Apple & Mac Musings

Do you use Apple's Mail program? Are you in the habit of double-clicking email attachments to open them? Every time you open an email attachment by double-clicking on it in Mail, your Mac saves a copy of the attachment in a hidden folder. If you make changes to an attachment you opened by double-clicking, when you save it, you're saving the file to that hidden folder. The original attachment never gets changed. Here's how to find that hidden folder, clean it out, and potentially save a lot of space on your Mac's startup drive and also save yourself headaches finding the changes you made to that email attachment. The best way to open email attachments is to get out of the habit of double-clicking them. Instead, drag them to your Desktop, then open them. If you don't want to clutter up your Desktop, or if you use Mail in full screen mode, right-click (or hold down the control key and click) on the attachment, then choose Save Attachment… from the pop-up menu. T

Do auto-playing videos on web pages cause you to constantly mute browser tabs? Are you forced to keep your Mac's volume muted because of them? Here's how to turn off auto-play videos in each of the three most popular Mac browsers. How to Stop Auto-play web videos in Safari:  Quit Safari. Open Terminal (you can find it on your hard drive in Applications/Utilities). Enter the following commands. Each is a single line regardless of how they break on screen. If you aren't comfortable using Terminal, it's usually easier to copy and paste them: defaults write com.apple.Safari "com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2RequiresUserGestureForMediaPlayback" -bool true defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitVideoPlaybackRequiresUserGesture -bool true Quit Terminal. Open Safari and test with a website that has auto-playing videos. You can still play videos by clicking on them. To reverse the changes, quit Safari, open Terminal, and enter this comm

Apple is no longer charging for either the iOS or Mac versions of it's iWork suite, Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Since 2013, Apple has given away copies of the Mac apps to anyone who bought a new Mac, and the iOS versions to anyone who bought a new iPhone or iPad. Everyone else had to buy them. Now you can download them for free, even if you haven't bought a new Mac or iOS device recently. You can download the apps individually from the Mac App Store on your Mac, or the App Store on your iOS device. Anyone with an iCloud account can access web-based versions of the iWork suite at iCloud.com , which is handy if you need to collaborate with someone who doesn't have a Mac or iOS device.

Apple says the Mac Pro isn't dead! The good news is that Apple has admitted the cylindrical design was a mistake (not unlike the Power Mac G4 Cube from the beginning of this century). The bad news is that the redesigned Mac Pro won't be available until sometime next year. For users whose needs are met by an iMac, there are rumors of a Xeon-powered "Pro" iMac coming sooner. Mashable has details on Apple's Mac Pro talk here: http://mashable.com/2017/04/04/apple-reveals-mac-pro-imac-plans/#8ncqZejtePq5

Apple's "New" iPad is the processor from the iPhone 6S in the shell of the original iPad Air. In some ways it's a small step down from the iPad Air 2, but it's cheaper too. The bottom line: if you are in the market for a new iPad, and don't need Pro features like the Pencil , Apple's latest iPad is a good option at a great price. Arstechnica has a full review here: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/04/review-apples-329-ipad-is-for-people-who-have-never-upgraded-their-tablet/