Do you have a child heading off to college soon? As you’re undoubtedly aware from high school, a computer is essential for a college student. If you haven’t been paying close attention to Apple’s Mac lineup, you might wonder which model makes the most sense.

First, don’t buy anything without first checking with the college. Many college departments have specific requirements based on the software that students have to use in their classes. Generally, these revolve around processor type, amount of RAM, and storage space. Luckily, current Macs should meet the requirements.

Colleges often specify—and students usually prefer—laptops instead of desktop machines. Although the iMac is an excellent machine with a gorgeous screen, it’s too big and unwieldy for the transient lifestyle of the typical college student. The same is true of a Mac mini and external display. A laptop is much easier to pack during moves, and it can travel to class every day. A student who’s accustomed to taking notes on an iPad with a Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil might be able to use that along with a desktop Mac, but most people should focus on Apple’s laptops.

In the past, it was harder to decide which model was best for a given student, but with Apple’s move to the M1 chip, which significantly outperforms the Intel processors used in previous models, the decision is easier. We see three primary scenarios:

• Most students: Buy Apple’s M1-based MacBook Air. It’s Apple’s smallest, lightest, and least expensive laptop, but thanks to its M1 processor, it has nearly identical performance to the heavier and more costly M1-based MacBook Pro. It also has the same lovely 13.3-inch Retina display. It starts at $999, and an education discount may be available.
• Slightly better specs: If cost is of little concern, the M1-based MacBook Pro offers just a bit more performance due to fans that keep its M1 chip cool. It also has a Touch Bar (which some people like, but others don’t), somewhat longer battery life, and nominally better speakers and microphones. It starts at $1299, and again, education pricing may be available.
• Windows compatibility: The only reason to buy an older Intel-based MacBook Pro— available in either 13.3-inch ($1799) and 16-inch ($2399) models—is if Windows compatibility is essential. All Intel-based Macs can run Windows with no problems, either by restarting in Apple’s Boot Camp or using virtualization software like VMware Fusion (free for students) or Parallels Desktop. (On M1-based Macs, it’s possible to run Parallels Desktop and Windows for ARM Insider Preview, but we can’t recommend that anyone rely on that combination yet.)

Regardless of which laptop you decide on, you’ll have to pick a processor, an amount of RAM, and storage capacity:

• Processor: With the M1-based MacBook Air, you have a choice between two CPUs that are identical apart from one having a 7-core GPU and the other an 8-core GPU. No one is likely to notice the difference for everyday software, but the price difference is only $50 if you’re also getting at least 512 GB of storage. (The M1-based MacBook Pro offers only the 8-core GPU chip.) For Intel-based Mac laptops, there are various options based on clock speed and number of cores. They’re all fine, but you pay for performance, so buy what fits your budget and needs.
• RAM: With the M1-based Macs, you can choose between 8 GB and 16 GB of RAM. 8 GB may be acceptable, but we recommend 16 GB. Intel-based Mac laptops start at 16 GB, which is a decent base level, and you can go up to 32 GB or 64 GB (16-inch only). Generally speaking, go beyond 16 GB only if you know you need it.
• Storage: For the M1-based Macs, 256 GB is the lowest storage level, whereas the Intel-based Macs usually start higher. Either way, you can upgrade to a maximum of 2 TB. Choose the amount of storage based on budget and anticipated usage—video takes a lot of space, as can large numbers of photos, but most other uses don’t.

To our thinking, the most obvious choice for a Mac that’s likely to last for four years of college would be the M1-based MacBook Air with the 8-core GPU, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. Be sure to budget for AppleCare+, too; it’s almost guaranteed that some mishap will befall a student laptop, and AppleCare+ covers up to two incidents of accidental damage every year.

You’ll need to have some conversations with your child to find out what they think they’ll need—and be sure to double-check that against the college’s recommendations—but if you have any questions after that, don’t hesitate to contact us.

(Featured image by Apple)

We constantly say, “Use a password manager!” for good reason. Password managers make it easy to generate, store, and enter strong passwords. You don’t have to decide whether or not your password is strong or weak, remember it, and type it accurately every time you log in to a website.

