You can add a nice vignette effect to any picture, image, or photo kept in the Photos app on the Mac. The vignette tool allows for adjustments and customizations for the strength of the pictures vignetting effect, which is basically a dark soft border along the edges of a picture intended to draw the viewers … Read More
The ever helpful and sometimes comical Siri is a rather vocal virtual assistant, defaulting to speaking back a response to directions and commands. But if you want to hush that Siri voice feedback response while still using the feature for commands and queries, you can enable an optional setting that causes Siri to obey the … Read More
As you may know, the Apple Watch can transform into a nightstand clock rather simply, but rather than fumbling around with the buttons or tapping the screen to see the date and time displayed on the screen, you can use a much easier but little known trick to show the time; simply knock on the … Read More
Mac users who want a bit more network security can turn on an optional firewall feature in Mac OS X called Stealth Mode. With Stealth Mode enabled, the Mac will not acknowledge or respond to typical network discovery attempts with ICMP ping requests, and will not answer connections attempts made from closed TCP and UDP … Read More
The latest versions of Safari Mac OS X include a pinned tab feature, which allow you to maintain a particular web sites browser tab consistently across Safari relaunching and rebooting of the Mac. Pinned Tabs kind of work like bookmarks in this sense, except that rather than having to show a bookmarks bar, you can … Read More
The iOS Mail app allows users to save various types of attachments directly to the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This is a great feature that is available in the latest versions of iOS, and for most file attachment, you’ll be able to save whatever the file is directly to iCloud Drive in iOS.
If you adjust DNS settings on a Mac and the changes seemingly haven’t taken effect, or perhaps you discover that a given name server address is not resolving as intended, flushing the DNS cache is often a quick resolution. Flushing DNS cache in OS X El Capitan (10.11 or later) is easily possible with a … Read More
For iCloud users with automatic backups configured, the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will backup to iCloud every evening when connected to wi-fi. This usually goes without a hitch, but sometimes you may check the iCloud Backup settings to discover a vague message stating “The last backup could not be completed.” You may also see … Read More
The new iPhone 3D Touch display detects the level of pressure placed on the screen and, depending on the app, action, or home screen icon, offers different responses and interactions. These “peak” and “pop” features are throughout iOS and offer shortcuts of sorts to perform various functions, and they’re really a great feature of the … Read More
Want a customized Apple Watch face that features a photo of your own choosing? This way every time you activate the Apple Watch to glance at the time, you’ll see the picture of your choice with a date and clock atop the image. This is a nice way to personalize the Apple Watch a bit, … Read More
If you juggle multiple email addresses for various purposes on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you may find it useful to add additional email addresses for FaceTime. This allows you to both call out from another email address, and perhaps more importantly, you can also receive inbound FaceTime calls for the newly added email address too.
Taking screen shots of the login screen on a Mac is possible, and you can do so at either the OS X system boot, any login window, or at a locked user authentication screen. How a screenshot of the Mac login screen is accomplished will depend on what version of OS X the Mac is … Read More
Quitting and force quitting apps in iOS 10 and iOS 9 is easy, whether you’re on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Though the multitasking screen may look different in modern iOS versions than it did before, the basic mechanism of forcibly quitting apps remains the same as prior versions of iOS.
Apple Pay is undeniably convenient, allowing you to make quick and secure purchases right from your iOS devices. So, you setup Apple Pay on your iPhone and on the Apple Watch and now you want to put it to use, right? While many popular stores are known to support Apple Pay, there is no reason … Read More
If you use Google Chrome as your default web browser and find yourself with a ton of tabs and windows open on a regular basis, you likely know the RAM, swap, and resource burden that leaving a gazillion tabs open does to your computer. Rather than forcibly quitting Chrome or abandoning your browser tabs, the … Read More
If you have ever wanted to play a movie, video, or multiple videos as a screen saver on a Mac, then SaveHollywood is the screensaver for you. The free download allows for playing just about any locally stored video file format as the Mac OS X screen saver, with many options for customization.
Adding pictures and photos to your iPhone contacts is a nice way to improve the iOS experience for phone calls and messaging, as it helps to quickly identify people in conversations and when reaching out. Assigning pictures to contacts is quick and easy, and the trick is the same whether on iPhone, iPad, or iPod … Read More
Apple Watch supports Apple Pay, which basically lets you use your watch as a super-fast payment mechanism in a variety of stores, ranging from Whole Foods to Starbucks, with many more coming onboard. Just like Apple Pay on the iPhone, the payments are processed and handled by a credit card or debit card, and thus … Read More
