effective—see “Stop Mailing Files Around and Use Collaborative Apps.” Now we’re going to explain how to start collaborating in Apple’s iWork suite of apps: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Happily, the basics are similar in all three apps. We’ll focus on the […]

Gone Phishing: Five Signs That Identify Scam Email Messages

A significant danger to businesses today is phishing—the act of forging email to fool someone into revealing login credentials, credit card numbers, or other sensitive information. Of course, phishing is a problem for individuals too, but attackers more frequently target businesses for the same reason as bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal quote about why he […]

Ignore Unsolicited Calls and Texts from Apple and Other Tech Companies

We don’t want to belabor the point, but multinational tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google will never call or text you personally out of the blue. So if you get a call or text purporting to be from such a company, it’s 99.9% likely to be a scam, and you should ignore it regardless […]

Did You Know You Can Use Your Mac Laptop Closed with an External Screen and Keyboard?

Those of you who use a Mac laptop—a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro—probably know you can connect it to a large external display for more screen space. But sometimes it’s not convenient to have your Mac open on your desk next to the big screen. If you’d like to close your Mac’s screen and […]

iCloud Services Being Wonky? Check Apple’s System Status Page

Many Apple users rely on mac.com, me.com, or icloud.com email addresses, along with plenty of other iCloud-related services. So if you can’t send or receive email, if photos aren’t transferring via iCloud Photo Library, or if some other iCloud-related service isn’t responding, the first thing to do is check Apple’s System Status page. It’s updated […]

Troubles with Messages? Read On for Ten Possible Solutions

Apple’s Messages app for iOS and macOS generally works well, but when it doesn’t, figuring out what’s wrong and how to fix it can take some doing. Here are a few of the most common solutions we’ve come across for problems with sending and receiving messages. Help Android-switcher friends turn off iMessage Do you have […]

Winter Weather Warning: Keep Your Tech Toasty!

When it’s cold out, you can always throw on a sweater to stay warm. But your electronics are more reptilian—they can get sluggish or even fail to work in freezing weather. (No, that’s not what iPod Socks were designed to fix.) Worse, charging batteries at low temperatures or moving tech gear between extreme temperature ranges […]

What Is a “Managed IT Services” Model and Why Is It Important for Your Business?

You’ve chosen Apple devices to run your business. That’s great, but are you still dealing with each of those devices individually? If you hire a new employee, do you go to the Apple Store to buy a new Mac, bring it back to the office, spend a few hours installing the right software, and then […]

iOS 12 Supports Password Managers for Faster Password Filling

For security reasons, we always recommend that you use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass to generate, store, and enter strong passwords in your Web browser. We hope you’ve been doing that because iOS 12 has a fabulous new feature that lets you enter passwords from third-party password managers in addition to iCloud Keychain. […]

Slow Mac? Here’s How to Figure Out If You Need More RAM

No matter how fast your Mac was when it was new, the time will come when apps launch slowly, the spinning beachball appears more often, and everything responds sluggishly. Such problems won’t happen all the time, and you can often fix them by quitting a piggy app or restarting your Mac. But if these problems […]

Getting Rid of an Old Mac? Follow These Steps to Prep It for Its Next Life

If a new Mac has recently arrived in your life, it may be time to hand your old Mac down to a friend or family member, pass it on to a coworker, or send it back to Apple for recycling. Here’s what to do. Backup Before anything else, make a backup, just in case. Do […]

Have You Learned iOS 12’s New Gestures on the iPad?

When Apple released iOS 12 in September 2018, the main change for iPad users was a revamped collection of gestures similar to those used by the iPhone X. As it turned out, these new gestures were in preparation for the release of the new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models that dropped the Home button […]

Don’t Use Rules in Apple’s Mail to Send “Out of Office” Replies

It’s helpful to unplug occasionally and ignore email while on vacation or otherwise away from your work routine. And it’s a good idea to set up a vacation auto-responder to tell correspondents what to do in your absence. It might be tempting to create such an auto-reply with a rule in Mail on the Mac, […]

Recover Drive Space by Deleting Old and Unnecessary iOS Device Backups

If you’ve been good about backing up your iOS devices to iTunes on your Mac or to iCloud, give yourself a gold star! Both backup destinations are fine, but there’s one potential downside to iTunes backups: they can consume a lot of space on your Mac’s drive. In iTunes, go to iTunes > Preferences > […]

Get Stacked: Reduce Icon Clutter in Mojave with New Desktop Stacks

There are three types of people in this world: those who keep their Mac Desktop organized, those who don’t and don’t care, and those who don’t but wish they could. If you’re sitting on the Group #3 bench–you have oodles of icons scattered willy-nilly`around your Desktop, and it bugs the bejeebers out of you—macOS 10.14 […]

Here’s How to Make Screenshots and Screen Recordings with Mojave’s New Interface

You probably fall into one of two camps: people who haven’t the foggiest idea what pressing Command-Shift-3 or Command-Shift-4 do on the Mac, and those who use those keyboard shortcuts regularly to take screenshots. Either way, macOS 10.14 Mojave makes it easier than ever to create a still image of what’s on your Mac’s screen […]

Don’t Freak Out If You Get Blackmail Spam Containing an Old Password

Have you gotten an email message whose Subject line says something like “Change your password immediately! Your account has been hacked.”? If not, it may be only a matter of time before you do. It’s a scary message, especially because it contains one of your passwords, some threats, and a demand for money. Worse, the […]

Why Should You Work with an Apple Professional?

Potential clients sometimes ask why they should work with us instead of solving their own problems or hiring an employee to manage their IT infrastructure. It’s a fair question, and we’re happy to answer it in more detail if you want to chat. But here are a few of the reasons why working with an […]

What Are All These New Privacy Request Dialogs in Mojave?

With macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple has beefed up the Mac’s privacy so it more closely resembles privacy in iOS. You’ve noticed that when you launch a new app on your iPhone or iPad, it often prompts for access to your photos or contacts, the camera or microphone, and more. The idea behind those prompts is […]