MacMost: MacMost Now

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 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.

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.

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.

You can set your iPhone's flashlight brightness to low, medium or bright using 3D touch on a later model iPhone. You can also access the flashlight without unlocking your iPhone by using the button in the Magnifier function.

The new ports on the MacBook Pros are billed as Thunderbolt 3, but it is better to think of them as USB-C. They can handle USB, Thunderbolt, video and power. They are a single port to handle just about any peripheral need. If you have old devices and cables, then converters are cheap and easy to find.

You can stream your favorite radio stations from around the world in iTunes. You can use the list of stations in iTunes, or grab the URL from your station's website and create a stream. You can then save streams to a playlist to access them easily.

In addition to IDs and passwords, you can autofill your name and email address into forms with Safari. This is handy for filling out simple forms where you are not logging into a site. You can change which information is available in the Contacts app.

In addition to getting transit directions in Apple Maps on your Mac and iOS devices, you can also simply view transit routes. Turning on the Transit mode will show you major routes like light rail and subways. You can also zoom in to see bus stops and then view an entire bus route.