your movies are going missing

Your Movies Are Going Missing

Have you ever worn out a favorite song? Are you old enough to remember when you could actually wear out a cassette tape? Or videotape?

Unlike digital media, videotapes degrade from use and over time. That means the family videos you’ve watched over and over again are showing their age. And if you think they’re safe because you haven’t played in them in two decades, think again. Once they’re about ten years old, videotapes even deteriorate in storage. The plastic base layer ages and the magnetic layer that holds the information begins to lose its magnetism.

Each type is a little different but the average videotape loses 20-30% of its information after 10-20 years. When you consider that VHS reached peak popularity in the late 80s, 8mm in the 90s and Digital8 and MiniDV in the early 2000s, it’s a safe bet that the tapes in your collection are forgetting things as quickly as you are.

The good news is that transferring them now to a digital format like MP4 will protect them from further deterioration and make them much easier to backup and share. It’s the single best way to guarantee that your legacy will be available for your next generation to enjoy.

Sorry, we can’t transfer your junior high love songs mixtape. And it’s probably better that way.

 

Two Ways to Convince a Wedged iPhone to Connect to the Internet Again

Every now and then, we’ve seen iPhones stop being able to access the Internet, either via Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection. Assuming that the Internet connection is working for other devices, there are two easy ways to reset your iPhone’s connection and get it working again. First, enable Airplane mode to shut off the iPhone’s radios—bring up Control Center and tap the Airplane mode button. After a few seconds, tap the button again to turn it off. Second, if toggling Airplane mode doesn’t work, power down the iPhone by pressing and holding the top or side button (iPhone 8 or earlier) or both the side button and a volume button (iPhone X or later) until the slider appears (or go to Settings > General > Shut Down). Drag the slider to turn off the iPhone. Once the phone is powered down, hold the side (or top) button again until the Apple logo appears. In just a moment, your phone will be back on, and you should be able to access the Internet normally.

Don’t Use Rules in Apple’s Mail to Send “Out of Office” Replies

It’s helpful to unplug occasionally and ignore email while on vacation or otherwise away from your work routine. And it’s a good idea to set up a vacation auto-responder to tell correspondents what to do in your absence. It might be tempting to create such an auto-reply with a rule in Mail on the Mac, but resist the temptation! It’s way too easy to end up sending replies to every message from a mailing list or to addresses that will themselves reply back, causing a mail loop where each message generates another reply, ad infinitum. Instead, always set up such auto-responders in the server settings for your email provider, which are better about avoiding mail loops. Here are instructions for Gmail, iCloud, Outlook.com, Spectrum, Xfinity/Comcast, and Yahoo. If you use a different email provider, the instructions will likely be similar; check with your provider for details.

The Secret Trick for Enabling Caps Lock When Typing in iOS

The Caps Lock key on Mac keyboards often feels extraneous, since it’s easy enough to hold the Shift key while typing multiple capital letters for acronyms like HIPPA or when you want to shout GET OFF MY LAWN! But if you need to do that on an iPhone or iPad, it’s annoying to keep tapping the Shift key to switch to the uppercase keyboard for each letter. Luckily, Apple has baked a time-saving trick into its onscreen keyboard. Tap the Shift key twice in a row to lock it on, type the letters you need, and tap it again to unlock it. Notice that when Shift is locked on, a horizontal line appears beneath the arrow on the Shift key.

Siri in Mojave Now Supports HomeKit and Find My iPhone

Siri on the Mac hasn’t been as useful as on iOS devices, but with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple enhanced the Mac version of Siri in a variety of ways. Apple says that Siri now knows about food, celebrities, and motorsports, but more interesting is how you can ask Siri to control your HomeKit devices (“Turn on the bedroom lights.”) and locate your iOS devices or AirPods via Find My iPhone (“Where is my iPhone?”).

Getting Rid of an Old Mac? Follow These Steps to Prep It for Its Next Life

If a new Mac has recently arrived in your life, it may be time to hand your old Mac down to a friend or family member, pass it on to a coworker, or send it back to Apple for recycling. Here’s what to do.