But what about those passwords you have to enter regularly, like your Mac’s login password, your Apple ID password, and the master password for your password manager? And the passcodes for your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch? Plus, it may also be helpful to be able to remember and type passwords for a few services that require you to enter the password into an app instead of a Web browser. (Of course, you can copy and paste the password from your password manager, but that’s fussy if you have to do it frequently.)

For such passcodes and passwords, you’ll want to come up with options that are strong, memorable, and easily entered. Here’s what we recommend for most people. (If you’re a target of a nation-state or regularly deal in highly confidential government or corporate information, you’ll need an even higher level of security.)

Passcodes

It’s essential that your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch have a passcode that can’t easily be guessed. Once someone can get into an iPhone or iPad, they could read all your email, look at all your photos, make purchases via Apple Pay, and impersonate you in conversations with others. And yet, many people use worthless passcodes like 111111 or 123456. Don’t do that! Also, don’t worry about making a passcode that’s easy to type—with Touch ID, Face ID, and Apple Watch unlocking, you don’t have to type your passcode all that frequently.

Since we’re talking about physical objects that can’t be accessed remotely and are most likely to be compromised by someone who knows you personally, the key is to think about what six digits you can remember but that even people who know you well couldn’t guess.

For instance, you might think of using 081995 if you were born in August 1995, but your birthdate is both widely known and easily discovered. A better pattern would be the dates of the month associated with the birthdays of your best friend from high school, your favorite cousin, and your late grandmother—132408 if they were born on May 13th, July 24th, and November 8th. No one will ever guess that.

You get the idea. Think of dates associated with people or events important to you but that even close friends or family members wouldn’t necessarily know. Then combine those days, months, or years in a way that makes sense to you. You’ll end up with a strong passcode that you’ll never forget.

One last point. Given the level to which data syncs between your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, we don’t see any significant benefit in creating different passcodes for each. Come up with a secure passcode and use it on all three.

Mac Login Passwords

Much like an iPhone’s passcode, the primary vulnerability for your Mac’s login password is someone who has physical access. You don’t have to worry about remote brute force attacks (as long as you don’t have remote access enabled in System Preferences > Sharing) or password files being stolen, suggesting that the password doesn’t need to be insanely strong and equivalently hard to type.

That’s especially true for an M1-based Mac or Intel-based Mac with a T2 security chip, and even more so if you have enabled FileVault (which we recommend). But if it’s an older Intel-based Mac without a T2 chip, it’s conceivable that a thief could image the drive and use brute force attacks to find the password. A stronger password might make sense for such an older Mac.

Considering all this, we recommend coming up with a password that’s easy to type, memorable, and difficult to guess for even those who know you well. It doesn’t have to be strong enough to protect against serious cracking software unless you live in a Spy-vs.-Spy world. Consider taking a few words from a song lyric or movie quote you’ll never forget and jamming them together, such as “ettubrute” or “goestoeleven.”

If you unlock your Mac and apps using an Apple Watch or Touch ID most of the time, you can make the login password a bit stronger without the annoyance of having to type it so frequently.

Apple ID and Password Manager Passwords

When it comes to your Apple ID password, the master password for your password manager, and other passwords to online services you need to type, attacks will take place either remotely or be directed against a stolen password file. Plus, your Apple ID password and master password to your password manager literally hold the keys to your kingdom, so they must be extremely strong and resistant to automated cracking. It’s also essential that you won’t forget them and that you be able to enter them—on both a Mac keyboard and an iPhone keyboard—reasonably easily. What to do?

One possible solution is to create a long passphrase of random but easily remembered words, as suggested in the classic xkcd cartoon. Current advice suggests that a passphrase of five words—with at least 32 characters—is now necessary to resist modern cracking methods.

Passphrases are highly secure, but they can be tedious to type and may not work well for an Apple ID password. Apple requires that Apple ID passwords have upper and lowercase letters and include at least one number. But don’t make it longer than 32 characters; some have reported problems with longer passwords.

