No, these are not from Apple

Seems like every week we’re seeing new scams out there. Here’s one that’s affecting lots of people in the Apple ecosystem. There are many emails out there being sent to people that tell you your iCloud storage is full and that they’re going to delete all of your files and photo, they attempt to get you to click a link provide them a credit card, and update your Apple iCloud storage. There’s only one problem with this. They’re all fake.

This is just another example of social engineering. Social engineering is an attempt to get you to cause your self problems or provide private information like credit card data to the scammer. They don’t get into your computer, they don’t hack you, they get you to hack yourself.

The whole idea is to scare you into thinking there’s a problem and get you to click a link and go down some path that’s going to provide them something. It may be passwords to your account, or it may be credit card or banking information don’t fall for this. Apple will not provide an email such as this to tell you your account storage is full, if your account storage is full, you will see a pop-up message on your Apple device that when you click lead you to your iCloud information on the particular device. It doesn’t take you to a website. It doesn’t ask you directly for credit card information. It takes you to Apple’s on service on the device.

The best thing you could do is delete these type of emails. There’s really no way that reporting them helps and since they are also coming from different email addresses even if you block that address, you’re really not helping yourself.

 

Recycling Electronics in Jefferson City

Jefferson City is truly fortunate to have a place to be able to take old electronic items and have them environmentally recycled.  Midwest Recycling Center (MRC) located at 1327 MO-179
Jefferson City, MO, can take many types of old electronics and get them out of your house the right way.  

You can bring by nearly anything that uses a power cord or battery to drop off for recycling, including appliances, and most electronics can be recycled for free! Refer to our Jefferson City drop-off hours above. We can help you unload your vehicle (especially if you have something heavy), and can provide certificates of proper recycling upon request.

The basic rule at MRC is that we accept almost anything that plugs into a wall, or takes batteries (even if they are broken)

While many items can be recycled for free, we must charge recycling fees for TVs, some computer monitors, and items containing Freon, such as Refrigerators and AC Units, as well as Alkaline Batteries, Ink/Toner Cartridges, and Magnetic and Optical media.

I have attached their fee list as of July 21st, 2023 below.

What to do if your iPhone is not ringing

There are a few reasons why your iPhone might not be ringing. Here are some things to check:

  • Make sure your iPhone is not in Silent mode. You can check this by looking for the orange switch on the left side of your phone. If it is flipped up, your iPhone is in Silent mode. To turn off Silent mode, flip the switch down.
  • Check the volume of your ringer. You can adjust the volume of your ringer by pressing the volume buttons on the side of your phone. Make sure the volume is turned up all the way.
  • Make sure Do Not Disturb is not turned on. Do Not Disturb silences all calls and notifications, so you won’t hear your phone ring if it is turned on. You can check if Do Not Disturb is turned on by going to Settings > Do Not Disturb. If it is turned on, turn it off.
  • Make sure your phone is not paired with Bluetooth headphones or speakers. If your phone is paired with Bluetooth headphones or speakers, it will not ring when you receive a call. To unpair your phone from Bluetooth headphones or speakers, go to Settings > Bluetooth and turn off the switch next to the name of the device.
  • Restart your iPhone. Sometimes a simple restart can fix minor software issues that may be causing your phone not to ring. To restart your iPhone, press and hold the power button until you see the slider. Slide the power off button to turn off your phone. Then, press and hold the power button again until you see the Apple logo.
  • Update your iPhone to the latest version of iOS. Apple releases software updates for iOS on a regular basis. These updates often include bug fixes and security updates that can improve the performance of your iPhone. To update your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Software Update. If an update is available, tap Download and Install.

If you have checked all of these things and your iPhone is still not ringing, you may need to seek out assistance to look at the phone or take it to a Apple Genius Bar for further assistance.

