Out of the box, the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has four system controls available at all times: Brightness, Volume, Mute an Siri. While you can tap on the “<” button to the left of the brightness button to view more controls, it’s possible customize the buttons housed in the Control Strip with actions …
Read More »Tag Archives: macos-sierra
2 ways to monitor the progress of downloads on a Mac
I am aware that a watched pot never boils, but sometimes I need to know how much time remains on a download. On a Mac, there are two ways to keep an eye on the progress of a download. 1. Launchpad in the Dock For files being downloaded from the Mac App Store, the easiest way to check their progress …
Read More »How to set up Touch ID on the MacBook Pro
Now playing: Watch this: Is the New MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar revolutionary? 21:32 Apple‘s fingerprint tech, Touch ID, is no longer limited to its iOS devices. The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar features a Touch ID reader embedded in the power button, just above the Delete key. Using Touch ID, you can do things like approve Apple Pay purchases, …
Read More »7 features from Windows you can bring to your Mac
Longtime Windows users making the leap to a Mac will need to go through a bit of an adjustment period before they begin to feel comfortable navigating MacOS. In an effort to bring you comfort, allow me to ask and answer seven questions that you might be muttering to yourself. 1. Wait, where’s the Delete key? What a Mac calls …
Read More »One reason why the 12
As I write this blog post, I have ten tabs open in Chrome and no other apps running on my five-year-old MacBook Pro. Despite this low workload, my MacBook Pro’s cooling fan whirs loudly. This is not a rare occurrence. It seems that with each passing day, the fan spins more and rests less. And should I do something as …
Read More »Apple slashes prices of USB
Those MacBook Pro dongles are now a lot cheaper. Apple on Friday cut the pricing for connectors for its MacBook Pro. The offer will run through the end of the year. Apple also lowered the price of the new LG displays announced last week by 25 percent. The LG UltraFine 5K display, will cost $974 when it becomes available in …
Read More »Shut but not sleeping: 2 ways to keep a closed MacBook awake
A MacBook doesn’t need to be open to be useful. Connected to an external display, it can run while it’s closed and act like a Mac Mini. By itself, a MacBook can run when closed with the help of a third-party app. You may want to do this so you can tote your MacBook from meeting to meeting at work …
Read More »Find out how much longer your SSD will last
If you read Dong Ngo’s excellent primer on solid-state drives (SSDs) and how to extend their lifespan, then you might be wondering where you and your SSD stand. As Dong explained, SSDs have a finite number of program/erase cycles. That is, you can write data to and erase data from an SSD only so many times before it begins to …
Read More »Deny it all you want, Apple, but Macs and iPads need to fuse
The first time I saw the Touch Bar on Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops, I thought: hey, there’s a little strip of an iPad grafted onto that Mac. Macs don’t have touch. At this point, they’re the outliers in the computing world. Windows and Chrome touch computers have flooded the world for years, now. There are tablets. There are phones. …
Read More »5 reasons why your laptop is slow
If your old laptop is starting to show its age, there can be any number of issues affecting its performance. Here are five likely culprits for why your laptop is running so frustratingly slow and five solutions to return it to its former glory. 1. Spinning hard drive I speak from experience when I say moving from a traditional spinning …
Read More »