Apple Watch may lock after going to sleep

AppleWatchIf you have an Apple Watch and are finding you need to unlock it regularly after it has gone to standby mode while still on your wrist, then you are not alone. Recently the Apple Watch was found to have troubles reading heart rates, especially for those with tattoos and other obstructions on their wrists, but the problems that cause the watch to miss heartbeats may also have the watch assume it is no longer on your wrist, and thereby lock itself for security. Continue reading

Apple Keychain ‘completely cracked’ by security researchers, but are you vulnerable?

BurnIconXResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have revealed findings that show Apple’s Keychain password service is vulnerable to malware that can steal passwords from other apps on the system and gain access to services and devices that you use with your Mac.

The Keychain stores passwords in an encrypted format, so while direct access to them is exceptionally difficult, OS X supports services that allow apps to authenticate and then have access to the passwords. Continue reading

Mac not booting or display not working? Here is how to get your files.

HardDriveIconXIn order to access the files on your Mac you will usually need to have a functioning version of OS X, along with a working display so you can interact with your system. From here, you can either use file sharing on the local network to access your data, or copy your data to external drives. However, if your Mac will not boot, or its display is not working properly, then you still may be able to get your data off of it. Continue reading

How to downgrade iOS and restore your iPhone from a backup

iPhoneIconXIf you have installed a new version of iOS, or have otherwise modified your iPhone or iPad and are now running into problems that you cannot seem to overcome, then a quick fix is to restore your phone to a recent backup. These issues may especially happen if you have installed test versions of iOS from Apple, such as a public or developer beta of the latest versions of iOS. While you may wish to simply downgrade your iPhone or iPad, unfortunately Apple provides no utility for this. Therefore, your only approach is to use a backup of your device that you made before upgrading or modifying your device, so hopefully you created one before upgrading or modifying your device. Continue reading

How to remove the FlashMall adware from OS X

BurnIconXAnytime you are using your Mac and are suddenly inundated with popups, unwanted Web pages opening, and other ads, then you are likely either using or getting too close to illegitimate resources. Generally this happens when you stumble across a nefarious Web site, but at other times it can be from adware and other malware you have installed on your system. One such instance of this is if you find persistent popups showing up on your Mac that reference “FlashMall,” which occurs from having installed the CrossRider trojan. Continue reading

System Requirements for iOS 9: will your iDevice run it?

iOS9IconAlong with the announcement of OS X 10.11 ‘El Capitan,’ Apple announced the next version of iOS for its mobile devices. As with El Capitan, iOS 9 promises to bring greatly improved battery life and speed to systems, along with a number of service enhancements; however, you may be wondering whether or not your iOS device can handle it. Continue reading

How to batch-rename and manage multiple files in OS X

FinderIconYosemiteXWhen organizing files and folders in the Finder, you will often need to manage multiple files at once. Not only might you select groups of them to move around, but also need to create new folders containing them, tag them, lock them, and even rename them. While for the most part the approaches for managing individual files scales up to multiple files, there are some relatively hidden features of OS X that can make managing multiple files a bit easier. Continue reading