Computer Recommendations 2023

A couple times a year I like to give my opinion on what type of a computer someone should be looking for if they’re in the market to purchase a new machine. Many times, there are so many computers on the marketplace that it’s hard to make a decision based upon the functionality you’ll need to use. Basically I break these into two categories, a minimum performance machine and a high-performance machine. If you are a high-performance user, you already know that. If you’re not sure, a minimum performance device is probably where you need to be working.

Often times in the big box stores you find machines that have some of the specifications but not all of them. Big box machines are typically built, particularly on the PC side, with a price in mind. Often times, the machine has specifications that don’t meet current use specs. This also shows up on many Internet sites. Be sure to look into the specifications you’re selecting for the machine that you’re looking to purchase.

In my opinion, brands do matter.  Seeing many machines with problems, I can say that Macintosh computers are generally the most trouble free and will maintain good performance for a longer period.  

But some people need Windows for specific applications.  When it comes to Windows computers, my experience says that I would look for these brands (in order):  

  1. Dell
  2. HP
  3. Lenovo

All three of these vendors maintain good support websites and make updating hardware drivers easier.  That doesn’t mean much when the machine is new but as it ages, it means everything.

How to Force Restart the iPhone (All Models)

  • Press and quickly release the Volume Up button, found on the left side of your device.
  • Then press and quickly release the Volume Down button, also found on the left side of the device.
  • Finally, press and hold the Side button, found on the right side of the device until you see the Apple logo.

During this process, you will see a slider appear on the screen to prompt you to power off the iPhone. Ignore it and continue holding down the Side button until the screen goes black and the Apple logo pops up. After the restart is complete, the screen will activate once again.

Is it Time to Replace my Mac?

That’s a question that I get probably 10 times a week. We all realize that has computers get older they slow down. I’m not sure it’s really a function of the computer slowing down or the software just getting bigger and more needy when it comes to performance.  Regardless, there comes a time when a machine feels slow, your disk space has gotten full, or there are other problems with your machine that make you wonder whether it’s time to replace your Mac. 

There are many factors that go into this decision. Some people just want to replace it to get the newest and fastest technology. But most people are trying to make a decision based upon whether the machine they have meets the needs that they have. So first off, let’s look at what some of the reasons that you might want to replace your computer are.

My computer is feeling slow

By far, this is the biggest reason that people start thinking about making a change. When we buy our computers, they run the current operating system the day, but every year, Apple puts out a new release of the operating system that adds new features of new functions. Many times these functions tied to functions that you might be using on your phone. So that makes you want to update your computer to the latest operating system each time it’s available. Well every time the operating system updates it typically gets a little bigger and uses a little more of the computers performance to make it really run well. After a period of time, you just run out of that surplus performance that that brand new machine you bought had.

Typically in the industry, many businesses replace computers in the 4 to 5 year range.  Now some replace much more often than others use them until they die, but that’s just kind of a general average. So I would say if your Mac is in the five year old or older range it might be time to consider a replacement.

But Mac users have something else to consider to. Apple just made a change to their processors on the Mac computers about a year and a half ago. Apple changed from Intel processors to Apple Silicon processors. Not typically a change like this would be very rocky for the user but Apple has taken all the rocks away, and paved with the best smoothest concrete you would ever find. The new Apple Silicon processors are absolutely amazing. They typically increase your performance by multiple times the speed of the current Intel machines. Now keep in mind your Intel machine might be 5 to 6 years old so the performance of the new processor is staggering.

Let me give you a simple example. Typically in the industry we use a piece of software called Mactracker to keep track of individual Macintosh models and what kind of hardware they were built with along with what the performance is. Let’s look at a machine from 2015. The chart below is the Mactracker information for a 2015 27 inch iMac.  If you take a look at the line listed as performance, the software tells us a single core in a multi course score for the processor. The numbers that make up the score are conglomerate performance of the different aspects of the computer.

