I love teaching people, including showing off new tricks and ways to improve their efficiency on their iPhone. There is a huge amount of power contained within these devices, and quick training sessions can help to unleash that power for the end-user. The problem is that it can be challenging to do this when you are remote. You can only go so far with, "Tell me what you see on your phone now".
In today's tech tip, I am going to show you an easy way to create a video screencast of your iPhone. Creating screencasts is a great way to really convey what it is you are trying to show off. Just like a screen recording of your laptop, a screencast of your iPhone is a video recording of exactly what you see on your iPhone's screen. This is super handy for training opportunities and helpful when showing off your favorite apps. Powerful? Oh yeah!
Hackers and scammers are often looking for ways to steal email addresses, passwords and data. With that information, they can easily 1) get access to the information in your sensitive accounts, 2) use these accounts to pretend to be you and attack others in your address list and 3) send spam to you or your contacts, thus spreading the damage to others. The way that they steal your information can be either be simple or very sophisticated. Either way, we all need to be extra careful of what we click, or where we use our email address and passwords.
In this post, I will give you several common-sense tips for improving your online safety and avoiding phishers and malware.
We all have data that we would really be upset if we lost. Photos, videos, tax returns, training manuals... the list goes on. The point is, this is stuff that's important to us, for one reason or another. Some rely on this data to run their business, while others rely on it to remember the "good ol' days" and share those memories with loved ones.
Because this data is important to us, it's important that we take care to safeguard it and protect it from loss, damage, corruption and theft. It's so important to me, that I could spend a full day talking about how to properly backup data in lots of different scenarios. In the interest of your potential boredom, however, I will cover just one simple concept here that can hopefully encourage you to re-think the way you are backing up (or not backing up) your data right now. I call it the "3-2-1 Backup Strategy".
The Apple Watch has been out for a while now, but there is a huge wave of new Apple Watch owners, thanks to the Christmas season. For those whoa re new to using the Apple Watch (and even those who are more seasoned), this post is for you!
I’ve been using the Apple Watch since Day 1, and love it! It’s great for exercise, relaxing, checking social media, texting… even controlling your Apple TV! In this post, I will go through my top 10 Apple Watch tips. Here we go!
Having your own personalized font is more than just cool or fun, it can be useful. Many years ago, I had a professional typeface designer create my own font for me, and I called it "Kevin's Hand". I still use it all the time for filling out forms, writing personalized notes and more. While super-useful to have, to cost a pretty penny to create (around $400, if I remember correctly).
What would you say if I told you that you can create your own custom font in a matter of minutes using your iPad, and that it would cost you less than $10? I know, right?! And what if I told you that this font could be used on your iPhone, iPad and even your Mac? It's all true. Read more to find out how.
Wouldn't it be nice if we all had a personal assistant? Someone who can read us our emails, text messages, web pages and even make us a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day?
Well, this tip won't help with the hot chocolate, but it will help with reading your emails, text messages and web pages. The iOS Accessibility section of Settings (Settings > General > Accessibility) is full of interesting and useful features. This specific feature will allow us to have iOS read back any text we have selected.
The Apple TV is an amazing (and necessary, in my opinion) companion to any TV or projector. My rule of thumb... never install a new display without one! You probably already know all about the Apple TV App Store, games, watching video, listening to music and viewing your Photos library, but did you know that you can connect various Bluetooth devices to your Apple TV to make it even more powerful?
In this post, we'll walk through how to pair Bluetooth headphones, keyboards, controllers, and more with your 4th generation Apple TV.
If you are fortunate enough to own and use an Apple Watch, you know how beautiful the watch faces are. Whether you prefer a simple, elegant design or something a little more functional, the quality and functionality is near-perfect.
I've been looking high and low for an equally impressive watch face for my Mac in the form of a screensaver, but my searching has been in vein... until now.
Hopefully, receiving unwanted calls or messages is not a problem for you, but unfortunately, it is for many. It can start as a minor annoyance, but quickly turn into a major probem if it isn't addressed quickly enough. No one should have to put up with this.
There are two ways to mitigate this annoyance/problem. One way is to simply avoid answering the call or replying to the message each time. The problem with this method is you are still subjected to knowing that they are calling and/or messaging you. The alternative (and much better, long-term solution) would be to add that person to a list of blocked callers
Video-conferencing is extremely powerful and so readily available. FaceTime, Skype, GoToMeeting and other similar services are freely avaialble on just about any device or platform and easy to use. This makes it extremely powerful for keeping in touch with family, friends and colleagues that live and work in other parts of the country or world.
There are some things you should know before hosting or joining that next call. Here are 5 things to keep in mind (for your sake and others on the call).
Siri is AWESOME! I use it at home, at the office, on the road, at play… it’s safe to say that I use it all the time for lots of different reasons. One of my favorite ways to use Siri is to place phone calls and send messages hands-free (speaking of hands-free, you should also read this tip!). Sometimes, Siri makes me chuckle with the way she pronounces names. Usually, she’s pretty close, but sometimes, she is way off!
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to train Siri how to pronounce names the right way. How? By just talking to her, of course!
When Apple released iOS 9.3 on March 21, it included a slew of new features. One feature in particular has caught the eye of many people, literally. The feature is called "NIght Shift" and is pretty interesting.
So what is Night Shift and how does it work? Studies have shown that too much "blue light" in the evening is detrimental to our circadian rhythm. In other words, our bodies are designed to consume less blue light as we wind down for bed time, not more. Staring at a bright computer display (laptop, iPhone, iPad... you name it) doesn't allow for that natural process to take place. Instead, the excess blue light tricks out bodies into thinking it's still day time. Hence, the disruption to our circadian rhythm. Night Shift solves that problem (well, as much as it can) and here's how.
It seems to be more and more common that Safari seemingly randomly pops up with a message to let you know that your Mac has been infected with malicious or suspicious activity. In fact, it's not random at all, and is usually caused by accidentally visiting unfortunate sites (most commonly when we enter a URL slightly incorrectly).
Unfortunately, the message will make it sound ultra-scary and the only way to fix the issue is to call a number for immediate support. DO NOT CALL the number listed! They will tell you that they are contracted by Apple to resolve this issue when in fact, they are not. There is absolutely no connection to Apple at all. In fact, very bad things will happen if you do this (resulting in loss of data, compromised credit cards and other bank accounts). Fortunately, there is an easy fix for this that takes about 15-20 seconds.
The Notes app gained a major security feature when Apple released the free updates to iOS 9.3 and OS X 10.11.4,.. the ability to securely lock individual notes! This is a welcome improvement for many of us who store secure information in the Notes app.
Using this new security feature may not be obvious to many, but because I think everyone should know how to use it, I will walk you through it step-by-step. Here we go!
Apple quietly released an update to OS X (10.11.4) today to compliment and support the new features released with iOS 9.3. Both updates (OS X 10.11.4 and iOS 9.3) are available now as free downloads. To get your copy, visit the Mac App Store and click on the "Updates" tab.