For a compromise approach, consider a password built using the following rules:

• It starts with an uppercase letter. That satisfies Apple’s requirement and means you don’t have to switch between upper and lowercase keyboards on an iPhone more than once.
• That letter and subsequent lowercase letters come from the initials of unrelated people, movie titles, the first few letters of a saying or product name, or something similar that you’ll have no trouble remembering.
• It includes several punctuation characters accessible from the iPhone’s numeric keyboard that don’t require the use of the Shift key on the Mac keyboard.
• It ends with digits developed along the lines of the passcode above—this keeps you on the iPhone’s numeric keyboard. (You could also swap the order of the punctuation and digits.)
• Overall, it has at least 13 characters, preferably more.

(As an aside, does having two-factor authentication (2FA) turned on for any account where you’re creating a memorable password let you make a weaker password? Yes, in the sense that your overall security is much higher with 2FA because someone would have to hack your password and compromise the 2FA system in some way. But no, if your password is so weak that it’s trivially crackable, such that 2FA becomes the only protection. Don’t overthink it—stick with strong passwords.)

As an example, consider this possibility for a LastPass master password: Tpmbialas/.19851955. It’s not entirely random, but it’s close and doesn’t use obvious patterns that cracking software could exploit. Let’s break it down:

• Tpmbialas comes from the first letter of the words in the movie The Phantom Menace and the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms, plus the first three letters of LastPass.
• /. plays on the name of the tech news site Slashdot to be memorable, and the characters are easily typed on both the iPhone and Mac keyboards.
• 19851955 will be easily remembered by fans of the movie Back to the Future, whose characters travel in time from 1985 back to 1955.

It’s highly secure—the How Secure Is My Password? site says it would take 1 quintillion years to crack, and there’s no way that even someone who knew your taste in movies and music could guess it (as long as you don’t tell them about your pattern).

One last thing to consider: is your password fun to type? Some key combinations probably roll off your fingers, whereas others will be prone to typos. Test your proposed password on both a Mac keyboard and your iPhone. If you hate typing it, tweak the characters until it’s better.

When you’re developing your own unique passwords that you must be able to remember and type, a strategy along these lines should serve you well. Just make sure to avoid dictionary words, repeated characters, and any password under 13 characters in length, all of which make passwords easier for cracking software to guess.

(Featured image by iStock.com/peshkov)

You know you can make albums and smart albums in Photos, and do searches to find photos that contain particular objects. But what if you want to separate photos from videos, identify which images in an album have been edited, or pick out just the ones you’ve favorited? For that, use Photos’ filters. On the Mac (below left), click the Showing menu in the upper-right corner, and in iOS and iPadOS (iPhone screens below right), tap the ••• button in the upper-right corner and tap Filter. Either way, you can choose Favorites, Edited, Photos, or  Videos to limit the items showing to that type. When you’re done, turn the filter off by choosing All Items.

(Featured image by iStock.com/metamorworks)

It’s common to want to share files, photos, and other data between your devices—or with friends and family. When the desired person or device isn’t nearby, it’s easiest to use Messages or Mail. But what if you want to move a file between two of your Macs, from your iPhone to your Mac, or to your friend who’s across the table? For transfers within immediate proximity, Apple provides AirDrop, a quick and easy way to move data between devices.

Make Sure AirDrop Is Ready to Go

First off, AirDrop requires both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so make sure both are enabled. If you use wired Ethernet on your Mac, enable Wi-Fi as well, but put the Wi-Fi service beneath the Ethernet service in System Preferences > Network (click the down-pointing arrow under the list and choose Set Service Order).

Next, make sure other devices can discover you. On the Mac, choose Go > AirDrop and, near the bottom of the Finder window that appears, choose Everyone from the pop-up menu. (If you’re out in public and random people keep trying to send you files, which would be weird, choose Contacts Only instead.) On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > AirDrop and select Everyone.

Send a File or Photo via AirDrop

Apple has integrated AirDrop into the standard sharing mechanism in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, so sharing via AirDrop works the same as sharing via most other apps.

In the Finder on the Mac, the easiest approach may be to select AirDrop in a Finder window’s sidebar and then drag files to the icon representing the destination device (below left). You can also select one or more files and choose File > Share > AirDrop or Control-click them and choose Share > AirDrop, both of which present a dialog from which you can select the destination (below right). The right-hand dialog is also what you’ll see if you use the Share option in Photos or any other app.

