• April 8, 2021

    Try iCloud Drive Folder Sharing Instead of Paying More for a File Sharing Service

    Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive all have their place, but as of March 2020, Apple users no longer have to venture outside the Apple ecosystem for online folder sharing. Before then, you could share a single file in iCloud with another iCloud user, but nothing more. With iCloud Drive Folder Sharing, you can share an entire folder, complete with permissions that control what yo... Read more
  • April 6, 2021

    Make Better Documents and Edit More Easily with Show Invisibles

    Some of the trickiest editing and proofreading problems are related to characters you can’t typically see on the screen: spaces, tabs, and returns. Just because they’re invisible doesn’t mean they don’t affect the look of a document, often in negative ways. For instance:
    • An extra space can cause an awkward jump from one word to the next, or it could push punctuation away from the f... Read more
  • April 1, 2021

    Don’t Store Confidential Files in Online File Sharing Services

    Given their integration into the Mac’s Finder, it can be easy to forget that online file sharing services like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive can be accessed using a Web browser by anyone with your username and password. Obviously, you should always have strong, unique passwords, but to be safe, it’s best not to use services designed for public file sharing to store... Read more
  • March 25, 2021

    Having Trouble Finding Files on Your Mac? Here’s How to Reset Spotlight

    For the most part, Spotlight works well. Press Command-Space or use the Search field in a Finder window, and it finds everything that matches your search term. Sometimes, however, Spotlight fails to turn up a file that you know is present, likely due to index corruption. To fix the problem, you can force Spotlight to rebuild its index. (Don’t do this unless it’s necessary since reindexing can t... Read more
  • March 23, 2021

    When Asking about Phishing Email, Make Sure to Write Separately Too

    Sadly, email is not an entirely reliable communications medium, thanks to spam filters, addressing errors, and server failures. With certain types of email, it’s worth double-checking that a message was seen. One example of that we see is with reports of phishing email, which miscreants use to try to trick you into revealing passwords, credit card info, or other sensitive information. Phishing ... Read more
  • March 18, 2021

    Choose Your Preferred Default Web Browser and Email App in iOS and iPadOS 14

    Since the earliest days of the iPhone, Apple’s Safari and Mail have been the default Web and email apps for iOS and, later, iPadOS. There was no way to choose alternatives that would be used whenever an app wanted to open a Web page or create an email message. That has now changed with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. To switch to a different Web browser (such as Read more
  • March 16, 2021

    Stop Apple Watch Timer Alerts with a Press of the Digital Crown

    For those who cook, the Apple Watch provides a helpful Timer app that ensures we don’t forget whatever’s in the oven until it’s burnt to a crisp. Setting the timer is easy from the app’s interface, but even easier is using Siri: just hold the Digital Crown and say, “Set a timer for 8 minutes.” When the timer goes off, the watch makes a sound or vibrates and presents you with Stop and Repeat but... Read more
  • March 11, 2021

    It’s Time to Consider Upgrading to macOS 11 Big Sur

    We’re cautious when it comes to recommending upgrades to new versions of macOS. Apple makes the upgrade process easy—though it can be time-consuming—but upgrading can create workflow interruptions, render favorite apps inoperable, and have other consequences. At the same time, it’s important to stay in sight of the cutting edge for security reasons and to take advantage of advances from Apple a... Read more
  • March 9, 2021

    Web Ads: Making the Best of a Lose-Lose Scenario

    Typically, we like to help you solve problems in these articles. But there’s one problem we all face that has no good solution: ads on Web pages. Let us explain the background, after which you can decide how you want to proceed. Put simply, advertising is the economic engine of the Web. Google and Facebook make billions and billions of dollars every quarter, almost entirely on advertising. P... Read more
  • March 4, 2021

    PostScript Type 1 Fonts Losing Support This Year—Here’s What to Do

    For you graphic designers out there, Adobe has announced that it will be ending support for PostScript Type 1 fonts starting with Photoshop in 2021. All Adobe apps will stop allowing users to author content using Type 1 fonts beginning January 2023. This announcement shou... Read more