Backup

Before anything else, make a backup, just in case. Do this even if you’ve already migrated your data to your new Mac, since it’s possible that data could have been corrupted during the transfer without you realizing. At minimum, update your old Mac’s Time Machine backup by clicking the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, and choosing Back Up Now. For extra safety, consider using an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to make a bootable duplicate that will be easier to navigate if you need to recover a file.

Deauthorize iTunes and Other Apps

It’s uncommon for apps to have licensing schemes that are tied to your Mac’s hardware these days, but if you have any, such as those from Adobe, be sure to deauthorize or deactivate them.

However, there is one app that most people will need to deauthorize: iTunes. That’s because Apple allows you to play content purchased from iTunes only on up to five computers associated with your Apple ID, so be sure to deauthorize Macs that you won’t use again before passing them on.

To do this, open iTunes and choose Account > Authorizations > Deauthorize This Computer. Enter your Apple ID credentials when prompted.

If you’ve forgotten to do this, you can deauthorize all your computers once per year (and then add back those you still have). To do this in iTunes, choose Account > View My Account, and in the Apple ID Summary next to Computer Authorizations, click Deauthorize All.

Sign Out of iCloud

Next, you should sign out of iCloud to remove any connection between your iCloud account and the old Mac. Doing so disconnects the Mac from synchronization of your iCloud data.

To do this, open System Preferences > iCloud, and click the Sign Out button. If you’ve been syncing via iCloud Drive, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, and so on, the Mac will ask if you want to keep the data on the Mac or delete it. Don’t bother deleting it since you’ll erase the Mac’s drive in a future step.

Sign Out of iMessage

Much as with iCloud, you should sign out of your iMessage account, at least if your Mac is running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion or later. To do this, open Messages and choose Messages > Preferences > Accounts. Select your iMessage account and click Sign Out. (In 10.14 Mojave, instead of clicking Accounts in the toolbar, click iMessage.)

Unpair Bluetooth Devices

If you’re giving your Mac to another user along with its Bluetooth devices, such as a wireless keyboard and trackpad, you don’t need to do anything with them. However, if you plan to hang on to your Bluetooth devices and use them with another Mac, you should unpair them. That’s especially true if someone else in your home or office will be using the old Mac, since the device might end up working on multiple Macs, which could cause confusion.

Before you unpair a wireless keyboard and mouse or trackpad, however, make sure you have a wired keyboard and pointing device available, since you won’t be able to erase the drive and reinstall macOS without them. If you lack wired alternatives, don’t unpair your keyboard and pointing device.

To unpair Bluetooth devices, open System Preferences > Bluetooth, and in the list of devices either hover over a device or select it. Then click the X button to the right. When prompted, click Remove.

Erase the Drive and Reinstall macOS

Here’s the most important step—erasing the Mac’s drive. After all, you don’t want the next user to be able to access all your photos, documents, email, and more. Luckily, this is easy to do.

First, start up from macOS Recovery by holding down Command-R while the Mac boots. In the macOS Utilities window that appears, select Disk Utility and click Continue.

In Disk Utility, select the internal drive, click Erase in the toolbar, and in the dialog that appears, enter a new name, choose a format, and choose GUID Partition Map for the scheme. For the format, stick with the default, since the macOS installer will convert it later if necessary. Quit Disk Utility when you’re done.

Once the drive is erased, you’ll be returned to the macOS Utilities window, where you can select Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X, if it’s an older Mac) and click Continue. Obviously, if you’re sending it back to Apple for recycling, there’s no reason to do this.

The installation process takes time, and when it’s done, the Mac will restart into the setup assistant. Press Command-Q at the Welcome screen to shut down. When the new user starts the Mac up again, they’ll be able to continue with the setup process. That’s it—now you’re ready to give the Mac to its next user.