On an iPhone or iPad, when you’re viewing the item you want to share, tap the Share button to bring up the Share sheet. You may be able to tap the AirDrop icon for the desired destination directly in the top row, but if it doesn’t show what you want, tap the general AirDrop icon in the second row to display the AirDrop screen with icons for all available destinations. Either way, tap the destination to send the file.

Receive Data via AirDrop

On the receiving side, AirDrop is utterly simple, particularly when transferring files between your devices, though the experience varies a little depending on the direction and file type.

• Receiving on a Mac: If you’re transferring between your own devices, you don’t need to do anything; the file will appear in the Downloads folder of the destination Mac. Files sent from other people will appear there too, but you’ll get a prompt asking you to accept or decline the file, and if you accept, an option to open it in the appropriate app.
  
• Receiving on an iPhone/iPad: Receiving on an iPhone or iPad is similar, with one additional step. Unless iOS/iPadOS knows where the file should go (images always import into Photos automatically, for instance), it prompts you with a list of apps that can open the file. Files you transfer between your own devices are accepted automatically; for files from other people, you must tap the Accept button first.
  

Troubleshooting

AirDrop has been around since Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in 2011 and has seen significant updates since then. So if you had trouble getting AirDrop to work years ago, it’s worth revisiting the feature. That said, problems can still crop up:

• If a Mac doesn’t appear as an AirDrop destination, make sure it has Wi-Fi active. Ethernet is not sufficient. Also, if the Mac’s firewall is active, check that it allows incoming connections. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall > Firewall Options and deselect “Block all incoming connections.”
• If an iPhone doesn’t appear as an AirDrop destination, make sure Personal Hotspot is turned off in Settings > Personal Hotspot.
• Because AirDrop relies on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, interference with either, or a separation between devices of more than 30 feet (9 meters), can cause performance and reliability to suffer.
• For best results, make sure you’re using recent Apple hardware running the latest versions of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Apple has improved AirDrop over the years, and it works significantly better than it did years ago. Technically, AirDrop requires a Mac introduced in 2012 (excluding the 2012 Mac Pro) or later running OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later. On the mobile device side, the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch must be running at least iOS 7.
• If you’re prompted to accept transfers between your own devices, that’s an indication that the devices aren’t logged in to the same iCloud account.
• Although AirDrop has no explicit size limit, very large files (over 500 MB) will take a long time to transfer and are more likely to fail due to network issues during the transfer.
• If you can’t find a transferred file in the destination Mac’s Downloads folder, remember that it retains its original creation and modification dates, so it might be sorting differently than you expect.

Next time you need to move data between nearby Apple devices, give AirDrop a try!

(Featured image by iStock.com/jroballo)

In cybercriminal circles, ransomware is all the rage. Once it has infected a computer, it encrypts all the files and then presents a ransom demand—pay up to get the decryption software necessary to recover the data.

Ransomware has been in the news all year, with the Colonial Pipeline attack in particular spending weeks in the headlines. Attacks rose 485% in 2020 and show no signs of abating. The amounts demanded by the attackers are increasing, too, with PC manufacturer Acer and Apple supplier Quanta both hit with $50 million demands. Worse, some ransomware attackers are adding an extortion component where they threaten to reveal confidential data if the victim doesn’t pay. It’s scary, we know.

First, the good news. Although there are several examples of ransomware that target the Mac, none of them have been particularly well done or (as far as we know) successful. Right now, the chances of Macs falling prey to ransomware are very low, and there’s no reason to panic.

However, complacency is dangerous. There’s a trend toward “ransomware as a service” (RaaS). The RaaS operators maintain the ransomware malware, offer a payment portal for victims, and provide “customer service” for victims who don’t know how to pay with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Affiliates spread the ransomware and split the revenues with the operators. It’s a tidy little cybercriminal enterprise, and separating the malware development and network penetration tasks has made it significantly easier for more criminals to leverage ransomware. It’s only a matter of time before they turn their attention to Macs.

For the most part, protecting your Macs from ransomware is no different than protecting against any number of other security problems. Follow this core advice:

• Keep Macs and apps up to date: Always install macOS and security updates, and keep other apps up to date. With every update, Apple addresses numerous security vulnerabilities, fixing the vast majority of them before attackers can exploit them with malware. Every so often, however, Apple’s security notes include this sentence: “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.” That means there may be malware that targets that vulnerability; install such updates immediately!
  
