Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

There are many important settings in Mail Preferences that you can use to customize your experience and improve productivity. Take this tour of the Mail Preferences and see which ones you should change.

So my mission was to find a way for two people to video chat that didn't involve them signing up for anything, installing any apps, and it must work on both Windows and an iPad. The solution I found was a rinky-dink site called Talky.io.

A new feature of macOS 10.15.4 and the latest versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote is the ability to collaborate using shared iCloud Drive folders. Once you share a folder, you can create documents in those folders and they are instantly ready for real-time collaboration with no additional steps. This can be used to work on a whole set of files with your team over the course of a project, or permanently.

You can now set a background color, gradient or image for sections in Pages documents. This is a new feature in the Section sidebar that makes it much easier to include a color fill or pattern behind your text.

The new version of Pages includes a powerful Drop Caps feature with a ton of options. You can use Drop Caps to make the first letter or word of a paragraph stand out. This also works in Keynote and Numbers.

In Mac Notes you can only export one note at a time as a PDF file. With the help of a script, you can quickly and easily export all of your notes to html files as a backup or archive. You can also save notes this way to clear out your Notes app.

Apple released new versions of their three office apps for Mac. Here's a look at the new features.

If you need to place a simple stamp to a PDF file on your Mac, you can do it using the markup tools available in Preview, Mail and other apps. You can reuse these stamps by creating a blank PDF just to hold them, and then copying and pasting stamps when needed.

Not all Numbers spreadsheets need to have complex formulas and perform calculations. Some of the most useful spreadsheets simply help you keep track of members of a group or items you own. Create a simple database like this is easy and can come in handy, especially if you save it to iCloud Drive for mobiel access as well.

If you ever have trouble reading text on your Mac because it is tool small, there are many ways to adjust text in different places to help. You can make a universal change by adjusting your display resolution, use helper features like Accessibility Zoom, or change the display size for text in apps like the Finder, Safari, Mail and more.

One annoyance if you use Dark Mode on your Mac is that most web pages still display the same bright white versions of themselves. Hopefully in the future more sites will support a native dark mode. But until then, you can always get a Safari Extension from the Mac App Store to make things look a little better.

macOS version 15.4 includes some new features. You can now share iCloud folders with other iCloud users. There are new ScreenTime options. You can follow along with lyrics in Apple Music. Safari has new tab options. You can import Google Chrome passwords. You can also control your mouse with your head.

A new feature of iPadOS 13.4, released today, is the ability to control your iPad using a Bluetooth mouse or Trackpad. This works with almost any Bluetooth pointing device and any iPad capable of running iPadOS 13.4.

While it is difficult to be in the same location with kids right now, it is possible to use Macs to be able to read with them and do other educational activities online. You can use the Messages app on two Macs to start screen sharing and then bring up a book or other content. You can talk with them while you do this and they can follow along with your cursor and highlights.

In tomorrow's regular episode, I'll be showing you how to use Mac Messages to screen share and then use that to read a book to a child that you may be separated from during this pandemic. This is a good idea, but it lacks two things. First, you can't SEE the child, nor can they see you. It is audio-only with screen sharing. Second, if all they have is an iPad, it won't work. It needs two Macs. So in this video I try it with Zoom. I'm just using a free account on the reader's end, and no account at all on the child's end. This works with audio AND video on both ends! So you can see the screen and the people. Plus, on the child's end I'm using an iPad. Doing this with a free account limits you in time, number of participants, and some pro features. But it works well.

The new iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard could finally be a legitimate laptop computer for some people. There will be a lot of people deciding between the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro. They both have similar abilities, but also some distinct differences. Here are some factors that will help you decide which one is right for you.

You can turn any standard sound file into a ringtone right on your iPhone using the free GarageBand app from Apple. You can also use some music from your library, and download audio files and music online, even from YouTube, to use as ringtones.