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CreativeTechs

Look before You Leap with Safari’s Link Preview

When you follow a link in Safari, you generally don’t know where you’re going to end up. That’s fine most of the time, but what if you’re concerned that a site might be trying to trick you into going somewhere malicious? Safari provides an easy way to look at the URL under a link. On the Mac, choose View > Show Status Bar, hover your pointer over the link, and look at the bottom of the window. In iOS, touch and hold a link (don’t press for 3D Touch) until a popover appears, showing the link and giving you options for opening it. The most important thing to look at is the domain—us.norton.com in the screenshots. It should match where you think you’re going, or at least look reasonable. If the URL is dubious, don’t follow the link.

April 5, 2019
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Here’s How to Capture a Full-Screen Screenshot of a Web Page
March 11, 2019

Here’s How to Capture a Full-Screen Screenshot of a Web Page in Chrome

You know that Command-Shift-3 takes a screenshot of the entire screen and Command-Shift-4 lets you pick a window, menu, or arbitrary selection for your screenshot. And Mojave introduced Command-Shift-5 to give you an interface to screenshots and screen recordings. But how would you capture a screenshot of a long Web page that requires scrolling? Rather than stitching multiple screenshots together, try this trick in the Google Chrome Web browser. Control-click anywhere on a page you want to capture and choose Inspect. Press Command-Shift-P to open Chrome’s Developer Tools command menu. Type “capture” and then click “Capture full size screenshot” to download a screenshot of the page as a PNG file. (When you’re done, close the Developer Tools by clicking the X in the upper-right corner.)

March 11, 2019
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Apple Music Can Be Your Personal DJ
March 2, 2019

Apple Music Can Be Your Personal DJ

If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you probably know that it can play music that’s related to a particular artist or track—just tell Siri, “Play a radio station based on the Beatles” to get a bunch of songs from the likes of the Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, and Elton John. That radio station will show up in the Radio screen in the iOS Music app and in iTunes on the Mac. But you may not have realized that Apple Music can create a special radio station just for you, based on tracks you’ve played before, added to your library, or “loved.” To create it, just tell Siri, “Play my radio station.” Once made, it shows up with all the other radio stations, with your name underneath—it may not appear immediately. This can be a great way to get a selection of songs you’re almost certain to like, and the more you use Apple Music, the more it should adjust to your listening habits.

March 2, 2019
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Did You Know You Can Use Your Mac Laptop Closed with an External Screen and Keyboard?
February 14, 2019

Did You Know You Can Use Your Mac Laptop Closed with an External Screen and Keyboard?

Those of you who use a Mac laptop—a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro—probably know you can connect it to a large external display for more screen space. But sometimes it’s not convenient to have your Mac open on your desk next to the big screen. If you’d like to close your Mac’s screen and just use the external display, you can! The trick to enabling closed-display mode is that your Mac must be plugged into an AC outlet and you must connect an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad—either USB or Bluetooth. (If you’re using any Bluetooth devices, go to System Preferences > Bluetooth > Advanced and make sure “Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer” is selected.)

February 14, 2019
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Ignore Unsolicited Calls and Texts from Apple and Other Tech Companies
February 1, 2019

Ignore Unsolicited Calls and Texts from Apple and Other Tech Companies

We don’t want to belabor the point, but multinational tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google will never call or text you personally out of the blue. So if you get a call or text purporting to be from such a company, it’s 99.9% likely to be a scam, and you should ignore it regardless of whether the caller ID seems legitimate. If you’re still worried, look up the company’s tech support phone number separately—never respond directly to such a call or tap a link in a text—and discuss the situation with the support reps. Or contact us, and we’ll talk it through with you.

February 1, 2019
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Siri in Mojave Now Supports HomeKit and Find My iPhone
January 31, 2019

Siri in Mojave Now Supports HomeKit and Find My iPhone

Siri on the Mac hasn’t been as useful as on iOS devices, but with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple enhanced the Mac version of Siri in a variety of ways. Apple says that Siri now knows about food, celebrities, and motorsports, but more interesting is how you can ask Siri to control your HomeKit devices (“Turn on the bedroom lights.”) and locate your iOS devices or AirPods via Find My iPhone (“Where is my iPhone?”).

January 31, 2019
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Use This Hidden Feature in Safari to Access Tabs on Your Other Apple Devices
January 22, 2019

Use This Hidden Feature in Safari to Access Tabs on Your Other Apple Devices

Browser tabs. They breed like bunnies, and if you’re like us, you have oodles of tabs open on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. But you may not know that Safari has a great tab-management feature that lets you access all the open tabs on all your devices. (Make sure to enable the Safari switch in System Preferences > iCloud on the Mac and in Settings > YourName > iCloud in iOS.) This tab overview is easiest to find on the iPad, where tapping the tab  button displays local tabs as thumbnails at the top of the screen and lists tabs from other devices beneath. On the iPhone, scroll down to the bottom of the tab list to see them, and on the Mac, choose View > Show Tab Overview. Click or tap any tab to view it. To close an unnecessary tab, in iOS, swipe left and tap Close; in macOS, hover over the tab name and click the x button that appears.

January 22, 2019
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The Secret Trick for Enabling Caps Lock When Typing in iOS
January 15, 2019

The Secret Trick for Enabling Caps Lock When Typing in iOS

The Caps Lock key on Mac keyboards often feels extraneous, since it’s easy enough to hold the Shift key while typing multiple capital letters for acronyms like HIPPA or when you want to shout GET OFF MY LAWN! But if you need to do that on an iPhone or iPad, it’s annoying to keep tapping the Shift key to switch to the uppercase keyboard for each letter. Luckily, Apple has baked a time-saving trick into its onscreen keyboard. Tap the Shift key twice in a row to lock it on, type the letters you need, and tap it again to unlock it. Notice that when Shift is locked on, a horizontal line appears beneath the arrow on the Shift key.

January 15, 2019
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This Is Hands-Down the Easiest Way to Give Someone Your Wi-Fi Network Password
January 3, 2019

This Is Hands-Down the Easiest Way to Give Someone Your Wi-Fi Network Password

You know the drill—a friend comes to visit and wants to get on your Wi-Fi network. You’ve written the password down somewhere, but where? Even if you have it handy, it’s a pain for your friend to type in. Since macOS 10.13 High Sierra and iOS 11, Apple’s operating systems can make connecting a lot easier. Have your guest choose your network, and then put their device next to one of your devices that’s awake and connected to the Wi-Fi network. As long as you have a card in your Contacts app whose name matches your friend’s My Card in their Contacts, your device should ask if you want to share the Wi-Fi password with them. Just tap Share Password when prompted and you’re done!

January 3, 2019
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Don’t Use Rules in Apple’s Mail to Send “Out of Office” Replies
January 2, 2019

Don’t Use Rules in Apple’s Mail to Send “Out of Office” Replies

It’s helpful to unplug occasionally and ignore email while on vacation or otherwise away from your work routine. And it’s a good idea to set up a vacation auto-responder to tell correspondents what to do in your absence. It might be tempting to create such an auto-reply with a rule in Mail on the Mac, but resist the temptation! It’s way too easy to end up sending replies to every message from a mailing list or to addresses that will themselves reply back, causing a mail loop where each message generates another reply, ad infinitum. Instead, always set up such auto-responders in the server settings for your email provider, which are better about avoiding mail loops. Here are instructions for Gmail, iCloud, Outlook.com, Spectrum, Xfinity/Comcast, and Yahoo. If you use a different email provider, the instructions will likely be similar; check with your provider for details.

January 2, 2019
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