• Use strong passwords with a password manager: You’ve heard it from us before, and you’ll hear it again, but it’s essential that everyone in your organization use strong, unique passwords through a password manager like Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Just one weak password could allow attackers to infiltrate a computer or server and install ransomware.
• Be suspicious of links and attachments: Ensure that everyone in your organization is careful about opening attachments or clicking links in email messages from unknown people or that seem off in some way. Phishing attacks are one of the primary ways of distributing malware. (If your group needs training in phishing awareness, contact us.)
  
• Never download pirated software! Even aside from the fact that it’s ethically problematic, the most recent piece of Mac ransomware—ThiefQuest—was initially found in a malicious installer purporting to be for the LittleSnitch network security utility (ironic, eh?). Get apps only from the developers’ official sites or the Mac App Store.
• Make frequent backups: Backups are essential so, even if you do fall prey to ransomware, you can restore data from before the infection point. The caveat is that some of your backups must be isolated from the Macs in question—some ransomware intentionally tries to encrypt or delete connected backups.
• Have anti-malware software: For the most part, if you’re careful about following the advice above, you’ll be fine. But it’s a good idea to have a current anti-malware app around and run it occasionally—if you don’t already have one, try the free version of Malwarebytes. If you—or your users—aren’t good about the basic precautions, you might want to run anti-malware software all the time or set up broader network protections.
  
• Have a disaster management plan: Every business should think about how it would react to a fire, flood, earthquake, or other disaster. When building a disaster management plan, be sure to include ransomware. How would you shut down infected systems, rebuild them from scratch, and restore uninfected files?

Setting up a backup strategy that protects against ransomware requires a little more thought. As noted, ransomware often tries to render backups useless in one way or another. You need to have versioned backups that allow you to restore from before the ransomware infection, and those backups need to be isolated from the computers and network being backed up. Techniques that help include:

• Isolate backup drives: Rotate multiple Time Machine drives, with at least one that’s always disconnected. However, this strategy assumes you’ll detect a ransomware infection before you’ve rotated all the drives. Ransomware could lie undetected for weeks or months before activating. Manually run current anti-malware software before connecting any backup drive.
• Use Internet backup: Set up an Internet backup system that will maintain versions of backed-up files, such as Backblaze with its Extended Version History feature. Retrospect 18 also supports object locking on cloud storage systems, which provides immutable storage. It ensures that no one—even someone who acquires root credentials—can delete the backups during the retention period.
• Consider tape backups: Long ago, tape backups were the go-to solution for network backups, but as the price-per-gigabyte of hard drives dropped precipitously and Internet backups became feasible, tape has largely fallen by the wayside. But tape backups are still an option. They can hold a lot of data and are easily kept offline in a separate location. Plus, some tape drives can even operate in a write-once, read-many (WORM) mode that guarantees data can’t be erased or overwritten. Tape requires more human interaction than other backup methods, but it’s still a cost-effective way to protect hundreds of terabytes of data against ransomware.

Again, there’s no reason to panic about ransomware, but if it could significantly damage your business, you should take steps to reduce the chance of getting hit and ensure that you could restore your data if your computers were to get infected. There is no single approach that’s ideal for everyone, but we can help you think about what’s involved and develop a strategy that balances protection, cost, and effort.

(Featured image by iStock.com/chainatp)

As vaccination rates climb, many businesses are starting to think about reopening their offices and bringing back employees who have been working from home for the last year. That’s a big decision that will undoubtedly vary from company to company, but we’d like to suggest a few things to consider. Please contact us early in such deliberations so we can provide guidance before problems crop up.

Full Return or Hybrid Model?

Perhaps the biggest question firms will have to answer is if they’ll require all employees to return or if some can continue to work remotely. Many organizations have discovered that physical presence isn’t as important as they thought it was. In a post-pandemic world, many employees may prefer to continue working from home if they can, at least for a while.

