News

Is Your iPhone Reporting “No Service” When You Know There’s a Signal?

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Is Your iPhone Reporting “No Service” When You Know There’s a Signal?

Have you ever seen the dreaded “No Service” label at the top of your iPhone’s screen, even when you’re pretty sure there should be cellular reception? It’s not common, but the iPhone’s cellular radio can occasionally get confused. Luckily, you can easily fix the problem. Open Control Center (swipe down from the upper-right corner on an iPhone X or later or an iPad; or up from the bottom on an earlier iPhone) and tap the airplane icon to put the iPhone in airplane mode. That turns off the cellular radio. Wait a few seconds and tap the airplane icon again...

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Here’s How to Mark Up Photos and Screenshots with Text and Graphics in iOS 13

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Here’s How to Mark Up Photos and Screenshots with Text and Graphics in iOS 13

Ever wanted to take a photo of a receipt and circle the item for which you should be reimbursed? Or perhaps you’d like to put some text or a speech balloon on a photo? You can do all that and much more using iOS 13’s Markup tools. They’re available when you take a screenshot, in Files and Photos, and even for image and PDF attachments in Mail. Here’s what you can do.​Accessing iOS 13’s Markup ToolsHow you invoke the Markup tools varies a bit by app. Here are some common techniques: After you take a screenshot, tap its thumbnail preview....

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Strategies for Moving from Mojave to Catalina

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Strategies for Moving from Mojave to Catalina

​For some Mac users, macOS 10.15 Catalina is no longer a choice. That’s because the new 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 2019 Mac Pro that Apple released late last year ship with Catalina installed and can’t run any previous version of macOS. But for most people, it’s time to consider an upgrade to Catalina. Most backup software now works with Catalina’s bifurcated drive approach that puts the system on a separate, read-only volume from your data and apps. We’ve all had several months to come to terms with the fact that old 32-bit apps won’t even launch in Catalina. And...

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What to Put at the End of Your Email Messages

Posted by Laurie Berg on

What to Put at the End of Your Email Messages

​Email has been around for decades, but there are no hard-and-fast rules for how you should close a message with either the signoff or the signature block. If you’ve always wondered about the best ways to finish off a message or are uncomfortable with what you’ve been doing, here’s our advice. Use the form of your name that you want the recipient to use. If your given name is Mohammed, but everyone calls you Mo, use that for signing most of your messages. Otherwise, they’ll have no idea you prefer the shorter version. (The reverse is true too; if you’re...

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Migrate to a New Mac Right Away, Rather Than Waiting

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Migrate to a New Mac Right Away, Rather Than Waiting

The next time you buy and set up a new Mac, make sure to migrate data and apps from your previous Mac to it right away during the initial setup. It can be tempting to see what it’s like to use it fresh from the factory or to delay migrating because doing so would force a macOS upgrade, but waiting is a mistake. The problem is that if you do real work in an account on the new Mac, when it comes time to use Migration Assistant to bring over data from your old Mac, there’s no way to merge...

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