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 Zoom meeting app. There are no settings in Zoom itself to control the level of zoom on your MacBook built-in camera. The good news is that there is a way to do it. You can zoom your camera by using a ‘virtual camera’. Here’s how.
The first time you start up a new Apple computer it asks if you want to transfer data from another computer. If you select yes, it opens Migration assistant, and gives you the option to connect to another computer. There are various ways you can connect. Some are very slow! Some are fast.
The slowest is to use wifi. If you connect your computers using wifi it may take days (literally days) to transfer the data across.
A faster way is to connect the 2 computers using an ethernet cable. This is still fairly slow.
The fastest way is to use a thunderbolt USB-C cable to connect the 2 computers together.
I recently used Thunderbolt to connect my new MacBook Pro to my old Mac Mini and it reduced the transfer time from days to hours.
Ethernet can transfer at speeds up to 1Gbps.
Thunderbolt 3 can transfer at speeds up to 40Gbps. It’s 40 times faster!
This is what a Thunderbolt (USB-C) cable looks like:
You simply connect the thunderbolt port of one MacBook directly to the thunderbolt port of the second MacBook.
This article was originally written in 2015 but it is still relevant. I have just updated it given that SSD prices have dropped dramatically in the last 3 years. Upgrading the boot drive on my Mac Mini to an SSD drive was by far the biggest speed enhancement I’ve experienced on any computer! The speed increase is incredible – almost hard to believe. Boot time went from 60 seconds to under 30 seconds, and applications launch instantly – no bouncing dock icon. In terms of bang for dollar, upgrading to an SSD drive is by far the best upgrade you can do.
I noticed when watching movies on my 27 inch iMac that they are too dark especially in dark scenes. What I mean is that there are a lot of details in the blacks missing compared to watching on a normal DVD player. I’ve also noticed the same thing when watching a movie on a projector hooked up to my macbook air. Turning the contrast or brightness up doesn’t work as it just washes out the blacks. Here’s the cause of this frustrating problem and how to fix it!
Apple have a fantastic piece of software called ‘find my mac’ which can locate your laptop anywhere. But it needs to be tuned on… and once your computer is lost or stolen – it’s too late! Here’s how to turn on ‘find my mac’ before you lose it! Continue reading ⟩
I just set up my Apple TV and was very surprised that when I played a DVD from my Macbook it came out all grey on the Apple TV. This thread claims that you cannot play a DVD on Apple TV due to copyright. Here are two ways to get around Apple’s DVD viewing protection.
This 13″ refurbished Macbook for sale on the US store for $999 is a good one. For those readers from Australia, it’s $1139 here from the Australian store. (If it’s out of stock – it’s worth checking back in a few days, they are released a few at a time.) Read on for why it’s so good.
Despite their differences, Apple and Google do work well together when it comes to email. Gmail is free and it has great spam protection. But the Gmail web interface is a bit clunky. Apple mail is very nice to use and you can set it to use a Gmail account. Here’s how to use Gmail from Apple’s mail app and also how to set up Gmail on your iPhone or iPad.
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