New Tricks for Your AirPods

If you have an iOS device and a pair of Apple's AirPods, and might be a bit hard of hearing, read this article. Especially look at the first tip about using the AirPods and the iOS device (lets say it's an iPhone). You can use these devices as a hearing aid. Zee just tried it, and it really works (although she's not hard of hearing -- she wanted to try it out for her sister who is very hard of hearing).

If, say, you're watching TV, turn on your iPhone (or iPad), put the AirPods in, and the iPhone picks up the sound from the TV and transmits it via Bluetooth to the AirPods. Sounds come through great, Zee says. She was trying it out with our TV, walked to the front bedroom (where I was) and said she could still hear the TV clearly. I could hear a faint sound from the TV, but couldn't make out words. I didn't have AirPods on, though.

Lets say you go to lunch with friends. The restaurant is noisy, you can't hear conversations very well. Turn the iPhone on, place it on the table, put on your AirPods, and, voila!, you can hear.

I think this combo will be great news for people who are hearing-impaired, and much cheaper than hearing aids. I've got to say -- I'm impressed.

Jim Hamm


https://www.idropnews.com/gallery/7-new-airpods-tricks-you-need-to-know-about/86335/2/

Find My iPhone

If you've misplaced your iPhone or iPad, you might want to verify that you can locate it by following the instructions below -- which have been graciously provided by Small Dog Electronics. Even if you haven't lost it, you can still do a test. I just confirmed that I could find my iPhone remotely, even though it is sitting by my side. And every time I logged into iCloud my iPhone would 'ding' with a message that someone was logging into my iCloud account.

Jim Hamm

You can use Find My iPhone to find your device, take additional actions to help you recover it, and keep your information safe.

  • Sign in to icloud.com/find on a Mac or PC, or use the Find My iPhone app on another iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

  • Find your device. Open Find My iPhone, and select a device to view its location on a map. If the device is nearby, you can have it play a sound to help you or someone nearby find it.

  • Turn on Lost Mode. Using Lost Mode, you can remotely lock your device with a passcode, display a custom message with your phone number on your missing device’s Lock screen, and keep track of your device’s location. If you added credit, debit, or prepaid cards to Apple Pay, the ability to make payments using Apple Pay on the device is suspended when you put your device in Lost Mode.

  • Erase your device. To prevent anyone else from accessing the data on your missing device, you can erase it remotely. When you erase your device, all of your information (including credit, debit, or prepaid cards for Apple Pay) is deleted from the device, and you won’t be able to find it using Find My iPhone. After you erase a device, you can’t track it. If you remove the device from your account after you erase it, Activation Lock will be turned off. This allows another person to turn on and use your device. This really works, I have tested it!

Find My iPhone is one of the handiest safety features of Apple devices. While some other cell phones have a similar feature, none are as complete or as useful as Apple’s Find My iPhone!

David Pogue: Three New iPhones Reviewed

As Pogue points out in this article, if you already have the iPhone X, there’s no reason to consider upgrading. I’m reading this because Pogue has a knack for pointing out the differences in the upcoming models. Maybe you’ll enjoy the article also.

Jim Hamm

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David Pogue published the following article today:

Three new iPhones reviewed: Faster, bigger, cheaper

The iPhone X is dead. Long live the iPhone X! What I mean by that, of course, is that the new 2018 iPhones are named (and designed) to be tuned-up versions of last year’s iPhone X. There are three of them: one faster, one bigger, and one …

Source: Yahoo! News

iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad

My wife and I updated our iPhone X’s and iPads to iOS 12 this morning. It took quite a while

to do the download, and we have a fast internet connection. Neither of us could make a

phone call after the update, so shut down our iPhones, restarted, and all was well.

Haven’t really checked other changes out, but am looking forward to trying out the new (old?) 

way to close Running apps. The following article by David Pogue has more detail.

Jim Hamm

4-TOfgyVZx.png

iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad: 50 tweaks, 6 home runs

Wait, is this September? Why, yes—yes it is! And you know what that means: Time for another free, annual release of iOS 12, Apple’s operating system for iPhones and iPads. Phone OS upgrades these days rarely introduce blockbuster, routine-changing …

Source: Yahoo! News



Adware Doctor in Mac App Store Warning

Adware Doctor, a Top Seller on the Mac App Store, Was Grabbing User’s Web History.

https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/adware-doctor-a-top-seller-on-the-mac-app-store-was-grabbing-users-web-history/

The Mac App Store is supposed to be a safe way to download software, but a prominent malware scanner sold there until recently was grabbing users’ browsing history.

The application, called Adware Doctor, was a top grossing app on the store. It also wiggled its way around the macOS sandbox restrictions to grab personal information. Patrick Wardle, writing for Objective-See, broke down how this all works, so check that out for all the details.

Frank Croft



Internet Speed Tests

I was just playing around a bit the other day and opened the Windscribe Pro VPN, installed a new version, and wanted to see how it affected my internet download speed on wifi. As expected, it slowed my connection speed down some, and this is the price one must pay for the security from eavesdropping and hacking when on a wifi network, especially a public wifi network.