Social Media: If you’re passing an old Mac on to a colleague, friend, or family member—or returning it to Apple for recycling—follow these steps to prepare it for its next stage in life and ensure that no one will be able to access your data.

Tips for Hilariously Happy Holiday Cards

Tips for Hilariously Happy Holiday Cards

If you’re planning to send holiday cards, and, ahem, we know you are, be sure to mind your p’s and q’s. A little humor never hurt either. Especially this time of year. Follow these suggestions to make yours the most well-received greeting cards of the year.

When should I send them?

Don’t be like the store who puts holiday decor on sale before Halloween. Send your cards during the first month of December for arrival two to three weeks before Christmas.

Formal or funny?

We always say, “You be yule.” Not sure what it means exactly but if your family get-togethers tend to go Grizwald, we think your cards should too! Posed portraits are passe. Snapshots are super! Just remember that your senders’ list probably contains some formal acquaintances who may not know the crazy side of you… yet.

Mind Your Merry Manners

Even if your message goes offbeat, it’s still a good idea to envelop it in the sincerity of formality.

Address them to “Mr. & Mrs.” unless they’re very close friends. If you’re unsure of a woman’s marital status, always use Ms. and be sure to include professional titles for doctors and public servants. When you know it, use a person’s birth name rather than a nickname, like James instead of Jim.

To address a card to everyone, use “The Johnson Family.” Spell out street names rather than abbreviating them.

Return The Favor

Don’t forget to add your return address so they can send one back. Yours should include at least your family name above the address.

Now or Never, or Maybe Later

The holidays are hectic. If you miss missed your window this year, don’t panic. New Years Cards are the new fashionably late and with fresh card styles that aren’t bound to traditional holiday themes, they really are fashionable! Send them for arrival in the first half of January and you’re golden!

 

Whatever you do, don’t skip it! This could be the only time you send a heartfelt message and photo to these important people. And don’t forget the little elves who are here to help. That’s us!

Tips for Hilariously Happy Holiday Cards

File Messages Faster in Mail in Mojave

In macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple exposed a feature of Mail that was useful, but hard to find and use. For several versions of Mail, you’ve been able to select a message and choose Message > Move To Predicted Mailbox to file the email in the suggested mailbox. (If the Move To command is disabled, Mail hasn’t yet learned how to move messages like the selected one. Once it sees you move messages from your mother into your Family mailbox, for instance, it will suggest that destination in the future.) In Mojave’s Mail, there’s also now a Move To toolbar button. If it can predict where the message will go, just click it; if not, click and hold to bring up a menu of all your mailboxes.

Recover Drive Space by Deleting Old and Unnecessary iOS Device Backups

If you’ve been good about backing up your iOS devices to iTunes on your Mac or to iCloud, give yourself a gold star! Both backup destinations are fine, but there’s one potential downside to iTunes backups: they can consume a lot of space on your Mac’s drive. In iTunes, go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices, where you’ll see all the iOS device backups that iTunes has stored. If there are multiple older backups or any for devices you no longer own, you can get rid of them. Control-click the offending backup, and choose Delete. Or, if you want to check how large a backup is first, instead choose Show In Finder, and then in the Finder, choose File > Get Info. When you’re ready, move the selected backup folder to the Trash.

Use This Hidden Feature in Safari to Access Tabs on Your Other Apple Devices

Browser tabs. They breed like bunnies, and if you’re like us, you have oodles of tabs open on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. But you may not know that Safari has a great tab-management feature that lets you access all the open tabs on all your devices. (Make sure to enable the Safari switch in System Preferences > iCloud on the Mac and in Settings > YourName > iCloud in iOS.) This tab overview is easiest to find on the iPad, where tapping the tab  button displays local tabs as thumbnails at the top of the screen and lists tabs from other devices beneath. On the iPhone, scroll down to the bottom of the tab list to see them, and on the Mac, choose View > Show Tab Overview. Click or tap any tab to view it. To close an unnecessary tab, in iOS, swipe left and tap Close; in macOS, hover over the tab name and click the x button that appears.