Troubleshooting

As we mentioned months ago, some unlucky Mac users have been experiencing random frequent system freezes since updating to OS X 10.11.4 and/or OS X 10.11.5. The problem is not a subtle one and you’re already well aware if it impacts you; at random, the entire Mac freezes up and becomes unresponsive requiring a forced … Read More

Most users are best served by sticking with the recently released iOS 9.3.2 update, which offers a variety of improvements, bug fixes, and feature enhancements. Nonetheless, a select group of users have had specific problems with iOS 9.3.2, like some iPad Pro owners who are experiencing crashes and other frustrating behavior, and thus impacted users … Read More

The latest version of iTunes has re-added the sidebar and made some other user interface changes designed to make using the app a bit easier to navigate. Most of the changes are welcome to iTunes, but one of the more unnecessarily difficult tasks remains selecting an iOS device in the iTunes app itself.

Connecting to wireless networks is pretty much mandatory these days, particularly now that most Macs only have wi-fi cards and no built-in ethernet, and so it can be incredibly frustrating to be unable to join a wi-fi network. Typically when you can’t connect to a particular wi-fi router on a Mac, you’ll see the error … Read More

When an iPhone user sends a text message to a non-iPhone user like an Android phone, the message is sent through SMS, as is indicated by a green message bubble. Sending text messages by SMS is also the fallback when an iMessage doesn’t send for whatever reason. Typically transmitting an SMS text message is very … Read More

Rarely, Mac users may notice their clock is displaying the wrong system time. This typically occurs after a Mac has been shut down for an extended amount of time and hasn’t connected to the internet in a while, but it can also happen with traveling across date lines, between regions with daylight savings time observations, … Read More

It’s often only a matter of time before Mac users wind up seeing the dreaded “startup disk almost full” warning message in Mac OS X, which often leads to a frantic dash around the Downloads folder as users trash unnecessary files to attempt to free up disk space. While there’s nothing wrong with going on … Read More

iPhone and iPad owners who regularly receive emails from Windows-based users may find ‘winmail.dat’ files attached to the email messages, a file type which Mail.app can struggle to identify or open. Since winmail.dat files can be anything from a simple styled rich text email, to a calendar invite, vcf contact card, or even a legitimate … Read More

Many Mac Mail users who send and receive emails with their Windows counterparts using a mail client like Outlook or Microsoft Exchange will discover a “winmail.dat” file attached to those emails. If you try to open a winmail.dat file on Mac OS X, you’ll usually find there is nothing available to open the attachment, or … Read More

Many Mac users will download package files of combo updates or other software in order to install them on multiple computers, thereby avoiding updating with the Mac App Store. This is particularly common with Mac systems administrators, where it makes more sense to download a single package update or installer once and distribute it over … Read More

A large number of iPhone and iPad users are having problems with links not working in Safari, Mail, or Messages after updating their devices to iOS 9.3, and in some cases with iOS 9.2.1 as well. In the worst situations, not only do tapping on links not work, but the Safari browser actually crashes when … Read More

Apple has released a new patched build of iOS 9.3 for users impacted by the Activation Error bug and presumably some of the other problems impacting some iOS 9.3 devices. The version remains as iOS 9.3 but includes a new build number, arriving as 13E237, and is available for older devices, including iPad 2, iPad … Read More

While most Mac users have been able to update to OS X 10.11.4 without an issue, some users are experiencing a few particularly frustrating issues with the update. The most common issues are; Mac apps are unable to launch and the apps report they are damaged, Mac application icons show as generic and are unable … Read More

An array of problems have appeared for some users updating various iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch models to iOS 9.3, so much so that Apple has actually pulled the iOS 9.3 update for most older model hardware. This means that many devices will simply have to wait for a newer fixed version if they haven’t … Read More

Have you ever wondered why the battery icon on iPhone is yellow sometimes? Wonder no more, because the yellow battery icon means the iPhone is in Low Power Mode. We’ll explain a little bit about this and how it works, and how to fix it if you want your green battery back.

While iOS 9.3 has several new features and is a notable improvement over prior iOS 9.x releases, some users may wish to downgrade iOS 9.3 back to iOS 9.2.1 for whatever reason. Downgrading to the prior release is possible for a limited time, so if you have any interest in doing this you’ll want to … Read More

Most Mac users update their system software through the Mac App Store, which is quick, easy, and efficient. There is absolutely nothing wrong with updating Mac OS X through the App Store, and that approach is best suited for the majority of users, but many advanced Mac users and systems administrators rely on what are … Read More

The amount of time it takes to complete a Time Machine backup depends on a variety of things, like the amount of data being backed up, the destination drive speed, the speed of the internet connection if the backup is going to a Time Capsule, whether it’s the initial backup or a delta backup of … Read More