Visiting relatives, or going home for the holidays or a special occasion? Give the gift of free tech support! There’s a good chance that if you’re a regular reader here, you’re also the regular family tech support guy/gal too. Now that you’re visiting the family for the holidays, take some time to get onto their computer(s), tidy up their Mac, run a few updates, and do some basic maintenance. They’ll be grateful for your help, and you’ll be thankful that some preventative maintenance now may reduce those tech support calls and emails later in the coming year. We’re obviously focusing on the Mac and OS X here, but we’ve thrown some Windows tips in at the bottom for good measure too.

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Apple has created individual sections of the App Store for kids, which makes finding age appropriate apps for children much easier than it was before. With a few adjustments, you can basically create a kids-only App Store, perfectly suited for children aged 11 and under, but also conveniently broken into different age groups if you’re looking to narrow down to more age appropriate choices. This is different from the general age restrictions that can be set for the App Store, and aims to provide an easy way to browse through the huge amount of kids apps available to iOS.

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You can send digital books as gifts directly from the iTunes app and it’s included iBook Store on any desktop Mac or PC. Having long been able to send apps and movies, music, and movies as gifts, giving books is a recent addition. Just like the other gifting options, you can even order a book or some other media for someone now, but schedule a delivery for any given date.
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It’s only fitting with a new iOS 7 jailbreak being available that we cover the other side of the things; why you should not jailbreak at all. We’ve already mentioned in this jailbreaking guide that most users should not bother using the jailbreak at all, because casual iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners will probably not benefit from the result and may just run into problems. Accordingly, we do not recommend it for most users. That’s just our opinion though, so who better to tell you jailbreaking is a bad idea than Apple itself?

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The Evasi0n7 tool provides the ability for users to jailbreak iPhone, iPad, iPad Air, and iPod touch devices running any current version of iOS 7. Experienced jailbreakers will find the tool familiar and know the process well, but for those who are less familiar with the process we’ll go through it step-by-step in a walkthrough.

Note: Jailbreaking is not recommended for most users, and casual iPhone and iPad users will likely gain no benefit from completing the process. Installing jailbreaks may cause apps to crash, system apps and the core iOS experience to malfunction or behave unpredictably, and other peculiar device behavior may occur. This makes jailbreaking best limited to developers and advanced users who have a compelling reason to use the evasi0n tool, and who are comfortable with the potential risks involved. Proceed with caution and at your own risk. This guide is provided for informational purposes only.
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A jailbreak for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 7 has been released by the “evad3rs” group, titled Evasi0n7. The jailbreak is untethered, meaning it the device can be rebooted freely without computer assistance at any time, and is compatible with all devices running iOS 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.4, and the two current iOS 7.1 betas.

For the less familiar, Jailbreaking uses exploits to skirt around the limitations imposed by Apple on iPhone and iPad software. A successful jailbreak provides root access to the device, which then allows various modifications to be installed atop of iOS, and also provides the ability to install third party software that has not gone through the sanctioning process of Apple and the App Store. Jailbreaks are not without controversy, can lead to a buggier software experience, and they are generally recommended only for more advanced users who have a specific reason to perform the jailbreak. A jailbreak is not the same as a carrier unlock and will not provide the ability to use a iPhone on another cellular carrier. The average iPhone or iPad user has little reason to jailbreak and will probably not benefit from the process. We do not recommend jailbreaking, this is provided for informational purposes.
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Another week, another awesome Mac setup to share, and this time around we have a great Apple desk from Phillip F., an Industrial Designer and Computer Science student. Let’s take a moment to learn more about the hardware and how it’s used:
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Christmas has come early for iPad and iPhone users as the iOS App Store is getting bombarded with free and reduced price apps in anticipation for the holiday rush. Here’s a quick roundup of five temporarily free iOS apps that are all amazingly high quality, and well worth their full prices, making their temporary free tag an absolute steal.

It’s not entirely clear how long these apps will be free for, but many will probably only last about 12 hours, so act quick. Remember, even if you don’t want the apps right now, you can always start the download and stop it immediately to save it to your iTunes Account, thereby allowing future free downloads of that app again in the future. This is a great trick to build a huge library of apps that may be fun or useful sometime in the future.