Now, I don't need a VPN on my home network -- I was just playing and checking things out. As part of this, I checked several speed test websites, which I list below. Resulting download Mbps varied considerably between the different tests. Which was more accurate? Darned if I know, but the speed of my accessing the internet is acceptable, so I don't worry about what the actual speed might be.

In case you might want to do some checking yourself, here are the websites I used.

Jim Hamm

http://www.speedtest.net/run

https://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

http://speedtest.att.com/speedtest/

https://www.spectrum.com/internet/speed-test.html

https://www.cox.com/residential/support/internet/speedtest.html

Apple's WWDC

I live-streamed Apple's presentation on September 12th, and in the first hour and 50 minutes of the presentation, there was no mention of a Mac or macOS. It was all about the Apple Watch and iPhones. In the last 5 minutes Tim Cook briefly mentioned the Home Pod and macOS Mojave. Then Tim thanked me for watching...😊...

To possibly summarize what I saw: lots of health and exercise apps, gaming apps, design improvements, advanced technology, and pretty looks. They mentioned that a prior chip performed 600 million operations per second (Wow!), and the new one 6 trillion operations per second. Unbelievable.

If you weren't able to watch the conference, I'm sure you'll still be able to watch it, should you have an interest. I enjoyed parts of it, and some not so much. I'm not into gaming, for example. But, lots of new stuff on the watch and iPhone.

Jim Hamm

Goggle Tracking

Most likely you are aware that Google tracks your activities on the internet. How much tracking, you might ask? Well, read this article:


https://www.techspot.com/news/76231-google-allegedly-paid-mastercard-millions-data-link-online.html

I must admit I have mixed emotions about Google tracking. I use Google's wares a lot -- from the Chrome Browser to Gmail to Google Drive to Google Photos to Ask Google, and perhaps others as well. All free, I might add. I realize that Google needs to make money somehow to support these activities. 

So, what do I -- and you -- think about the article? Meh! So far, none of Google's tracking has hurt me, so I'll continue to march with Google and see what happens.

Jim Hamm

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Ten Years of Google Chrome

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The Google Chrome Browser has been available for 10 years now, and for two out of three browser users, it's the browser of choice. It's my browser of choice also. I don't have anything against Firefox, Safari or Edge, but for a variety of reasons I prefer Chrome. The following article discusses more about the Chrome Browser.

Jim Hamm

https://askbobrankin.com/ten_years_of_google_chrome_and_why_i_cannot_quit.html

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Google Photos

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While I certainly enjoy looking at photos -- and I often receive interesting ones in an email --  I'm not one to actually take many photos. While I have several personal photos stored in my devices, the bulk of my photos are of interesting scenes -- such as an ominous tornado, or a spectacular waterfall, etc. --  that I've saved and use as desktop screens on my computers. 

If you've got a lot of photos stored and would like to get them off your device to free up space, you might take a look at Google Drive, which I haven't tried yet -- at least that I remember. If you might have an interest, here is a review of Google Drive that explains the features:

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2484832,00.asp

I'm presently logged into Google's Gmail account and tried something that just flabbergasted me. The article mentioned about going to photos.google.com on the web. I just did this (for the first time, ever) In my Chrome browser (I'm on Linux Mint right now in a PC) and couldn't believe what I saw -- all my stored photos were displayed, with the first one showing a date of 2004 -- 14 years ago!

Even though I am logged into Google from my Gmail account, how did Google get into my computer to access my photos, I wondered? And on my Linux computer I don't have any photos stored. Then it dawned on me. I guess sometime in the past I must have used Google Photos, and my photos are obviously stored in the 'cloud' somewhere. Out of curiosity, I just tried this on my iPhone X in the Chrome browser, and lo and behold, all my photos came rolling up again. Amazing.

If you're looking for a place to store your photos, you might take a look at Google Photos.

Jim Hamm 

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iPhone X Tips

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If you've had your iPhone X for a while, you've probably got the settings set the way you want them. I thought so, also, but out of curiosity I read the following two articles and found some that I changed. 

One setting in particular was aggravating to me: every time I touched my iPhone X the display woke up and consumed battery power. I didn't like or want that. Way too sensitive I thought. I found a tip in the second article on how to turn that feature off. It took me so long to get that setting set to my preference.

HERE and HERE are the two articles in case you'd like to review the settings in your iPhone X.

Jim Hamm

MacBook Air

Rumors about the demise of the MacBook Air, which debuted 10 years ago, continue to appear in various articles. I've owned two Airs, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Just this week my wife bought a new MacBook Air, after going to the Apple store and looking over all the laptops. Why would she buy an older model that may be discontinued? Because she had an Air that had died, liked it and wanted another one.

What will take the place of the Air if it is discontinued? John Gruber, a noted tech writer, has some thoughts which he expresses here:

https://daringfireball.net/2018/08/new_low-cost_laptop_to_succeed_macbook_air 

Jason Snell, former editor of MacWorld Magazine, has some opinions as well, which he expresses in  this article: 

https://sixcolors.com/offsite/2018/08/what-does-the-future-hold-for-apples-macbook-air/

In the world of computers, technology continues to march on. What we like today may be replaced by something else tomorrow. All things considered, that's not such a bad thing.

Jim Hamm