Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

Did you know the Preview app has this Contact Sheet mode that makes it easy to browse hundreds of images? It has some interesting functions too, like the ability to arrange them and close them. It could be handy as a way to find a single image to use out of many.

You can use the MATCH function to get the location of a value in a row or column. You can also use the INDEX function to grab the value of a cell at a given location. This allows you to make 2-dimensional lookup tables to find values based on two variables. In this example, one table shows prices based on a store name and a product name. The other table will look up a price from the first table given the store and product.

You can check to see if your Mac, iPhone or iPad is still covered by a warranty or AppleCare by going to a handy page at Apple's site. You can also see if there is a valid purchase date and submit a proof of purchase if not. Also learn how to find your Mac or iOS device's serial number.

There really is built-in anti-malware software as a part of macOS. It gets malware "definitions" just like the third-party software and even has a blacklist of things that should never run on your Mac, as well as minimum versions of Safari plug-ins that are required.You can see how recently your XProtect data has been updated by looking for the XProtect* files in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/ and examining their modification dates. Then you can read those files to see what's inside. The two files are: <ul> <li>/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.meta.plist</li> <li>/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.plist</li></ul>

Apple doesn’t always make the hard drives or solid-state drives in your Mac. So who manufactured the drive in your Mac? You can find out by holding down the Option key and choosing the Apple Menu, then System Information. Then in the left sidebar of the window that appears, select Storage under Hardware. You’ll see a list of all of your connected drives at the top. Select any one and the information below shows you the manufacturer’s name under Device Name or Media Name.

The Top Sites feature in Safari allows you to quickly bring up previews of the sites you visit the most and jump into any one of them. You can manually pin sites to appear in Top Sites and arrange them as you like. This is a good alternative to keeping many tabs open at all times as some users do.

iPhone passcodes that are only 4- or 6-digits long can be easily broken by the same equipment law enforcement agencies use. While it is unlikely to be an issue for typical users, you can opt to use longer passcodes or even an alphanumeric password for your iPhone to make it nearly impossible to break.

If you need to encrypt your documents for security or legal reasons, you can do this easily in Pages, Numbers and Keynotes with the Set Password option. It is important to remember your password or you will lose access to the document. You can also just opt to use File Vault to encrypt all of the data on your Mac.

The Reminders app is a simple way to store to-do items, reminders and lists. You can get more out of it by knowing how to use some features like priorities, location alerts, sorting, and multiple windows. Check out these tips to become a pro at using Mac Reminders.

You can use folders to organize your files inside the Documents folder on your Mac. It is easy to create new folders. You can put folders inside of folders and use as many as you need to group your files however you want them. You can also easily move, rename and delete folders.

You can instruct your Mac to cache software updates, app downloads and iCloud content so the other devices on your home network can access these quickly. This works best if you have plenty of hard drive space to spare and many Apple devices in your home.

Did you get an emoji character in an email or text message and aren’t sure what it means? You can copy and paste that character into Safari’s address bar or directly into a Google search to come up with multiple results that will give you a definition.

Duck Duck Go noticed my video on their extension. While looking at other privacy extensions, I also noticed this one that helps you search Google privately even while you are logged into Gmail.

Most Mac Terminal commands posted online are actually simple commands that just change a preference for an app or part of macOS. When you use a command like "defaults write" all it is doing is editing a small preference file in your user Library folder. Take a look at what actually is changed.

If you wish to increase your level of browser privacy you may want to consider the DuckDuckGo extension for Safari. This will give each website you visit a privacy grade and also block tracking on websites.

Learn how to crop your pictures in the Mac Photos app. You can drag the edges to redefine the cropping area and then reposition the picture inside the new area. You can also rotate or auto-rotate the image and the crop will adjust automatically to not leave any blank space in the corners. Cropping is non-destructive, so you can always revert to the original photo or export it.

The scroll bars on the Mac can be hard to understand for new users since they only appear when you need them. You typically use your Mouse or Trackpad to scroll, and most users can avoid the scroll bars altogether. However, if you need them, you will see them when scrolling and can click and drag them when they appear. You can also customize how they work and when they appear in System Preferences.

A new feature in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, is the ability to reduce the size of your file by compressing images, video and trimming the unused parts of videos. These reductions can significantly reduce the file size of image and video-heavy files. You can also save a draft copy that will be even smaller if you need it.

A new feature in Pages is the ability to use single page temples called Master Pages. You can use these while in Page Layout mode to create templates for newsletters, certificates, fliers and other documents.

You can jump straight from a Spotlight search to the Info window for a file. Press Command+Space to start Spotlight and search. Then use the arrows or the cursor to select a file. Then press Command+i to jump right to the file Info window.