Tech Articles

Long gone are the days of ghetto blasters and monster speakers—now we pump music directly into our eardrums with EarPods and AirPods. Noise-induced hearing loss is a real problem, though, with millions of people damaging their hearing by playing music too loud, sometimes inadvertently. Happily, iOS can help protect your ears, and those of your […]

The iPhone’s Maps app automatically records where you park your car as long as the iPhone is connected to the car’s Bluetooth system. It even notifies you of this when you get out of the car. But how do you get back to the car after you’ve done your errands? Just bring up Maps, and […]

Finding good Internet access for your Mac or Wi-Fi-only iPad while traveling can be maddening. Look in your Wi-Fi menu while sitting in an airport and you’ll see a bunch of networks, most of which require a password or won’t connect for other reasons. It isn’t any better when you reach your destination, since many […]

Assuming Apple continues its previous practices, once macOS 10.13 High Sierra comes out, it will become impossible to download 10.12 Sierra for the first time. That could be awkward if you want to upgrade an older Mac to Sierra at any point after High Sierra ships, since you won’t be able to get Sierra then. […]

When you click the green zoom button in a window on your Mac, that puts the window into full-screen mode. It’s a great way to maximize screen real estate on a smaller MacBook screen, for instance, but how can you switch between these virtual screens quickly? You could swipe up on the trackpad with four […]

We’ve all hit a Web page at some point that doesn’t load fully, looks wrong, or doesn’t work as it should. It’s not your fault, but here are a few things you can try on your Mac. First, press Command-R to reload the page. Second, quit and relaunch Safari. Third and finally, try a different […]

There’s a French culinary phrase—mise en place—that means “everything in its place.” The idea is that, before you start cooking, you organize and arrange all the ingredients for the dish so they’re right at hand when you need them. In essence, mise en place is about being well-prepared for the task at hand. You can, […]

It’s easy to find and open the Mac’s standard menus—all you do is click a word or icon. But did you know about the Mac’s hidden menus? They contain many useful commands, but the Mac’s user interface provides no clue to their existence. Here’s what you need to know. What’s in a Name? These menus […]

Have you ever found your iPhone showing “No Service” in the upper-left corner instead cell service bubbles, even when you know there should be cellular reception in your location? It doesn’t happen often, but the iPhone has been known to lose connectivity when it shouldn’t. To fix this problem, open Control Center by swiping up […]

You’re probably used to Mac apps using red underlines to mark misspelled words, but did you know that macOS has long included a fully featured Dictionary app as well? It provides quick access to definitions and synonyms in the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, along with definitions of Apple-specific words […]