Helping you and your small business succeed with technology
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The “Hey” Part of “Hey Siri” Is Now Optional
If you use Siri, particularly on a HomePod, you’re probably accustomed to saying “Hey Siri” as the trigger phrase before your requests. In Apple’s new operating systems for 2023, you can now choose to invoke Siri using the traditional “Hey Siri” or just “Siri” (at least in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US). You…
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Tis the Season for Tech Purchases
The end-of-year holiday shopping season is both an exciting and challenging time for purchasers and recipients alike. During this time, we might be buying tech devices or services for ourselves or others. Do you need the assistance of a tech elf to help you choose, purchase, upgrade, or install new devices? To ensure a…
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In Your Face App Guarantees That You Notice Appointment Alerts
It’s easy to get caught up in what you’re doing and miss an alert for a Zoom meeting or a reminder to leave for an appointment. The Mac app In Your Face ensures that will never happen again by taking over the entire screen for notifications and requiring that you click a button to dismiss…
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Four Solutions to Gotchas in macOS 14 Sonoma
We’re seeing an increasing number of people switching to macOS 14 Sonoma, and for the most part, things are going well. However, Apple introduced some new features—and turned them on by default—that are causing some consternation. If you’ve switched to Sonoma or are planning to soon, here are four features you might want to know…
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watchOS 10.1 Brings Double Tap to the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2
Apple recently released watchOS 10.1, with support for the much-ballyhooed double-tap gesture that selects the primary action in many apps without requiring that you touch the screen! It’s available only on the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, where you activate it by raising your wrist and tapping your thumb and…
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Use iOS 17’s Check In Feature to Reduce Worry
We’ve all had a friend or family member say, “Text me when you get home,” because they want the peace of mind from knowing you arrived safely. But what if something goes wrong—or you forget—so they never receive that text? They’ll be worried and won’t know where you are, if you’re OK, and so on.…
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Open the Mac’s Control Center with This Obscure Keyboard Shortcut
With macOS 13 Ventura, Apple brought Control Center from iOS to the Mac, providing a unified interface for features that users need to turn on and off regularly or that receive frequent adjustments, like screen brightness and audio volume. Clicking the Control Center icon in the menu bar brings it up, but it’s a small,…
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New M3 Chip Family Powers Updated MacBook Pros and 24-inch iMac
At Apple’s Halloween-themed Scary Fast event on October 30, the company unveiled its next-generation Apple silicon chips for Macs, the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. Apple also showcased new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models and a faster version of the 24-inch iMac based on these chips. They’re available to order now, with units…
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Stay Alert! Voice Phishing Used in Recent Ransomware Attacks
All it took for MGM Resorts International to be compromised with ransomware was a quick phone call, which some now call “voice phishing” or “vishing.” An attacker using LinkedIn information to pose as an employee asked MGM’s help desk for a password change, after which they were able to install ransomware. MGM is now up…
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Want to Password-Protect a PDF? Follow These Best Practices
We periodically field questions about password-protecting a PDF to prevent the wrong people from reading it. Lawyers want to ensure that drafts of legal documents don’t fall into the wrong hands, financial advisers want to keep confidential financial information private, and authors want to prevent their writing from being shared broadly on the Internet. Others…
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