But suffice to say the processor makes up a big portion of that. The single core score Is the speed at which one core of the processor can perform tasks. If it was a single core processor that would be the only number you got. But Macs for years have had multicore processor’s. For instance, this particular machine has a four or processor.  Newer machines, will have more cores. This particular machine has a multi course score of 2995.  If we compare the score of the other machines we get a relative performance difference between other hardware and this computer.

So let’s compare this, to Apple‘s new MacBook Pro 16 inch model. If we look at the same chart, in Mactracker, for Apple‘s new machine, you’ll notice that the multi core performance score is 12090 for the M1 pro model.  That’s four times the performance of your 2015 iMac. That kind of a performance difference in about 7 years it’s previously unheard of in the industry. Generally each year, performance of each new level of machine adds about 10% so you might expect about a 70% performance improvement from a seven-year-old machine. But with Apple‘s processor change, we’re looking at a 400% performance difference. That’s huge.

 

Not yes, we’re looking at a M1 pro processor not just the standard M1, but the standard in one processor has similar performance gains, so if you were looking for something lower in them Apple marketplace, you’re still gonna be looking at a performance increase of at least triple over this seven year old computer. If we’re to look up that chart for a M1 MacBook Air, which is basically Apple‘s entry-level machine these days, you’ll see a multi core performance score of 7387.  So comparing your old iMac, to a new entry-level machine still shows a 2.5 time performance increase. That’s still huge.

All that being said, a new Mac, it’s going to give you a tremendous performance increase over what you have. But performance is not the only reason we look for a new machine.

I’m out of disk space on my hard drive

Space. Space for all our stuff. It seems to just grow over time without even thinking about it. We need more and more space. But I would say, that in many cases what we really need is to just clean up the space we have. It’s kind of like your closet. If you continue to just add new things to your closet, and never get rid of anything, all of a sudden you’re out of closet space. You continue to stuff things in, but it just gets harder and harder to find a place for that new shirt that you just bought. Computers are the same way.

In later version of the operating system, under the Apple menu about this Mac, there’s a storage tab that  let us get an idea of what our storage is being used for.  You might take a look at that on your current machine. Typically, you’re going to find that storage is being used that you didn’t really realize. Pictures build up, old music preferences stay in your iTunes library, and old files that you may have used for work years ago, are still sitting on your hard drive. So regardless of whether you need more storage space or not, the first thing you need to do is clean up the space you have. I always recommend doing a good review and cleanup of your existing hard drive space, before migrating over to a new machine. There’s no reason to move all that stuff that you really don’t care about, and it keeps you from having to purchase more space on your new computer.

Using the same machine that we did in the performance section of this, these machines came with 1 TB or 3 TB drives. These were fusion drives which meant they were typical spinning drives, with a small solid-state Storage Drive To improve the performance. Since these drives we’re old standard spinning drives, they were fairly inexpensive. But these days, everything is solid-state storage. Solid state storage improve the performance of computer tremendously. It truly is the only way to go these days and Apple has acknowledged that I no longer selling machines with spinning drives.  But solid-state storage is more expensive.  So this is why cleaning up your space and determining just exactly how much space you need is the best idea to go with. You can always use an external drive to copy things off onto that you don’t necessarily need to have accessible every minute, or at least quickly accessible every minute. And that’s probably the best way to go. But the solid-state drive in the machine needs to be big enough to hold your applications, the operating system, and some of the basic files that you use on your machine. Typically I recommend a minimum of 512 GB. Many of Apple‘s machines come with that minimum but summer 256 GB so you do need to be aware of that if you’re getting ready to make a change.

I’m just ready for something new

Since the moderation of the pandemic, I’m hearing this is reason to get a new computer much more often. People of said at home, and worked on what they had for years now and they’re just ready to move forward. That’s a great reason to move up to a new Mac. But not everybody can do that. If you’re feeling like you’re just ready for something new Perhaps this is the best reason for making a new computer purchase.