If you decide on a hybrid model, you’ll want to put some thought into what technology you’ll need to enable hybrid meetings, with some people connecting remotely via videoconferencing software and others gathering in person. Large screens, specially mounted cameras, and dedicated speakerphone hardware may be necessary to conduct a hybrid meeting effectively.

With some workers remaining at home, it will also be important to ensure that everyone has appropriate access to on-premises servers. Obviously, that has been a problem for the last year as well, but it may be tempting to revert to old approaches upon reopening an office. That may not be effective in a new hybrid workplace, so check with us on cloud-based alternatives that could work better in the new world order.

Consider Your Physical Space

Particularly if you do decide on a hybrid model, it’s worth evaluating whether you need the same amount and type of space as you did before. There’s no single answer here. You don’t want to downsize your physical space only to discover in a few months that some of those employees who swore that they never wanted to come back feel that they’re missing out. Simultaneously, if your offices are a warren of small, poorly ventilated rooms, employees may be even more hesitant about returning.

Plus, your physical space is inherently related to your IT infrastructure, so don’t ignore the costs surrounding an office move. A new space might require pulling new Ethernet cables, testing Wi-Fi signal strength to ensure sufficient coverage, evaluating the cleanliness of the electrical power, and more.

We don’t mean to dissuade you from moving offices if that’s what makes the most sense for the future of your company, but talk to us before signing any new leases so we can help identify and head off any technical problems with the physical plant.

Finally, this isn’t related to IT, but if your existing office space has been entirely vacant for the last year, it’s worth reading the information that the Centers for Disease Control puts out to help employers create safe and healthy workplaces. Buildings don’t do well with prolonged shutdowns.

Does Network Infrastructure Need Updating?

Before you bring employees back, at least en masse, it’s also worth touching base with us about your IT infrastructure. If you’ve been limping along with sketchy Ethernet cabling, or if you have dirty power that could be damaging your Macs and peripherals, it’s a great time to consider addressing such problems. Pre-pandemic, attempting to install new electrical circuits or pull new network cabling might have been too disruptive, but with an office that’s empty or nearly so, such work can be done more quickly and cheaply.

Similarly, this could be a good time to replace aging computers, printers, or even phone systems. Such infrastructure upgrades and transitions can cause interruptions in normal times, but if you’re bringing people back, wouldn’t it be nice to have the office provide a better IT experience than it did before?

(Featured image by Shuki Harel from Pexels)

Many security breaches—even high-profile ones—stem from simple oversight. There’s one spot in macOS that has long been particularly susceptible to such lapse: the Sharing pane of System Preferences. In it, you can enable a wide variety of sharing services, some of which could allow another user to access your Mac remotely. They all let you limit access to particular users, but passwords can be stolen, accounts can be compromised, and server software can have bugs. For safety’s sake, if you’re not actively using a sharing service, turn it off. The most important ones to disable when not in use are Screen Sharing, File Sharing, Remote Login, Remote Management, and Remote Apple Events. We also caution against leaving Printer Sharing and Internet Sharing on unnecessarily.

(Featured image by Morgane Perraud on Unsplash)

Complaining about getting too much email is like complaining about bad traffic—we brought it upon ourselves, and while it’s impossible to escape entirely, it’s worth knowing how to reduce it. Apple is fully cognizant of the issue, too, and has built features into the last couple versions of Mail—on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad—to help out. Here are three that you might find useful in different situations: mute, block, and unsubscribe.

Mute

It’s a huge email conversation about the annual holiday party at work, but you can’t go, and more people keep weighing in. However, since it’s just a ton of addresses on the Cc line, there’s no way to remove yourself, even though you don’t need to be notified of all the back-and-forth.

To help you quiet a too-chatty conversation, Apple added the Mute feature to Mail. On the Mac, select the conversation and choose Message > Mute or click the Mute button in the toolbar. On an iPhone or iPad, touch and hold the message until you get a popover, then tap Mute. You can also swipe left on the message, tap More, and tap Mute.

Messages will continue to flow in, but if you normally get notifications of Mail messages, you won’t get notifications for the muted conversation. In Mail, a little bell icon with a slash through it reminds you that the conversation is muted. To unmute a conversation, repeat these steps, but pick Unmute instead.