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Ever wished you could go back to the good old days of the black & white Mac Plus, running ancient versions of Mac OS like System 7? Your dream can come true with the help of any web browser on just about any platform imaginable, be it MacOS, Mac OS X, iOS, iPadOS, Android, Windows, or Linux, and you’ll even get a whole bunch of classic Mac apps to play around with too. There are none of the installation complexities of running an unofficial emulator because the entire thing is built to run in a browser with PCE/macplus, just go to the website and let it load.
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A fair amount of users have been experiencing persistent Bluetooth connectivity problems since updating their iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches to iOS 7. Though some of the issues relate to hardware like an external keyboard, speakers, or a headset, many of the most frustrating problems pertain to Bluetooth connectivity with cars and iOS devices. This seems to happen regardless of the manufacturer, whether it’s something like a custom Alpine or Pioneer deck or even the built-in Bluetooth receivers that many newer model cars come with, and it can impact both voice and call connectivity, as well as music playing and audio output, steering wheel controls, and turn-by-turn directions from the various mapping services. Troubleshooting every individual device is a huge feat, so instead we’ll focus on some general tips that are likely to fix bluetooth connection problems with iOS 7 devices, whether that’s a car stereo, headset, or speaker system.
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iTunes and App Store users have long been able to gift apps, movies, and music, and thanks to a recent iBooks Store change, we can all give the gift of literature too, and complete the whole transaction right in our hand from iOS. Perhaps best of all, you can schedule the gift arrival to be on a specific date, and the gifted book arrives neatly in their email inbox right on time, which means that even total slacker holiday shoppers like me will be able to get something for everyone in time for Christmas.
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Safari now provides finely tuned controls over what websites can use which browser plugins, and there are few better uses for such a feature than selectively limiting the Adobe Flash Player plugin to only be enabled for specifically approved websites.

Basically this means you can have the Flash player installed on your Mac, but blocked for your wider web experience, while still being allowed on a few select sites that you trust the plugin to run on. This serves as a perfectly reasonable alternative to uninstalling the plugin in it’s entirety, and it’s easy to configure for all websites and selective websites in Safari for Mac OS X:
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Maybe I’m just a total boring square, but the newly built-in iPhone flashlight is probably my most used feature of iOS 7, and the Control Center in general is really my favorite feature of all the changes brought to the iPhone software.

I use the flashlight setting just about every evening, whether just for unlocking the front door at night or serving as a basic flashlight on a nighttime walk (it seems to last about 1 minute per percentage point of battery life, for those who are wondering how long they can rely on the light). With something that gets so much use, it sure is nice to find a quicker way to use the feature, and here is a super simple trick to quickly switch the flashlight back off again:
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iCloud Keychain is a password management feature that arrived to the Mac with Mac OS X Mavericks, and to the mobile Apple world with iOS 7 and remains available in all modern system software releases. Basically it stores encrypted passwords securely within iCloud, which can then be accessed securely through your Mac or iOS device, allowing you to never have to enter a password again. That’s convenient enough, but another great feature is iCloud Keychains ability to randomly generate secure passwords directly in Safari, which are then stored in the keychain service as part of the AutoFill service, then accessible from any of your other Macs or iOS devices.

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Apple has started airing their annual holiday TV commercial for this season, now running on most popular TV networks, the video has also been embedded below for easy viewing. This years focus is on the iPhone and it’s ability to make and edit a movie on the go, which can then be shared with others using the wireless AirPlay service.
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Apple has released the version major system update to OS X Mavericks, versioned as OS X 10.9.1. The update appears focused on several prominent complaints focused around Mail app in Mavericks, resolving several issues with Gmail support, improved search functionality, a fix for group contacts, and improvements to Smart Mailboxes. OS X 10.9.1 also resolves an issue with text-to-speech not properly speaking Emoji characters, resolves a keychain issue, and causes the Shared Links tab to be automatically updated if it’s open in the Safari browser. Additionally, Safari has been updated to 7.0.1 and includes several fixes.

Note the Mail app fixes included in 10.9.1 are separate and new from those included in the prior release of “Mail Update for Mavericks“.
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The tap-to-define a word trick in iOS can dramatically help reading comprehension and with learning new words when an unfamiliar word comes up in an article or book. This quick Define feature isn’t just useful for students with an iPad or iPod touch, it’s helpful for the rest of us too, long out of school and just reading the daily news on our iPhones.

While the standard Apple Dictionary that ships with iOS is pretty good, it’s not perfect and doesn’t have definitions for every single word. Also, and perhaps more relevant to most “Define” function users, you may notice a “No definition found” error when trying to define a word that you know for certain is a word, often just because the tense is different. Not to get too off topic, but that means changing an infinite (the basic form of a word) to a past tense version (adding “ed”) or a present participle (like adding “ing”). If you’re wondering where this is going, stay with me just a moment longer… because what this means to the Apple Dictionary function in iOS is that a word like “tuck” may be given a definition, but that word in past tense like “tucked” won’t be defined, simply due to that minor tense change.
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It has been a little while since we have done a wallpaper roundup, but for those who are bored with their existing device backgrounds we’ve got six beautiful high resolution choices to pick from to spruce things up. They’re all following a loosely abstract focused theme, which makes them particularly good for iOS 7 devices, one of which is a new wallpaper that arrived in the recent iOS 7.1 beta 2 build, and two are nebula shots from NASA, which are so out of this world they are basically abstractions to us Earth dwellers anyway. Each of the images are large enough resolution to be appropriate wallpaper or desktop backgrounds for just about any screen size, whether you have a retina iPad, Retina MacBook Pro, a 27″ iMac, 11″ MacBook Air, or anything in between.

As usual, click on any large thumbnail pic below to open the full-sized wallpaper image.

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