Continue Reading

How to Make Your iPhone Work for You

Have you ever felt the weight of minor disappointment sinking into your stomach after purchasing the newest iPhone only to find yourself more disconnected from its new fancy features? Like every step forward in the advancement of these tools leaves you still two steps behind last year’s big update?

Continue Reading

Mac Pro Tips: Window Management.

If you’re one of the many mac users who’s spending a significant amount of time on your computer, you’ve likely spent some time thinking about how to speed up your workflow.

Continue Reading

Apple Pay Later Coming in iOS 16: Buy Over Time, No Interest!

Apple has just announced its new Apple Pay Later way of paying over time (the full text of the Apple Pay Later announcement, made yesterday at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) is below). Now, if you thought that Apple Pay Later was a way to buy a new Apple computer or Apple device, that’s not really what it is (although it can be). It turns out that Apple is just the newest in a long series of merchants and financial institutions to have rediscovered the power of lay-away, although lay-away with a twist: you get the item right up front. (For those of you too young to remember when lay-away was a thing, stores like K-Mart (think old timey Target) would allow you to store an item, earmarked for you, at the store, and then make payments on it until it was paid off, at which point you could take it home with you.)

how to search mac mail rules on Apple Macs
Continue Reading

How to Search Mail Rules on a Mac

If you’re wondering why you can’t figure out how to search mail rules on your Mac, it’s because Apple has not included a way to search your email rules for the Mac Mail app. Stupid, right? You would think that with all the other things that Apple gets right, something as basic and obvious as a way to search mail rules would be a no-brainer. Anyways, if you need to search your mail rules, here’s how to do it.

Continue Reading

Mac Finder Slow or Not Responding? What to do With A Frozen Finder

Don’t you just hate it when the Finder on your Mac freezes up? It’s an unfortunate situation, one we all know far too well – You’re caught up in the hunt, command-tabbing between apps and windows and spaces all willy-nilly, looking for the one .csv file you need to send your boss before you’re done, oh so done with your workday.

how to customize the reply toolbar in mac mail app
Continue Reading

How to Customize the Toolbar in a Reply Email in Apple Mac Mail

Nearly everyone knows how to customize the tool bar for the Mac Mail app – that is, they know how to customize the primary email tool bar on their Macbook or Mac.. But when you are editing a reply email, the tool bar for that reply email is different than the primary tool bar. Here’s how to customize the reply toolbar in Mac Mail app. This information is current as of Big Sur; YMMV (your milage may vary) with other versions.

Williams v Apple complaint
Continue Reading

Apple Settles iCloud Storage Breach of Contract Class Action Lawsuit: You May Be Owed Money (Plus Full Text of Complaint)

Wondering “What is the deal with,” or “How much will I get paid from” the Apple iCloud storage breach of contract class action settlement? Here’s everything you need to know, including the full text of the Williams v. Apple complaint which sparked it all. Here’s what happened: in 2019 Andrea Williams sued Apple for breach of contract, saying that, in violation of Apple’s terms of service, Apple was storing iCloud users’ data on 3rd-party servers, rather than on their own servers over which they exercised full control. Now Apple has settled the class action lawsuit, and so if you are a U.S.-based iCloud subscriber who paid for an iCloud subscription at any time between September 16, 2015 and January 31, 2016, you are a member of the class who is to be compensated.

How to Pay for Your Own Apple Purchases When On Someone Else's Apple Family Plan
Continue Reading

How to Pay for Your Own Apple Purchases When On Someone Else’s Apple Family Plan

Do a search for anything resembling “Paying for my own purchases in Apple family sharing” or “How to use my own credit card for app store purchases as a family sharing member?” and you are likely to get discouraged; the vast majority of sites, including Apple’s own, say that basically you can’t do it. Or they tell you that you can, but you need an Apple gift card to do it. Neither of these are accurate. You can pay for your own purchases, using your own credit card or debit card, even when you are on someone else’s Apple Family Sharing plan, you just need to know how to do it, and it just takes a little bit of pre-planning.