Do you never want to see those muted messages at all? You can discard them automatically. On the Mac, in Mail > Preferences > General, select “Archive or delete muted messages.” In iOS and iPadOS, go to Settings > Mail > Muted Thread Action, where you can choose between Mark as Read and Archive or Delete.

The “archive or delete” wording may seem confusing, but Apple lets you choose whether “discarding” a message archives it (removes it from your Inbox) or deletes it (moves it to the Trash mailbox). On the Mac, look for that setting in Mail > Preferences > Viewing > Move Discarded Messages Into. In iOS and iPadOS, it’s a per-account option in Settings > Mail > Accounts > accountName > Account > Advanced, under Move Discarded Messages Into.

Block

Muting is about conversations, not people. But what if you never want to see email from a particular person ever again? Perhaps it’s an angry ex-housemate, your embezzling ex-business partner, or someone who just won’t stop forwarding politically offensive memes. For such people, Apple provides blocking.

On the Mac, open a message from the offending person, hover the pointer over their name, click the down-pointing arrow, and choose Block Contact. In iOS and iPadOS, tap the person’s name so it turns into a blue link, tap it again to reveal their contact card, tap Block this Contact, and confirm your decision. Should you change your mind, repeat the steps and choose Unblock.

All that changes immediately is that Mail puts a banner at the top of the message that says “This message is from a blocked sender.” However, Mail also provides a button or link to preferences that offer more options. On the Mac, they’re in Mail > Preferences > Junk Mail > Blocked. In iOS and iPadOS, you’ll find them in Settings > Mail > Blocked Sender Options. You can choose between leaving blocked mail in your Inbox or moving it to the trash.

Note that we used spam senders as examples here, but for actual spam, you should instead use the Move to Junk command to mark it as spam and train Mail’s junk mail filter. Blocking is useful only for actual people, and it works only on specific email addresses, so if someone can send from another address, Mail won’t know to block that address until you block it too.

Unsubscribe

It’s all too easy to end up on a bazillion mailing lists these days. That may not be a problem if you find the messages useful and infrequent enough so as not to be annoying. But if you order something online and immediately start receiving two email blasts per week advertising new products, you don’t have to sit there and suffer.

What you shouldn’t do, however, is use the Move to Junk command to mark those messages as spam. If you have a legitimate business relationship with the organization, they’re not doing anything illegal by sending you email, and marking their messages as spam might mistrain Mail’s spam filter to catch related mail you do want. It will also hurt their deliverability rate unnecessarily, and while that’s not your problem, there is a better way.

Whenever Mail detects that a message is from a mailing list, it displays a banner saying so, along with an Unsubscribe link. Click or tap it, confirm your decision, and Mail sends an unsubscribe message from you to the mailing list server.

Alas, between mailing lists not providing the necessary details and Mail not being able to understand everything, this feature is a little weak. When it works, it’s great, but just because an Unsubscribe banner doesn’t appear doesn’t mean you can’t unsubscribe.

Whenever that happens, scroll to the bottom of the message and look for an Unsubscribe link. Click it to visit a website where you can sign off. Alas, as shown below, commercial mail from Apple itself seems to be exempt from Mail’s Unsubscribe banner, and the company has one of the less obvious Unsubscribe links out there.

As helpful as muting and blocking can be, you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck from unsubscribing from mailing lists. Remember, you can always find those companies on the Web should you wish to interact with them again.

(Featured image by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)

With mask wearing over the past year rendering Face ID ineffective at cash registers, we’ve become fond of using the Apple Watch for contactless payments with Apple Pay. We recommend it highly since it’s so fast and convenient. Once you’ve set up a credit card in the Wallet app on your iPhone, switch to the Watch app, go to My Watch > Wallet & Apple Pay, and tap the Add button next to the desired card. From then on, to pay for a purchase, double-click the Apple Watch’s side button and put it very close to the reader. (We generally turn our arms so we can put the Apple Watch face flat on the reader.) It takes just seconds and tends to wow cashiers who haven’t seen it before.

