Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

If you are about to sell or give away an old Mac, it is important to erase it completely and reset it so it is exactly as it was when you first bought it. It is important to remember to sign out and remove all accounts and services first, then erase the drive, and then use Internet Recovery to install its original operating system.

Over the last few weeks many people have been reporting unwanted Calendar invites, usually looking like junk email with a sales pitch and links. It is difficult to get rid of these invites without notifying the sender that you either declined or accepted it. But there is a method to quietly delete the invite. A better solution is to switch to email notifications of Calendar invites until Apple fixes the problem.

iMovie includes an easy-to-use function that lets you stabilize shaky video. It works best on video that is relatively still. You can make shaky video easier to view and appear more professional.

You can create scripts in Automator that can then be assigned to dictation commands. Once you have set things up, you can speak the command and your computer will execute the Automator script. In this example, I show you how to instantly bring up pictures of cats whenever you need some stress relief.

If you are using a MacBook, Sierra can show you which apps are using the most battery. Just click on the Battery icon in the menubar and one of the things it shows you is a list of apps that are using significant energy. Select any item listed and it takes you to the Activity Monitor with the Energy tab selected so you can see details.

If you want to take a temporary photo with your iPhone, and not have to remember to delete it from your Photo Library later one, use the Notes app instead. You can take a photo right from the app, and it will appear in the current note, but not your Photo Library. You can then delete the photo from the Note, or the entire note.

TextEdit and other Mac text editing apps have useful functions for converting text from all caps to lowercase, allowing you to process uppercase text quicker. You can also convert the other way, or capitalize each word.

Most off-the-shelf USB flash drives are formatted for Windows computers. You can easily reformat a drive to use the standard Mac OS Extended format with the Disk Utility app. Keeping the drive in MS-DOS format may be a better option, however, if you plan to use it on both Mac and Windows computers.

When you buy an app in the Mac App Store you can download it to any Mac you own, as long as you are using the same Apple ID. Just click the Purchased tab at the top of the App Store app, and you can see all of the apps you own. Then use the Install button to the right to install it on the Mac you are currently using. If you have a fast Internet connection, it is sometimes worthwhile to remove apps you don’t plan on using for a while, and then install them again when you need them.

If you have a problem with some you purchased from iTunes or an Apple App Store, you can easily report this problem and request a refund. This is the easiest way to get your money back if you have problems with a video rental, for instance.

iOS has an undo function that works in a wide variety of apps and situations. But it doesn't have an on-screen button. Instead, shake your iPhone or iPad when you want to undo your last action.

You can set your playlists to a manual order or to follow a specific order like alphabetical. You can also use some tricks to shuffle the order of your playlists and get that random order to become permanent, rather than using the shuffle function that plays songs in a different order each time.

Take a look at the Touch Bar on the new Macbook Pro. This thin touchscreen that replaces the function keys on the keyboard allows you to easily access functions for macOS and apps. It changes depending on which app you are using and what you are doing.

Need to keep track of the time as you near an appointment or deadline? Just ask Siri on your Mac “What time is it?” You’ll get the answer, plus a clock much larger than the one in the menu bar. This clock continues to update so just leave it on the screen as you work. This is great for counting down the last minutes until the end of a work day or a scheduled phone call.

If you have your iPhone linked to your car using Bluetooth, then it will automatically remember where you parked. You can access your parking location in the Maps app and get directions to walk back to your car. You can also add notes and an image to help.

Building a photo slideshow in Keynote is very quick and easy. You can simply drag and drop them into Keynote, add a transition and some music and then export as video. It is also easy to add text to any slide as captions.

Both macOS and iOS allow you to search for system settings. You can use the Search field at the top of System Preferences, or the Search field in the Settings app to quickly find specific items. But the results aren't perfect.

You can count the number of times a text string appears in a Numbers spreadsheet column using the COUNTIF function. The function can be hard-coded to look for text, or it can use the value of another cell.

You can easily snap the sides and corners of windows to the edges of the screen. This helps if you like to keep multiple windows arranged neatly on your desktop.

There are many ways to reopen a recently closed tab in Safari, including looking it up in the History menu. But by Control+clicking the + button in the tab bar you can quickly access the list of recently closed tabs. This makes it almost as easy to go back to a closed tab as it does to go to a tab currently open.