Andrew Orr had a funny little incident over the weekend while using iOS. One night, he decided to control his Safari cookies by having the browser always block cookies. Everything seemed okay at first. Then the next day, he cleared his website history and data. What happened next will change your way of thinking.
Quick Tip
Word for Mac: Viewing Nonprinting Characters
For today’s Quick Tip, let’s talk about Word! Microsoft’s document-creation program has a way to show and hide nonprinting characters, so if you’re having issues with text reflowing or with images moving around, this may just help you figure out why.
8 Ways to See the Charge Level of Your AirPods
If you’ve got a pair of Apple’s bluetooth headphones, dubbed “AirPods,” then it’s good to know that there are tons of ways to check their battery levels. Considering that the AirPods don’t have a physical indicator of how much charge they’ve got, that’s a good thing! In today’s Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s gonna go over a number of methods for finding out how much more listenin’ you can do.
Google's AutoDraw Turns Your Ugly Scrawls Into Line Art, Here's How to Use It
Google has a new “A.I experiment” called AutoDraw that can turn even ugly scrawls into proper line art. Or, more specifically, it will look at ugly scrawls and suggest actual line art you might have been aiming for.
iOS: How to Print to PDF from Any App on iPhone and iPad
If you’ve ever wanted to print a web page or other document as a PDF, you don’t need any third-party apps to do it. Jeff Butts shows you how some pinching, zooming, or 3D Touching in the Share Sheet can save your favorite web page to a PDF.
macOS Sierra: How to Disable the Dashboard
You probably don’t use the Dashboard in macOS, except by accident. Ever wondered how you could disable it altogether? Jeff Butts did, and has found a way to do just that.
macOS: Reduce PDF File Size in Preview
This Quick Tip is about a little-known feature of Preview that’ll let you shrink the file size of large PDFs, so you could use this when you’re bumping up against uploading limitations, for example. Come read about how to do it (and why you should pay attention to how your file looks afterward!).
Enabling Find My Mac Might Not Work if Recovery Drive Is Damaged or Missing
When Jeff Butts was playing around with resetting his firmware and checking the status of Find My Mac, he discovered a deeper problem: the feature depends on a valid and up-to-date recovery drive. Follow along with Jeff to learn how to get past a grayed-out Find My Mac checkbox.
PSA: Find My Mac Has a Serious Security Vulnerability
Find My Mac is a wonderful utility for locating a lost Macbook. However, its design combined with a common troubleshooting step can leave the security feature seriously flawed. Read on to learn what Jeff Butts and Adam Christianson have discovered, and how to protect yourself even further.
iOS 10.3 May Have Reenabled Some iCloud Settings - Here's How to Check
iOS 10.3 may reset some iCloud settings for users. MacRumors reported that Apple sent out emails to some customers alerting them about the problem. Specifically, the update might “inadvertently reenable” some iCloud services that were disabled. Bryan Chaffin shows you how to check.
How To Delete Old File Versions in macOS
Learn how to delete old software files in several ways and optimize your Mac’s storage without compromising stability.
iOS: Close Running Apps All at Once
Even though Apple says this is unnecessary, sometimes when you have a lot of apps running, it can help boost your iPhone’s performance to shut them down. Doing that one by one is a pain, so Jeff Butts found a way to close running apps all at once.
iOS 10.3: How to See Which Apps Are Still 32-bit
Apple is making it very clear the days of 32-bit app support on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch are coming to an end. Lots of developers are working to make sure their apps are 64-bit, but there’s a chance some of the titles you depend on haven’t made the move. If you want to see if any of the apps you’re using are still 32-bit there’s an easy way to check on your iPhone and iPad. Follow along to learn how.
Want to Experiment With an APFS drive? Here's How You Can Do That
Under macOS Sierra 10.12.4, you know have limited support for an APFS drive. You won’t find the option to create one in Disk Utility, but Jeff Butts is here to demonstrate how to get the APFS drive created and mounted using Terminal and the diskutil command.
iOS 10.3: Using "Find My AirPods"
This Quick Tip is about the new “Find My AirPods” feature that’s available now with iOS 10.3. If you’ve lost one of those tiny white headphones somewhere in your house, this’ll help you locate it, and Melissa Holt’s gonna tell you how!
You Can Opt Out of Sharing iCloud Analytics in macOS Sierra 10.12.4
Apple quietly added a new privacy control tool in macOS Sierra 10.12.4 that allows you to opt out of sharing iCloud Analytics data. Bryan Chaffin shows you how to control what you send so you can decide.
macOS: Creating an App-Specific Password for iCloud
When you first enable two-factor authentication in iCloud, you might notice some of your apps appear broken. This is because those apps don’t support 2FA, and require app-specific passwords. Follow along with Jeff Butts as he demonstrates how to generate and manage your app-specific passwords.
Pages for macOS: Always Start New Documents With Specific Template
Pages for macOS is a great app, as are its cousins Numbers and Keynote. What many people don’t think is so great is having to select a template every time you want to begin a new document. Jeff Butts shows us how to configure any of the three iWork Suite apps to launch new documents in the Blank template or any other template of your choosing.
Customizing the Services Menu Helps You Optimize macOS
Hidden within macOS is an often-ignored item that can really speed things up. In this Quick Tip, Jeff Butts explores the Services menu and how it can help you really optimize macOS.
macOS: How to Change the Default Email Client
There are plenty of options for email software on macOS, and it’s easy to start using a new one. Unfortunately, that doesn’t change your default email client. Follow along with Jeff Butts as he shows how to change this, so you never have to worry about a mail link opening up the wrong app again.
How to Check Out Your Printer's Webpage (And Why You Might Want To!)
Ah, printers. How we hate them; how we sometimes need them. In this Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s going to wade into the printing morass with a great troubleshooting tip for misbehaving devices. You’ll learn how to visit your printer’s local webpage, and this just might get you out of a (paper) jam. Har har har.
macOS: Basic Tricks for Fast Text Selection
For this Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s got some tricks for us on how to do text selection within a document, email, or webpage. So if you’re unfamiliar with ways to select text without clicking and dragging, come read this one! It’ll save you tons of time.
How Can I Share My Location From iOS Maps?
It’s easy to use “Share My Location” in Messages, but there are plenty of times when you might want to send a saved marker straight from Maps. Maybe you’re planning a family vacation and have found a cool point of interest to visit, or perhaps you want to scout out new coffee shops to visit with your friends. Jeff Butts walks you through saving a map location and then sharing it, step by step.
Take Back Control Over Email Notifications on iOS
If you’re like most of us, you have multiple email accounts set up on your iPhone and iPad. This can mean a flurry of notifications vying for your time, but Jeff Butts is here to show you how you can take control over that. It’s surprisingly easy to configure which email accounts do and do not give you notifications, and Jeff shows you how to set that up.