Apple

Apple has abided by a demand by the UK Government and deactivated the encrypted backup to iCloud within the UK. I don’t know how many people were using it or even aware that it existed. Either way, it is gone now.

The Overspill commented on it, pointing out that a person could still back up to their Mac with encryption. I don’t think this answers the point, but here is how to back up an iPhone to a Mac with or without encryption, for which you need macOS 10.15 or later.
Connect your iPhone to your computer with a cable, or if you are syncing over WiFi you can do it wirelessly. Then in the Finder sidebar on your Mac, select your iPhone.

At the top of the Finder window, click General. Select ‘Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac.’
If you do want to encrypt your backup data and protect it with a password, select ‘Encrypt local backup’
Click ‘Back Up Now.’

EasyFind is a free app for Mac made by the people who make DevonThink. I’ve been using it for a long time and it is very good at what it does. for finding files, folders, and their contents. It digs deeper than the built in Mac app Spotlight. As of writing it is on version 5.0.2, and requires OS X El Capitan or later.

Suddenly, the Apple Mail icon in the dock was not longer showing unread items as a number in white against a red background. I wonder whether I inadvertently turned something off.

To get it back, go to Apple / Notifications, and choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click Notifications in the sidebar.

Choose which mailboxes to include in the count of unread messages in the red circle, called a badge, that’s shown on the Mail icon in the Dock. In my case I want the unread messages from all the email accounts in Apple Mail.

Then activate the unread count, but note this important caveat. The count appears only if “Badge app icon” is selected for Mail in Notifications settings.

How many times do I type out my email address in a form? Same for my phone number. Too many not to want a simpler, quicker way of doing it. I thought there had to be an easier and cheaper way than using TextExpander at the monthly price they charge for a subscription.

TextExpander can probably do much more than the inbuilt Apple Mac option, but then I don’t want to sink under the weight of all the shortcuts and contractions I might add. That is a road to ruin as I spend time cycling through my mind for the correct keyboard shortcut.

I am not sure what the maximum number I would want is, but it is pretty definitely not more than five keyboard shortcuts, and maybe even not more than three. After all, I have to know these instantly, or they are not worth knowing.

So I googled, and found a video from Gary at MacMost.com who posts the clearest videos you could want on topics like this. The particular one you need is Using Mac Text Replacements and you can find it on the website and on YouTube from MacMostVideos.

That said, this particular shortcut is very simple, so I don’t know whether you will actually need to see the video at all. I am glad I watched it because I learn best with speech plus visuals.

So – for anyone who just wants the most direct instructions, here they are.

If you are on Mac OS Ventura, go to System Settings / Keyboard / Text replacement and you will see one text shortcut has already been set up. It is three characters that expand to ‘On my way!’

You will also see a plus button where you can add new item. Click that and then it’s just a case of choosing an easy to remember shortcut and the text you want to appear when you type that shortcut.

I did it for my email address and phone number.

The nice thing about disk images is that you can encrypt them and password protect them.

First make your file or files and pop them in a folder. Then go to Disk Utility (it’s in the Utilities folder in Applications) and then find ‘Files’ in the top line, and choose ‘new image/image from folder.’ Find the folder you want to use and give it a name or keep the one that comes up. Then choose an encryption level and make a password. That’s it. The file will be saved as a .dmg.

If you lose the password you will not be able to recover it from anywhere.

The downside of the high pixel count of the M1 MacBook Pro 16″ is the size of the font in the Apple Mail sidebar, the Safari sidebar and Safari Favourites Bar.

To increase the font size in the main body of Mail is easy enough, but how to increase the font size of the sidebar? The answer is System Preferences > General > Sidebar icon size: Large.

That does not increase the font size of the sidebar or the favourites bar in Safari, however.

I will add to this post as and when someone tells me how to do it.