Bluetooth on Macs and IOS devices

Bluetooth is a wireless technology that connects devices over a short distance, up to about 10 m. It can be used to connect a wide range of mobile devices, including keyboard and ‘magic mouse’ on an iMac or headphones with an iPhone.  The technology was developed in Scandinavia and is named after a  Danish Viking King Harald Blåtand (‘Bluetooth’ in English).

Using iPhoto and Photo apps

iPhoto appeared in Mac OSX versions including Mountain Lion (10.8), Mavericks (10.9), and was replaced by the Photo app in an update of Yosemite (10.10) and continues in El Capitan (10.11).  (Click the Apple icon top left of screen and About this Mac to see what version you have).

Creating a file structure

Apple Mac

Remember – Left Click – just click on the left of the trackpad
Right click – click trackpad while pressing <alt>, or two finger tap on trackpad.  The following is a very brief outline of the Mac filing system.

Cloud Storage

The ‘Cloud’ is the name used for computer storage and programs that are accessible via the internet. Of course there are no facilities for this in a any clouds (yet). They really mean land based computer server facilities. We can look at a popular Mac option, iCloud

Back to Basics

Screen (Dashboard) – General appearance unchanged 2001
OSX 10.0 Cheetah

Mac OS X and macOS version names

OS X 10 beta: Kodiak
OS X 10.0: Cheetah 2001
OS X 10.1: Puma 2001
OS X 10.2: Jaguar 2002
OS X 10.3 Panther 2003
OS X 10.4 Tiger 2005
OS X 10.5 Leopard 2007
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard 2008
OS X 10.7 Lion 2011
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion 2012
OS X 10.9 Mavericks 2913
OS X 10.10: Yosemite 2014
OS X 10.11: El Capitan 2015
macOS 10.12: Sierra 2016
macOS 10.13: High Sierra 2017

Only the latest version, High Sierra, can be downloaded from the App Store

Take a look at your version: Apple Logo > About this Mac > More info > Storage

Keyboard Shortcuts

A list of Mac keyboard shortcuts, by no means comprehensive

Buying Second Hand Macs

Thinking of buying second-hand?  Macs are expensive, but generally hold their value better than Windows based computers. You can get an idea of what prices are likely to be on ebay from this website. Bear in mind that these may be higher than than actual sold price.

Viruses in the news

The media has been full of news about the so-called NSA (US National Security Agency) leaked virus and the devastating effect it has had on many services across the the world, including the Ransomware type of attacks on certain NHS IT systems. It seems that only MS Windows computers are affected.

Introduction to iMovie

Most cameras, smartphones and tablets can record video (or movies as Apple calls them) as well as take photos.

iMovie offers a way to edit movies and produce quite professional looking results. It comes free on the Mac and costs £10.99 on the iPad or iPhone.

Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Apple’s OS X  ‘El Capitan’ was introduced in September 2015 and has left many of us wondering whether to take the plunge and install it.  Often, the advice is to wait until most of the bugs and security issues have been ironed out – there have been five updates now, the latest being version 10.11.5, so we could give it a try.