How-to

First time checking out this series? You’ll get the most value by starting at the beginning, however you can also use the series overview if you’d like to go buffet style.

Note for regular readers, the already tech savvy, and IT professionals: this series is designed as a resource you can share with those you are helping or for those looking to become tech savvy on their own.

Background, Expectations, & Best Practices

One of the best things about a Mac is that they often last a long time. While this is a great feature of a quality product, your Mac’s performance may also decrease the longer you own it. And even if you have a new or relatively new Mac you’ll likely find some value in the tips below.

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March is here, which means it’s time for one of the biggest sporting events of the year: March Madness. As conference tournaments wrap up, Selection Sunday takes place tonight to set the field for this year’s festivities.

The NCAA has almost always been a leader in streaming the tournament and this year appears to be no different. Read on for instructions on how to stream March Madness on your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Mac…

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Widgets in iOS are a helpful way to get a quick look at information that’s important to you like calendar, maps, weather, news, and much more. However, if you haven’t customized or organized your Widgets they might not feel so handy or worse overwhelming. Let’s take a look at how to make the most of this iOS feature by customizing it to your preferences.

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First time checking out this series? You’ll get the most value by starting at the beginning, however you can also use the series overview if you’d like to go buffet style.

Note for regular readers, the already tech savvy, and IT professionals: this series is designed as a resource you can share with those you are helping or for those looking to become tech savvy on their own.

Background, Expectations, & Best Practices

Staying up to date with software can sometimes be a confusing and frustrating task, these issues are usually caused by the various ways that different software is designed to update and where it was installed from. The good news is that Apple is continually improving how updates happen. With its latest operating system, macOS Sierra, there are some sharp features to make updating software more smooth and seamless. This won’t apply in all instances, but still helps provide an overall improved user experience.

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Fast charging is a feature on many Android phones, allowing them to gain as much as 50 percent battery in 30 minutes in most instances. We have yet to see Apple officially bring much innovation in this space to the iPhone (hopefully we will later this year), however there are a couple tricks you can use to charge up faster than normal…

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The iPhone can do an incredible amount of things very well and is an amazing device, yet it’s not so useful when you run out of storage space…

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First time checking out this series? You’ll get the most value by starting at the beginning, however you can also use the series overview if you’d like to go buffet style.

Note for regular readers, the already tech savvy, and IT professionals: this series is designed as a resource you can share with those you are helping or for those looking to become tech savvy on their own.

Background, Expectations, & Best Practices

Last week we covered building confidence and ease with iPhone and iPad navigation by dialing in to five different features and how they work. We’ll do the same today looking at macOS (previously known as OS X) which is Apple’s operating system for Macs.

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Over time browsing history, website data, and cookies build up on our iPhones and iPads, and it can be a good idea to clear it out to keep devices running smoothly. As iCloud allows the option to synchronize Safari data between multiple Apple devices, it can build up even more quickly. Let’s take a look at how to view and delete website history and data on iPhone and iPad.

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Continuing the season of award shows, the 89th Academy Awards kick off tonight in just a few hours. The show, shot live in Los Angeles, will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and highlight the best films of the past year. As we did for the Super Bowl and The Grammys, read on for a full breakdown on how to stream The Oscars…

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No matter if you keep your iPhone and/or iPad in a case or prefer to use them without, they will become dirty at some point. Let’s take a look at the best ways to clean iPhones and iPads and also how to make your own cleaning solution.

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First time checking out this series? You’ll get the most value by starting at the beginning, however you can also use the series overview if you’d like to go buffet style.

Note for regular readers, the already tech savvy, and IT professionals: this series is designed as a resource you can share with those you are helping or for those looking to become tech savvy on their own.

Background, Expectations, & Best Practices

Now that we’ve got the priorities of backing up your information and password management addressed it’s time to focus on becoming more confident in the everyday use of your devices. In today’s post we’re going to focus on the iOS user interface.

If you’re not already familiar, iOS is the operating system for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Apple is often known for having the most friendly and easy to use mobile operating system on the market. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a learning curve or that everything is obvious.

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First time checking out this series? You’ll get the most value by starting at the beginning and checking out the series overview.

Note for regular readers, the already tech savvy, and IT professionals: this series is designed as a resource you can share with those you are helping or for those looking to become tech savvy on their own.

Background, Expectations, & Best Practices

Up until now we’ve addressed the foundation of becoming tech savvy with how to get in the right state of mind and transforming limiting beliefs. For strategy we’ve naturally tackled the two most important priorities first, getting automatic backups in place and getting a handle on password management (part 1, part 2, and part 3).

Before we move on to other topics like the best ways to navigate a user interface (UI) or shortcuts in macOS and iOS I want to wrap up the first portion of this series with a focus on how to save your information manually.

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Taking a screenshot with your iPhone is one of the most basic activities that a new iOS user should become familiar with. In this brief tutorial, we show you how to take a screenshot with your iPhone, and where to find the screenshot once you’ve taken it.
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As it becomes more common to use a subscription music service like Apple Music or Spotify, song duplicates are less and less of an issue. However, many of us still maintain a music library that consists of content from various sources and still have to wrestle with the issue from time to time. Let’s take a look at a few free options and a couple paid apps that can help…

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Sleep tracking has been one the most oft-requested features for Apple Watch, but Apple itself has yet to implement a solution. That hasn’t stopped developers from creating their own watchOS apps for doing it, though.

One of the more popular apps for sleep tracking with Apple Watch is called AutoSleep….

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Last weekend was a big weekend for television with the Super Bowl and this weekend marks yet another one. This Sunday, James Corden will host the 2017 Grammys live from Los Angeles.

The show will feature performances from a variety of artists and likely include some solid comedy from Corden. But how do you stream it on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac? Read on to find out…

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You’ve probably experienced the frustration of duplicate contact cards at one time or another and the more contacts you have (especially if the duplicates have different information) the more of a headache it can be.

Luckily there are a couple easy ways to remove duplicates whether you have your Mac with you or not, as well as a way to merge contact card data. Follow along for how to make quick work of cleaning up your contacts.

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How to customize the Touch Bar on these Mac laptops:

• 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
• 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

The 2016 MacBook Pro adds a new way of using macOS with the addition of the Touch Bar, featuring dynamic touch controls, sliders and buttons, close to your fingers next to the row of static keys. Depending on the app, the Touch Bar changes context and shows relevant buttons for what you are doing.

You can also take this one step further and change what the Touch Bar offers yourself: Apple has made it pretty customizable. You can add new buttons for a particular app, take others away, as well as adjust the persistent Control Strip items on the right side of the Touch Bar. For example, you can remove the Siri button from the Touch Bar. Here’s how to do that and a lot more …

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Last week, Apple silently updated its completely wireless AirPods earbuds to version 3.5.1. The move came as a surprise to many as Apple hadn’t made it explicitly clear that the AirPods were capable of receiving firmware updates.

Nevertheless, read on for how to check the firmware of your AirPods and update it…

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