When first setting up an Apple Watch, you have to decide whether or not to install all apps or not. If you configured your iPhone to automatically install Apple Watch apps, you might have learned you don’t like that option. Jeff Butts provides you quick instructions to stop your iPhone from automatically cluttering your Apple Watch with every available app.
Tips
How to Require a Password to Wake Your Mac from Sleep or Screen Saver
This Quick Tip is about a very, well…quick setting to change to make your Mac more secure. If you can just unlock your Mac after it’s been sleeping without needing a password or your fingerprint, you’ve gotta read this! And make the change! We pretty much insist.
macOS: Recover Lost Tabs and Windows in Safari
In this Quick Tip, Melissa Holt’s gonna go over how to restore tabs or windows you accidentally closed in Safari. So if you’re one of those folks who keeps 75 tabs open and would be devastated if they went away, this trick’s for you!
macOS: Make Your Spotlight Searches Better with the Kind Operator
When you are looking for something specific on your Mac with Spotlight, you might get overwhelmed with the search results. Jeff Butts has become a Spotlight search pro thanks to a simple operator. Read along as he shows you how it works and some of what you can do with it.
Featured Articles
AirPort Utility: Adjusting Basestation Preferences (And Why You Might Want To!)
Melissa Holt’s Quick Tip for today is all about some changes you could make to the way AirPort Utility works for any networks you manage. If you don’t want your users installing new firmware at random, then this article’ll show you one way you could avoid that!
A Network Scanner Helps You Secure Your Wi-Fi Router
When you secure your Wi-Fi or wired router, a network scanner is an essential utility you should have on your Mac and iOS device. Jeff Butts has explored several options for letting you know what devices are connected to your network, and gives you an overview of what they can and cannot do.
Evade the macOS 'Too Many Open Files' Error by Pushing the Limits
Here at Mac Observer, we’re penultimate geeks. We push our Macs to the limits, and then find ways to surpass those limits. macOS has limits put in place that result in occasional error messages about “too many open files,” which one of the team ran afoul of. Jeff Butts dove deep into the core of macOS and found out how to increase the limits Apple has imposed upon us.
macOS: How to Copy Files as Pathnames
If you need to reference a file or a folder with a really long pathname, then don’t waste your time typing out the whole thing when there’s a shortcut to help you! Today’s Quick Tip is about a better, faster way to point people toward items on their Macs, and Melissa Holt’s got the scoop.
Set Up Your Own VPN Server in the Cloud for Free or Cheap
When it comes to choosing VPN servers, Jeff Butts just isn’t happy with the commercial choices. Rather than leave his Internet privacy up to someone else, Jeff built his own VPN server. You can, too, without much (if any) cost and just a little bit of time.
Cool Stuff Found
macOS: How to Roll Back the Firmware on Your AirPort
If you update your Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme and your network starts having issues, then just go and roll back the version you installed! This little-known feature will let you revert the firmware on your Apple network devices in case you run into trouble, and Melissa Holt’s gonna tell us how in today’s Quick Tip.