Creating ‘shorts’ from videos
Ever wondered about the simplest way to turn talks or sermon videos into snappy shorts? I tried out 4 different platforms that do just that. Opus Clip, Sermon Shots, Vidyo and Descript. I started with a 20-minute Talk on Matthew 1:1-16. I wanted to grab a snippet to use in a Facebook reel and add…
How Google rewards websites for making articles harder to read
I have been running a Macintosh how site for 17 years, long before ‘how to’ websites became popular. I’ve noticed in that time a change in Google’s search algorithm where Google penalises sites when people leave. My Experiment Do you see the problem? Did the user leave because of bad content, or did the user…
Can you use Galaxy Buds2 on an iPhone?
I am not sure if I am unusually gullible, naive, or just optimistic, but after listening to a great review of the Galaxy Buds2 by Crinacle I ordered a pair of Galaxy Buds2 for my iPhone from the Samsung online store. (I even checked there was a Samsung Buds app on the Apple App store…
Is the iPhone wedding dress in the mirror Instagram photo real or not?
If you have not come across this story yet, firstly check out this photo and see if you can spot the problem. It’s a bit of fun. (Used with permission from here.) Once you’ve spotted the ‘glitch’ read on – spoiler alert.
Broken iPhone button
This post is just me being a bit sad. I have an iPhone 12 mini. It’s under 3 years old. The power button just stopped working. This means you can’t verify any Apple Pay Purchases when you are shopping and you can’t even verify any App Store downloads.
How to change the iPhone headphone balance while on a call
You can’t! Here’s a problem I don’t have an answer to. If you use the built-in balance control on iOS to move the balance to left or right, this setting is over-ridden during a mobile phone call. Worse still, even high-end headphones like Sony or Bose rely on the built-in iOS balance. (They do not…
CIST therapy with an iPhone
CIST is a therapy for SSHL – sudden senero-neural hearing loss. I have been using this therapy for my own hearing loss. I created a separate website explaining how to do it on an iPhone using spotify here.
How to speed up screenshots in Sonoma
You can easily take a screenshot of your Macintosh computer screen by holding down Shift-Command-4. A cross-hair appears and you can click and drag over the area you want to screenshot. I just upgraded to MacOS Sonoma and there is a delay of 2 seconds for the cross-hair to appear. Here’s a very simple fix!…
How to get an Apple ID
To register a new Apple device you need an Apple ID. You can register for a new ID on your iPhone when you first start it up, but I find it much easier to create an Apple ID from the Apple website. If you are on an overseas holiday be careful about using your temporary…
Automatically update the name of a Google sheet
There are some times that I use Google Sheets instead of Numbers. One example is to create our weekly run sheets for church. A runsheet looks like this: You will notice the tabs across the bottom of the spreadsheet. It was getting a bit tedious changing the tab name every week. So I wrote/modified/hacked together…
New Theme
I’ve released the macintoshhowto theme to wordpress for others to use. You can check it out on wordpress.org here.
Can I zoom the MacBook Pro camera in a Zoom meeting?
Sometimes when I’m in a Zoom meeting I am a little far from my camera and wish that I could zoom in closer to my face without having to move the computer. I haven’t found a way to zoom or pan the built-in MacBook camera when you are using it as a camera in the…
How to sync your iPad without using your iCloud data
If you are on a free iCloud plan, you may be looking to save space. I found that my iPad backup took 2 GB of iCloud space that I didn’t want to waste. Thankfully it’s possible to back up your iPad directly to your laptop without using iCloud. You can do it directly in the…
New Mac won’t boot into safe mode!
I was trying to boot my 2021 MacBook Pro into safe mode. (This is like a checkup that can fix some minor issues). For years the way to boot into safe mode was to hold down the shift key while the computer starts up. This has changed with the newer silicon Macs. Here’s the new…
How to merge 2 pdf docs in Ventura
Here’s how to merge 2 PDF files in MacOS Ventura. You don’t need any extra software, it’s built right in to Preview as in previous versions of macOS.
How to find the large files in your photo library.
My Apple photo library was way bigger than it should be. It turned out I had some very large videos in it. There’s no way of arranging your photos by size from within the Apple photos app. There is a way to browse these files outside of Apple Photos and arrange them by size. Here’s…
How to spot a fake website
Spam emails can be so convincing. How to you know if the link to a website is real or fake? Here is a short video showing the main difference between a real and fake website is the URL. You cannot rely on the logo or how real the website looks.
How to add a new file to a folder in OSX with a right click.
If you right click (option click) in the finder there’s a contextual menu that gives you some options. Here’s how to add an option under ‘Quick Actions’ to make a new text file.
How to extract an image from a Pages document
Installing Home Assistant on a raspberry pi from a Mac
I recently purchases a Raspberry Pi 4 to run Home Assistant. It’s an open source home automation solution. All the instructions are here: https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi It worked fine doing it from a Mac. The process was exactly as described.
How to fix your stained MacBook screen
The MacBooks from the 2015 era have a design fault where the anti-glare coating rubs off, leaving a very messy display. It’s most obvious when the screen is dim. It look terrible! Flaky. Dinted. Stained. Scratched. The glass screen is actually still in tact. It’s just the anti-glare coating that has rubbed off.