Here's What 'AmpDevicesAgent Wants to Use Your Confidential Information' Means
Continue Reading

Here’s What ‘AmpDevicesAgent Wants to Use Your Confidential Information’ Means

“AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain” screams the intrusive popup, over and over no matter how many times you tell it “Deny”. Given the relative lack of information provided, and given that the scant information that is provided includes the ominous word “confidential”, of the three choices offered to satisfy the popup, which are ‘allow’ (no), ‘always allow’ (heck no), and ‘deny’ (yes, that one), that last option (‘deny’) should be your default, or even knee-jerk, reaction, especially as the other two options require you to enter your password (eek). At least until you can figure out what the heck it all means.

How to Stop Mac Messages from Popping Out and Opening a New Window When You Click on a Message
Continue Reading

How to Stop Mac Messages from Popping Out and Opening a New Window When You Click on a Message

It has been the bane of Mac users’ existences ever since Big Sur: how to prevent Messages from opening a new chat window when you click on a new message that has arrived? Starting with Big Sur, double clicking, or even just newly clicking, on a new message in Messages (formerly iMessage) when transitioning from any other app causes the new message to be opened in a new window, rather than it just going to the message within the Messages list. This happens whether you have your trackpad set to “tap to click” or you have your trackpad set to require an actual physical click (well, even those aren’t actually physical, so we guess that we should say “actual simulated physical click”).

frustrated frustration in front of computer
Continue Reading

Mac Mail Search Not Working on Monterey, Big Sur, or Catalina? Do This

If your Mac mail search is not working in Catalina, Monterey, or Big Sur (or really any other version), read on! Sometimes it’s the most obvious, and simplest, thing that you do last. In 2021 (and now 2022) there were tons of articles and posts answering questions about how to fix email search on a Mac, and many of them suggest complicated (and yes, sometimes necessary) methods for restoring the search function for your Mac email, everything from reindexing Spotlight to reinstalling the OS (eek!). So if email search is not working on your Mac, we’re here to hopefully save you some frustration.

amazon logo
Continue Reading

Scam Alert: Do Not Call “Amazon Billing and Fraud Prevention” or “An Apple Advisor” if Asked in a Phone Message

The Amazon billing and fraud prevention scam is back in full force, along with the Apple advisor “your iCloud account has been breached” scam. Each of these scams rely on pre-recorded calls to your phone, and then enticing you to call the “Amazon billing and fraud prevention” department, or an “Apple support advisor,” respectively.

how to find what model of macbook air pro you have
Continue Reading

How to Find the A—- Model Number on Your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro

If you have ever searched for Macbook accessories which require a certain fit depending on what model Macbook Air or Macbook Pro you have, you’ve run into descriptions saying something like “will fit A2337 A2179 A1932”, or a similar combination of a letter followed by some numbers. These are the model numbers of the various Mac Macbook laptops which the accessory, such as a laptop case or a keyboard condom, will fit. But where the heck do you find your own model number on your own Macbook? Here’s how.

How to Deselect All or Multiple Emails in the Mac Mail App
Continue Reading

How to DESELECT All Email Messages in the Mac Mail App

Don’t you just hate it when you accidentally hit Command-A (⌘-A) and end up selecting all of the email messages in the mailbox or folder you are currently in? Of course, ordinarily you can just hit ‘escape’, or even hit ⌘-A again, and it will deselect them all. But for at least some people running Mac OS 11.6 Big Sur (and maybe others), does that work? Nooooo! And with apologies to Steve Martin, excuuuuuuuse us!!! Why the heck not? Here’s how to deselect all email messages if you have accidentally selected them all.

How to More Easily Delete Messages in iMessage without the X in Big Sur
Continue Reading

How to Delete Messages Now that iMessage Doesn’t Have X to Delete Message in Big Sur

Frustrated that iMessage on the Mac doesn’t have the X to delete a message thread any more? Us too. Starting with Big Sur iMessage no longer has the X on which you used to be able to click to easily delete a message conversation. In fact, it’s pretty darned frustrating, and why Apple would remove that handy (and, let’s face it, very small and lightweight) feature is beyond us. However, there you have it.