Get Free Beats Wireless Headphones with Apple’s Back to School Promotion

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Apple launched their annual “Back to School” promotion this morning, offering free Beats Wireless Headphones with purchase of a qualifying Mac or iPad Pro. You have to purchase between July 12th and September 25th, 2017 and to be eligible you have to be a college student, a parent buying for a college student, or a faculty or staff member at any grade level. If you’re an elected or appointed member of a school board, or an elected or appointed officer of a PTA or PTO, you’re also eligible. Buy through the Apple Online Store for… Continue Reading Get Free Beats Wireless Headphones with Apple’s Back to School Promotion

Free 4th of July Fireworks Apps for your iPhone and Mac

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— Happy 4th of July — It’s the 4th of July, and that means fireworks. Here are some fireworks apps for your iPhone (or iPad) and Mac. Note: in the spirit of Freedom I am only recommending apps that are free. A fireworks app on your iPhone will help you pass the time as you wait for the sky to get dark enough for the real show to begin. Fireworks Arcade is the iOS fireworks app that I like the best. And it’s free. Fireworks Arcade is free. You can let the app launch fireworks… Continue Reading Free 4th of July Fireworks Apps for your iPhone and Mac

How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 3)

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Looking for the first two parts? Here’s How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 1) and here’s How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 2). This post focuses on the WordPress.com Dashboard. Let’s work our way down. At the top you’ll find a button labeled My Sites. Once clicked, it stays clicked. You need to click it once to get the rest of the options in the Dashboard. The next button down is Switch Site. I didn’t tell you this before, but you can have multiple WordPress.com websites under a single account. If… Continue Reading How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 3)

How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 2)

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Looking for Part 1? Here it is: How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 1). You’ve created an account, you’ve given your blog a theme, and you’ve chosen a URL. At that point, WordPress shows you a sample blog post, or a mocked-up home page, depending on choices you made when first setting things up. Let’s write our first blog post, add a picture, and categorize it. Start by clicking the “Write” button. The button may have the word “Write” on it, or may simply be a picture. See below. It depends on how… Continue Reading How to make a free WordPress Blog (Part 2)

How to make a free WordPress blog (Part 1)

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Got something to say? Want to show off your pictures? Want to document your vacation, or the 4th grade, or comment on your favorite sports team’s season? You need a blog. Here’s how you make a free blog using WordPress. All you need is a web browser and an internet connection. WordPress is a very popular platform for blogging, and it’s free, and you can learn how in a hurry by reading this article. (The screenshots here are from a Mac using Google Chrome, but you can use Safari or Firefox or any other modern… Continue Reading How to make a free WordPress blog (Part 1)

How to fix poor iPhone cell reception in your home and office

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Do you have poor cellular coverage in your home or office? When you call people from your iPhone, do they ask you to repeat what you said, because the sound dropped out? Do they ask you to quit walking around– even though you’re sitting still? Do they say it sounds like you’re in a tunnel when actually you’re in your home? If you answered Yes to any of the above, you know how irritating these problems are. Fortunately, there is a solution, and it’s easy, and it’s free. The solution to your problems is WiFi… Continue Reading How to fix poor iPhone cell reception in your home and office

How to use the Memories feature in iOS 11’s Photos app

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The Photos app in iOS 10 introduced a great feature called “Memories,” and it’s a ton of fun. It’s still there in iOS 11. I think you’ll like it and use it a lot. The idea behind Memories is this: you’ve taken a lot of pictures, too many to manage, yet you’d like to go back and view your photos in a nice and organized way. The Memories feature does the organization for you automatically, behind your back, every day, producing mini-movies of your best photos grouped by date, place, or person. And it sets… Continue Reading How to use the Memories feature in iOS 11’s Photos app

Set Up Your Own iPhone and Mac Text Replacements for Auto-Correct

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Whether you’re using an iPhone or a Mac, Auto-Correct is a real time-saver. Turns out you can set up your own “corrections” that expand into frequently-used words, phrases, sentences– even whole paragraphs! (On the Mac, they call them “text expansions.” On the iPhone, they’re “text replacements.” Either way, think of them as Auto-Corrects that substitute a lot of text for a little. Imagine typing a couple of characters in Messages on your iPhone and seeing it expand into a whole bunch of stuff that you didn’t have to type! That’s the power of these things.)… Continue Reading Set Up Your Own iPhone and Mac Text Replacements for Auto-Correct

Essential Mac Add-on apps

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— Essential Mac Add-on apps — Whenever I set up a Mac I always advise adding three great apps that make using a Mac easier, faster, and just plain nicer. Those apps are Moom, Paste, and Alfred, and to me, they’re essential. Try them out and I think you’ll agree. MoomThe name “Moom” comes from “Move and Zoom,” which is what this app does. This is way, way faster than dragging the edges of windows to resize them and then, in a separate step, dragging them to position. If you routinely have to shuffle windows… Continue Reading Essential Mac Add-on apps

How to Quickly Unlock Your iPhone or iPad with iOS 10

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— How to Quickly Unlock Your iPhone or iPad with iOS 10 — We used to unlock our iPhones and iPads with a simple “Slide to Unlock.” It was easy. With iOS 10 it’s different– now it’s a confusing “Press Home to Unlock” which often results in a “click / double-click / ooops that’s Siri / oops that’s Apple Pay” click-a-thon. When you finally get the thing unlocked you’re not really sure how you did it because you tried so many things. It was better the old way, but we can do something about it.… Continue Reading How to Quickly Unlock Your iPhone or iPad with iOS 10