Some Mac users use bootable install USB drives for updating or installing MacOS Monterey onto a computer. If you’re wondering how to make a bootable macOS Monterey installer drive, we’ll walk through the process.

This is generally for more advanced users, typically who wish to use a bootable installer drive for erasing and formatting a Mac, clean installing, troubleshooting purposes, or updating multiple Macs to macOS Monterey without having to re-download the installer. For most users, the simplest way to install Monterey is the standard upgrade path.

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Beta testers in the Apple system software programs will find iOS 15.4 beta 4, iPadOS 15.4 beta 4, and macOS Monterey 12.3 beta 4 available to test on their enrolled devices.

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Low Power Mode allows you to prolong the battery life of a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or MacBook, by reducing energy usage on the device to optimize the battery performance. This is a fantastic feature for Mac laptop users on the go, since an unplugged laptop is only as useful as it’s battery life.

Mac laptops already get pretty good battery life (particularly the M1 series and newer), but with Low Power Mode you can get even more usage out of a MacBook, and it’s done all behind the scenes through software optimizations.

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If you’re looking to browse the web with a bit more anonymity and privacy than usual, the Brave browser offers a unique feature going beyond standard private browsing modes; and that is private browsing with TOR.

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If you have a bunch of automations set up on the HomePod, chances are that over time you may have some automations that you eventually want to turn off, perhaps to avoid them functioning on a particular day or time. It’s easy to temporarily turn off a HomePod or HomePod mini automation.

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As the Brave web browser gains popularity, Brave users and privacy-centric Mac users may wish to adjust the default web browser in macOS to Brave. That’s super easy to do on the Mac, so let’s check out how it works.

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Want to burn a CD on your modern Mac with macOS Monterey or Big Sur with the Music app? You can do that!

Yes indeed, you can rip a CD on your good old modern Macintosh computer, so crawl out of your cave and dust off your caveman clubs, fellow troglodytes, because we are going to learn how to burn a music or audio CD on the Mac.

For the unfamiliar out there, a CD, which stands for Compact Disc, is a form of physical media that was very popular in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, before the days of streaming music over your iPhone from Spotify or Apple Music took over. “Burning a CD” means basically copying a playlist made from music files in the music app to the CD, so that you can play it in a CD player. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, read along!

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Have a bunch of Terminal windows open on your Mac that’d you like to merge into a single tabbed window? No problem, you can stop juggling several different terminal windows and get them all sorted out into a nice and easy to manage single tabbed window, thanks to a handy feature built into the Terminal app.

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WhatsApp is an extremely popular messaging client for users on just about any platform, so if you’re interested in using WhatsApp on iPad you’re certainly not alone. While WhatsApp is actively working on a native client for iPad that isn’t available yet, you can still use WhatsApp on iPad easily.

Setting up WhatsApp on iPad is a matter of linking your WhatsApp number to the web client running on iPad, which may sound complicated but it’s actually quite simple.

Read along to learn how this works, and in no time you’ll be using WhatsApp messenger on iPad.

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Python users on the Mac are likely aware that Python is being deprecated from macOS 12.3 onward, and will no longer be preinstalled on the Mac. But Python remains an incredibly popular programming language, and if you rely on Python you’ll likely want to continue to have Python available in macOS. It’s easy to get Python 3 on the Mac, so let’s go a step further and show you how you can make Python 3 the new default Python version in macOS, whenever the python command is executed.

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Apple has released the third beta versions of iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, and macOS Monterey 12.3 to users enrolled in the beta testing programs.

A developer beta build is typically available first, and soon followed by the same beta for public beta users.

iPadOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 include the much anticipated Universal Control feature, which allows a single mouse and keyboard to control multiple Macs and iPads. While most users are better off waiting for the final public release, adventurous users can try Universal Control right now by running the betas on their Mac and iPad.

iOS 15.4 beta includes support for using Face ID with a mask, contactless Tap To Pay payments support, an Apple Card widget, and digital EU covid vaccination passes.

iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, and macOS Monterey 12.3 all also include support for iCloud Keychain notes, and new Emoji icons including a salute, melting face, troll, pregnant man, low battery icon, bubbles, hands forming a heart, biting lip, and more. Emojis are often the most popular reason for some users to update system software, so these should become widely used once they’re rolled out to all users.

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Do you want to use a public calendar on your Mac to keep an eye on promotional and other public events? You can add this calendar using a URL to the macOS Calendar app pretty easily, similar to subscribing to public calendars iPhone and iPad. The best part is that this public calendar doesn’t even have to be an iCloud calendar.

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Apple has released macOS Big Sur 11.6.4 with an important security fix for users continuing to run the macOS Big Sur operating system.

Separately, for Mac users running macOS Catalina 10.15.7, there’s a Security Update 2022-002 Catalina update available.

The security updates appear to include the same fix that was issued recently in macOS Monterey 12.2.1 update for users on the Monterey operating system.

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You launched Zoom on the Mac, you can’t join a meeting because Zoom requires an update, but the update to Zoom fails. Don’t panic!

If you’ve tried to update Zoom on the Mac and the update installation is not working or outright fails, you’re not alone. For whatever reason some Mac users find that updating Zoom for Mac is not always as simple as just clicking the ‘update’ and ‘install’ buttons, because the app eventually quits, but then does not complete installation of the update. Updating Zoom is essential because you won’t be able to join meetings or host them, or use the app at all if its too out of date.

So how do you update Zoom for Mac, even if the Zoom update fails to install? It’s actually pretty easy, as you’ll see in a moment. We’ll cover two ways to update Zoom on the Mac; the first is the usual way which should work for most users, and the second further below is how you can update Zoom on Mac even if it’s not installing or the update is not working as expected.

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Did you know you can automate things with Homepod and Homepod mini? Even if it’s your very first smart speaker, you may already be familiar with using Siri to stream music, set alarms, make appointments, and other basic stuff. However, your HomePod can do a lot more than that, like automating tasks and things like playing music every day at a particular time, or when you get home.

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The privacy-centric Brave web browser is gaining popularity, so it’s reasonable for iPhone and iPad users to wonder how they can change their default web browser to Brave in iOS or iPadOS. Fortunately, it’s really easy.

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There is some online discussion of battery drain occurring overnight on MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops, while the Macs are in sleep mode, with many users noticing the problem after updating to a recent version of macOS Monterey.

While there does seem to be an uptick of overnight battery draining behavior with macOS Monterey 12.2, the particular issue has actually predated macOS Monterey. As we covered in October of last year prior to Monterey’s release, we noted similar overnight battery drain was happening with later macOS Big Sur updates to some Mac laptop users.

Fortunately there’s a simple solution available now, and that is updating macOS Monterey. And if you’re experiencing the issue on a Mac before Monterey, disabling bluetooth may resolve the battery draining while sleep issue.

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Apple has released iOS 15.3.1 and iPadOS 15.3.1 for iPhone and iPad users, respectively. The software update includes an important security fix, and also resolves an issue with Braille displays.

Separately, Apple released macOS Monterey 12.2.1 to fix a Bluetooth battery draining bug when a Mac is sleeping, and an update to watchOS for Apple Watch users.

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