6/24/19
Mail rules in the Mail app on your Mac are robust and powerful but they no longer work well in a world where we get email on multiple devices. Instead, use iCloud email rules, or filters you can set on your email server. These rules will be applied on the server before the messages get to yoru devices, so they will work properly and consistently.
6/21/19
The new iPod Touch is a modest update, but it does mean continued support from Apple for the foreseeable future. In a world with more capable iPhones, what are some good reasons to desire an iPod Touch? It could be a nice complement to a work-provided phone, a pre-phone gadget for a child, or a dedicated streaming music device. It can even be a decent alternative to a point-and-shoot camera, though many will disagree.
6/20/19
It is fairly easy to use a SUMIF function to find a total for rows that meet a condition. But there is no easy way to get the total for rows inside a range of dates. By using extra hidden columns, you can easily mark rows depending on whether they are in a date range, and then use SUMIF to get the total. Getting the maximum value in that range is a little trickier, but can be done with an additional column and the MAX function.
6/19/19
A lot of videos on YouTube use text-to-speech for narration, instead of a human voice. If you want to create that without any special software, it is easy to have your Mac speak something and then save that to a text file. Then you can drag and drop it into iMovie or another app for use.
Oh, and BTW, you can type "say -v ?" in Terminal to see a list of all of the voices you have.
6/19/19
If you want to set a custom chime on your Mac you can do so by setting a crontab with the Terminal. You can set it to chime any any interval you wish. It can play a system sound, custom sound, or speak the time in a number of voices. You can even have it only work between certain hours of the day.
6/18/19
Here are some useful tips for getting even more from your iCloud service. You can backup and sync photos from cameras using just your iPhone, create family Calendars and shared Notes, you can even add funds to your Apple account so you don't have to pay a few dollars every month.
6/17/19
A new feature added to Dropbox is the ability to set files or folders to be Online-only. The ideal use for this would seem to be archiving your old files to Dropbox instead of vulnerable local hard drives. While it works for that, the process is rather clunkly, forcing you to set and reset an archive folder to be Online-only and also minding your settings on all of your devices as you add files to Dropbox.
6/14/19
It can be difficult to get text to look good in iMovie since you can only choose from a limited number of title options. But you can use a graphics app or Keynote to create any text you want, and then overlay that text on your video. By copying a frame of your video, you can adjust the text to look good in Keynote, and then export just the text as a transparent image. This text can fit the video perfectly, or be used as a resizable and moveable element to position in iMovie.
6/13/19
There are many different keyboard layouts corresponding to different languages, and usually your keyboard and the system setting will match. But you can switch to use a different layout, such as a French keyboard layout even if you are using a U.S. keyboard. You can add multiple keyboard layouts and easily switch between them. For some lanuages, like Chinese, you need to use a Chinese layout to by able to type. Once you set up multiple keyboard layouts, there are keyboard shortcuts to switch between them.
6/12/19
WHen macOS Catalina comes out this fall, iTunes will be replaces with Music, Podcasts and TV apps. This leaves many people wondering what will happen to their iTunes puchases, media and how they will sync their iOS devices. The transition should be seemless for all, with many just experiencing the equivalent to an app name change from iTunes to Music. Syncing will move to the Finder. Changes to some aspects, like ringtone syncing, is unclear.
6/11/19
How to copy and paste on a Mac is one of the most asked Mac questions online. If you are new to Mac you may not know the keyboard shortcuts or how many places you can use copy and paste. In addition to the basics, this video also has 5 expert tips, such as using the Option key to copy and paste by dragging, viewing the contents of the clipboard, and how to use more than one clipboard at a time.
6/10/19
Time Machine is the part of macOS that allows you to easily back up your Mac to an external or networked hard drive. Here are some of the most asked questions about Time Machine, such as what size hard drive do you need, can you exclude files from the backup, and how do you restore files from the backup.
6/7/19
What happens when you drag and drop a reminder from the Reminders app to the Finder? You get a useful little Reminders files that you can use to re-create a reminder later on.
6/7/19
You can easily create your own letterhead template in Pages to be used any time you need to type a letter. Elements in the template can be placeholders for text. Other elements can be placed on section masters to appear on every page. You can save the template as an independent file, or to the templates chooser that appears each time you start a new document in Pages.