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As climate change continues to wreak havoc on our weather, many areas are seeing record temperatures this summer—all of us in the Pacific Northwest know about that! You may be able to trade your business suit for shorts or skirts to stay more comfortable, but your electronic gear can’t do the same. Keeping your tech cool is about more than comfort—as temperatures rise, performance can suffer, charging may get slower or stop, various components might be disabled, and devices can become unreliable.

How Hot Is Too Hot?

You might be surprised by how low the recommended operating temperatures for Apple devices are—whether you’re talking about an iPhone 12 or an M1-based MacBook Pro, the company recommends keeping them under 95° F (35° C).

Such temperatures happen regularly throughout the summer. Even in cooler climes, the temperature in a parked car in the sunshine can easily hit 130º F (54º C) in an hour and rise higher as time passes. And no, opening the windows a few inches won’t make much difference. You know you shouldn’t leave a kid or dog in a parked car for that reason, and now you can see that leaving your iPhone in the car during an afternoon at the beach might be problematic as well. Apple says its products shouldn’t even be stored—turned off—at temperatures over 113º F (45º C).

It’s not just cars you have to think about. Temperatures in homes and offices without air conditioning can also rise higher than electronics would prefer, and that’s especially true for computers that stay on most of the time and aren’t located in well-ventilated areas.

What’s the Danger?

First off, remember that all electronic devices produce their own heat on top of the ambient heat in the environment, so the temperature inside a device can be much, much hotter than outside. The CPU in an iMac can hit 212º F (100º C) under heavy loads.

Temperatures that exceed component design specs can have the following detrimental effects:

• Chips of all types can behave unpredictably as increased thermal noise (electrons vibrating more) causes a higher bit error rate. Because electrical resistance increases with heat, timing errors can also occur.
• Lithium-ion batteries discharge well in high temperatures, but the increased rate of chemical reactions within the battery will result in a shorter overall lifespan.
• As devices heat and cool, the uneven thermal expansion of different materials can cause microscopic cracks that can lead to a variety of failures over time.

Some heat-related problems are temporary, so when the device or component cools down, it will resume working correctly. But others are irreversible and worth avoiding.

When a Mac gets too hot, it will spin up its fans in an attempt to keep its internal components cool. (The M1-based MacBook Air doesn’t have a fan, so it won’t be able to provide the same level of advance warning.) If your Mac’s fans ever run at full tilt for more than a few minutes, first quit apps you aren’t using, particularly those that might be CPU-intensive, thus creating a lot of heat. If that doesn’t make a difference, restart it to ensure the problem isn’t some rogue process. If the fans come back on at full speed quickly, shut it down and let it cool off for a bit. In the worst case, an overheated Mac may start acting unpredictably or crash.

iOS devices don’t have fans, so they employ other coping mechanisms. If your iPhone or iPad gets too hot, the device will alert you.

Apple says you might notice some of the following behaviors with an overheating iPhone or iPad:

• Charging, including wireless charging, slows or stops.
• The display dims or goes black.
• Cellular radios enter a low-power state. The signal might weaken during this time.
• The camera flash is temporarily disabled.
• Performance slows with graphics-intensive apps or features.

If you’re using Maps on an overheating iPhone for GPS navigation in the car, it may show a “Temperature: iPhone needs to cool down.” screen instead of the map. You’ll still get audible turn-by-turn directions, and the screen will wake up to guide you through turns,

How to Keep Your Tech Cool

For the most part, keeping Apple devices cool just requires common sense:

• Avoid using devices when the temperature is over 95º F (35º C). If that’s impossible, keep usage to a minimum.
• Don’t leave devices in cars parked in the sun for long periods of time. If it happens accidentally, let the device cool before using it.
• Provide good ventilation so air can cool the device. Don’t block ventilation ports in the back of desktop Macs, and don’t use Mac laptops in bed, propped on a pillow, or under the covers. It can be worth blowing dust out of ventilation ports with compressed air every so often.
• Never put anything on the keyboard of an open Mac laptop.
• Avoid stacking things on top of a Mac mini.
• Monitor the temperature of server closets. If they get too hot, keep the door open, add a fan, or run the air conditioning.

Luckily, the temperatures that cause problems for Apple hardware aren’t terribly comfortable for people either, so if you’re way too hot, that’s a good sign your gear is as well.

(Featured image by Sergo Karakozov from Pexels)