Tidbits

Compromised Apple Gift Card Leads to Apple Account Lockout

This story has been resolved; see “Compromised Apple Gift Card Saga Ends Well, but Risks Remain,” (18 December 2025). After attempting to redeem a $500 Apple Gift Card purchased from a well-known ...
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Compromised Apple Gift Card Saga Ends Well, but Risks Remain

Paris Buttfield-Addison has regained access to his Apple Account after a tainted gift card locked him out. But his saga highlights serious risks associated with Apple Gift Cards that should make ...
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Banging My Head Against iCal Server’s Limitations

I know a lot of people hate iCal, but I’ve always been a fan. As a longtime Microsoft Outlook user, I appreciate iCal’s simplicity and clean display. It isn’t that Outlook does anything wrong – I ...
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USBefuddled: Untangling the Rat’s Nest of USB-C Standards and Cables

For more help with cables, check out Glenn Fleishman’s new book, Take Control of Untangling Connections. It answers common questions and aids in troubleshooting problems. You’ll learn how to recognize ...
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The Ins and Outs of Non-destructive Editing in Photos for Mac and iOS

One of the near-magical features of Photos, and iPhoto before it, is the way it allows you to edit a photo with the assurance that those edits are non-destructive—you can always revert to the original ...
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California Driver’s Licenses in Apple Wallet Largely Symbolic

Californians will soon be able to add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet, providing a seamless and secure way to present driver’s licenses or state IDs using just an iPhone or Apple ...
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When Should You Upgrade to Apple’s OS 26 Releases?

As promised, Apple has released the first versions of all its 2026 operating systems, including a few new Apple Intelligence features. Many of you are thinking about upgrading. But would it be better ...
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Network Time Machine Backups: Moving on from the Time Capsule

Since its introduction in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple’s Time Machine has become one of the Mac’s most essential features, providing transparent, fully automatic, full-machine backup to an external ...
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Nisus Writer: Schrödinger’s Word Processor

At this moment, Nisus Writer is essentially Schrödinger’s word processor: it is simultaneously dead and alive, and there’s no way to know more than that right now. We do know that apps, like cats, don ...
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Apple’s File Provider Forces Mac Cloud Storage Changes

Over the last year, cloud storage services Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive—and probably others—have migrated from custom kernel extensions to Apple’s new-ish File Provider extension ...