Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

I've done a couple of videos on the Apple iOS app Workflow in the past. It is like Automator, but for the iPhone/iPad. I was going to do another video on it this week, but when I looked I saw that there is a ton of new stuff in it and it may be more powerful than Automator now.Take a look at some of what is there, and watch me create a photo grid extension with just a few steps.

The Zoom feature in the Accessibility functions of your iPhone can help you read a small piece of text. It can easily be turned on or off so you can use it only when you need it. There are any options and ways to trigger the Zoom feature, so take a few minutes to try it out before the next time you need it.

New Mac users who have trackpads may not realize how many gestures there are and how you can customize them. In System Preferences you can not only control which gestures are available, but customize some and see demonstrations of all of them. As a new Mac user you may want to take the time to familiarize yourself with the trackpad gestures to increase your productivity.

If you searching your Mac for a file doesn't return the results you expect, then there are several common culprits. You may simply not notice that the scope of the search is limited to the current folder instead of your entire drive. Or, you may have your Spotlight settings set to not look for some files. If there is a more serious problem, you can try re-indexing your Mac to fix broken search results.

Ever want to see what you have copied into the clipboard? You can go to the Finder and choose Edit, Show Clipboard to bring up a little window that shows the contents of the clipboard. It displays any text or image, and will show a description, such as a filename in other cases.

Have a look at the export settings that I use when I finish up each MacMost video. I produce one for YouTube and another for the podcast feed. I try to balance quality and file size.

If you wish to represent a number in a cell with leading zeros, such as a zip code that starts with a 0 digit, or an International phone number, then you can do it using the Text cell format which treats the number as a series of characters, rather than a value. You can also use custom cell formatting to display a number with leading zeros, which can help you if you wish to have easy data entry and uniform cell formatting.

You can view and change your Mac's privacy preferences in System Preferences, Security & Privacy. You can see which apps you have installed that requested access to things like Contacts, Photos, Location and other information. You can grant and revoke privacy permissions to these apps. You can also read more about what these apps can access.

While QR codes aren't used as much today as just a few years ago, it is nice to know that when you encounter one you can access the URL using your iPhone's Camera app, without needing to install anything else. If you'd like to create a QR code that links to a specific page on your website, you can use Google's URL shortener as a quick and trustworthy method.

My quest to figure out how to use an iPhone as a webcam on a Mac may be over. On the iPhone, I use an app called CameraVision to send the camera image out as an AirPlay stream. Then on my Mac, I use AirServer to display that AirPlay stream. Then I use CamTwist to take in that AirPlay stream and set it up as a webcam stream that was recognized by both ScreenFlow and Skype!

If you are new to Mac you may not yet be taking full advantage of keyboard shortcuts. You can find almost all shortcuts by simply looking at the command in the menu bar. There are symbols that you will find in the menu bar that map to the Shift, Control, Option and Command keys on the Mac keyboard. You can also find shortcuts in System Preferences, and even assign your own to menu commands that have no shortcut. One difficulty that Windows users often have is that the Control key is used as the primary modifier key in Windows, while the Command key is the equivalent on the Mac.

In iMovie you can force a video clip to more closely resemble another clip by using the Match Color tool. This simply adjusts the color of the first clip to match the colors in the second. You can use this to prevent jarring transitions between very different clips, or to match similar scenes that were shot using different light. You can also use Match Color with images or between video clips and images.

In the Finder in List view it is easy to change the sort order of the files and folders by clicking on the column headings. But in Column View there are no headings. However, when you hold the Option key down and choose the View menu, the Arrange By commands change to Sort By and you can sort this way. This also is handy in List View if you wish to sort by a column that isn’t visible.

When you are searching the web or Apple's discussion forums for technical information, it is important to only look for recent posts as older posts will contain information that doesn't apply to the current devices and operating systems. You can limit your searches in Google to the last month or year. You can also limit your searches in Apple's user discussion forums.

When you use Time Machine to back up your Mac, you not only get a complete backup of everything, but also a history of files that includes deleted or modified files. You can recover a file you have deleted even if many backups have occurred since you deleted the file. Practice this technique so you know how to use it before you need it.

The HomePod allows you to play music from your Apple Music subscription or through AirPlay from another device. You set up the HomePod using an iOS device, and then can stream audio from a Mac, iPhone or iPad. You can also play music directly from the HomePod using voice commands and Siri. There are some preferences you can set in the Home app on your iOS device.

I grabbed my HomePod from the Apple Store this morning and gave it a try. Overall, finding what others have reported. The sound is great. I tried to get some stereo separation but it sounds nothing like using left and right speakers, although it does separate somewhat. I also tried AirPlay from my Mac and iPhone. There are slight delays in doing so, which isn't a problem for playing music, but is a problem for playing video.Since recording this I've discovered a whole set of controls in the Home app on my iPhone. So I'll be doing a regular video on the HomePod and will go over those. Who else got a HomePod and what do you think so far?

If you are new to Mac, you may not have yet explored or customized the status menus. These are also known as menu bar icons and are links to functionality in System Preferences or third-party extensions. You can rearrange or remove status menus. New status menus can be added by other applications in System Preferences.

Stickies is an app that has been around on the Mac long before Notes, Reminders and iCloud. You can place little notes on your Desktop to refer to while working. You can even have these notes remain on top of other windows. While it doesn't offer some of the advanced functionality of today's apps, it can still be useful as a Mac-only tool for helping you get work done.

Say you send an email to someone asking them to review some information, but you want them to use Messages to respond, not an email. You can include a link like imessage://3035551212 that they can click on to open Messages and start a conversation. You can use a phone number or an email address. You can even put the link inside documents. The recipient must be on a Mac and have the Messages app configured for this to work.