But the other reason you may be looking for something new, might be do you want to move from a desktop computer to a laptop computer. This is a common thing I’m seeing these days. People want portability and want to be able to move around their home and use their computer anywhere they were at. So if you’re wanting to make a change because of changing the machine type you’re using, that’s a great reason to look at a new computer too.

Typically when a person calls me and tells me they want to know if it’s time to get a new machine, I look at these reasons I’ve described above and discuss that with them sometimes in detail. But there is one other reason. If your machine is getting older, the odds of it failing are getting greater. If it fails, replacing parts may be expensive if they’re even available any longer. So much of today’s computers is all included on the system board so one thing going wrong on the system board means a complete replacement. It’s always better to make a conscious decision to replace an older machine before it fails then to be forced into a decision if a failure occurs.

So let’s get back to the question, “Is the time to replace my Mac?”  The short answer is maybe. I would recommend if your machine is over five years old, it’s beginning to slow down and feel sluggish to you, or you’re looking for something different, this may be the perfect time. Machine performance is greater than it’s ever been, and the difference you’ll see from what you have to what you buy will truly be staggering. 

I’m always happy to help people talk through the decision making process of whether it’s time to replace, and what to replace their machine with. It’s much better to get some input upfront, then to make a decision that you’re going to be sorry about later.

360° Photography

One of the new photo types available with some cameras is 360° photography. The photograph below is a 360° photo taken with a Insta360 One X camera. Photos like this give you the ability to have a perspective of the scene from any direction regardless of the way you were pointing. The camera itself has two lenses each with a 180° field of view. Each lens takes a photo and the two photos are stitched together. As part of the stitching process the software removes the camera from the photo. It’s actually quite interesting to see the results.

Click on the image below and move your mouse around to see the full scene.

iPhone X: Return to the first home screen

Many of us have been using iPhones for a long time. We all know if you’re on a home screen that is not the first page you can simply double tap the home button to return to the first page of your home screens. Unfortunately, without a home button, the iPhone X doesn’t work that way.

I I have always wondered if Apple provided a shortcut on the iPhone X to do that and so I looked it up. It’s amazing I haven’t run across this simple trick before.

On the iPhone X To move from any application back to the home screen all you have to do is quickly swipe up from the bottom of the screen. But if you’re already on one of your home screens, and you again swipe up from the bottom of the screen quickly, it takes you right back to that first page of your home screen just like double tapping the button did in the past.

I probably should’ve looked at trick up sooner.

Cleaning up Your Time Capsule Backup

Erasing a Single Computer from a Time Capsule Drive

Many people use the same hard disk to backup multiple Macs.  This is great particularly when the disk is network attached such as a time capsule.  But over time as you replace machines, sometimes your old backup gets left behind and your drive fills up.  It is easy to remove old machines from the time capsule backup done with time machine.

First you need to mount the drive from your time capsule to your computer.  In the finder sidebar, scroll down to Shared Devices and select the time capsule.

If you have never connected this way to the time capsule, it may ask for a password.

Once connected you should see the Time capsule drive.

Open the folder you see and you will see individual machine icons listed as drive container (Disk) icons.

Now, you can drag any of these containers to the trash and empty the trash.  This might be a good time to go get a cup of coffee because it often takes quite a while to delete.

You may need to unplug the time capsule and plug it back in to get it to recognize the additional space has been cleaned up,

Erasing the entire Time Capsule Drive

If all else fails you may need to completely erase the time capsule drive.  This will of course delete the backups from all the machines using it and require you to reconfigure the backup for those machines.  Start by opening Airport Utility and selecting the Time Capsule.

Click Edit and select the Disks tab.

Press Erase and confirm you want to erase the disk.  Now take that coffee break as the disk is being erased.  You can close Airport utility and the Time Capsule will finish on it’s own but will still take some time.

Pruning old backups from your Time Machine Drive

If you want to delete olde backup files from your Time machine drive, take a look at this article.  The first portion tells how to do it with the time machine interface.  The second part might not be advised since it requires using terminal commands.