Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

Creedence disk is mounting on my desktop

This is a weird plug in thing that shows up on my iMac.

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They are part of the operating system and being triggered to appear because you most likely have an older piece of software that is conflicting with the OS. For instance, if you had an intel version of some Garmin navigation software that had been discontinued but you were on an M Apple silicon processor. Just as example. Pulling up Activity monitor when this happens could possibly reveal the software that is to blame. It's not harmful at all. Just an annoyance. Hopefully Apple will resolve it in an upcoming Sequoia update. You should be able to right click and eject it.

If you'd like to dig further, the legacy software may be listed in login items within system settings or a launch folder. Often there are plist files that reside in one of a few folders that trigger software to run in the background and it is likely the culprit is listed there, launching and then causing the issue.

Why do I have two of the same printer listed?

This issue started yesterday when my printers weren’t working. The home WiFi was down. When I disconnected the ethernet cable, the WiFi and the printers came back. I deleted the VPN and uninstalled it, cleaned up the residual stuff, and now I am going to plug the Ethernet back in. Do you have any other suggestions before I do this?
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When you are printing via WiFi then connect a cable directly to the printer, you are often left with two of the same printer added within the Print Controls in System Settings. So once you have your system the way you like it again, it’s a good idea to go into Print settings and delete the one you don’t want. In other words, if printing wifi, then delete the USB or ethernet instance of the printer. You can always re add it again at any time.

Can you save this printer?

Can you save my HP Envy 6400 that thinks it has a paper jam but I don't think it does?

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By this screenshot, it’s got two issues. 1. It obviously thinks there’s a paper jam. True or not. 2. it’s only using the generic driver. Th most up to date driver, when not automatically downloaded via the operating system, can usually be found online, given that HP hasn’t stopped updating the driver for the latest OS. This would normally be able to be done remotely. However, the jam issue may be causing the printer to think it’s stuck and therefore not responding. The net thing to try is to use the on screen display (if there is one) to reset the printer to its default settings. Honestly…these HP Envy’s aren’t worth much of an effort and I would not recommend paying me to visit just for the attempt to revive it. If the printer has an onscreen display, you can try to navigate to the setting where you can restore it to factory defaults. That would make it forget it has a paper jam. Then you could start over re-adding the printer to the computer.

Do I update my printer to work?

How do I update the printer for it to work on my computer?
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Usually not up to the printer to be updated. It’s usually reliant on the computer to be up to date then the printer company to update their driver to fit the computer’s Operating system which is then USUALLY automatically fed down to the computer through an automatic update. However some printer companies will abandon updating drivers for their older printers as Apple and Microsoft continue to update their computers. There is a generic driver that some printers can use called “airprint”. All this said, I don’t recall exactly what printer was not working and what OS your computer was on.

Rid me of google photos!

The last time you and family member had a meeting he was getting google notices he was out of storage space. (You helped me with this a couple of years ago … I downloaded some photos from someone and the next thing I know all my photo were imported to google photos. The same thing happened to him.) I know you cleaned up has emails some but the notices returned a week or two later. Their solution was to buy more space. one I do not like google having all has photos and two it’s $20 a month! Apple is much cheaper. SO I do not know how you did it because I could only delete 100 photos at a time, but you manage to figure out away to delete the whole portfolio of photos. WE would very much love for you to do so again on he account.
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Google photos can be a disease. You have to remove the app from any and all devices otherwise it will continue to harvest them from Photos as you take them. It can be a pain. Yes, we should be able to resolve that as well.

What's the best VPN?

Along this line of thought…I’m also thinking adding a VPN because he also does not listen to me regarding logging into internet at hotels. I always use a hot spot from my phone and it can be slow at times but it is safe. However I know he does not most of the time. Do you have a recommendation for VPN services that are most compatible with Apple computers? Once set up is it just ON all the time? Does it affect speed much? Are you limited from certain websites?
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VPN. I like Nord as a first time user’s choice. ExpressVPN is also decent. They have multiple users so you could both use the same account. I don’t leave it on all the time but if I’m leaving the house it’s always a good idea. The VPN landscape will most likely be changing in the next 3 years due to some political reasons in the US but for now, it’s still the absolute best way to protect yourself when traveling. It does block or make less convenient some websites or services. If a certain website detects you are using a vpn it will choose not to load the site. Because they can’t collect data from you during your visit. It’s all about money.

Where should I be storing my documents?

When I recently was helping him attach a recommendation document to a website for a student it appeared that family member does not save his documents to his hard drive?? but only in iCloud? That was bizarre to me, but didn't have the time to delve into that at the time. I want to make sure with his new computer he follows a regime with proper privacy and storage considerations in mind.😬 PLease help.
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Younger people than us only use the cloud to store their documents. Google docs, etc…. But us old schoolers still feel like we want copies locally. It’s matter of understanding the wording in the finder when you go to save a document. Not too hard to explain. It’s a common issue. Google docs, Office using OneDrive, Pages using iCloud, Dropbox or local. I can help clear that all up.

Which backup should I be using?

I asked family member, “You have been backing up your computer up, correct?. He said “Yeah, iCloud." I said, “No the little black drive you are supposed to plug into each night…oh that…not recently…” Good news for any recent writing, it should be in the cloud. Passwords/keychain/configuration etc he’ll just have to go with whatever is saved on the last back up I guess. There is likely something else I am not thinking about, but if important maybe a rescue effort could be done on old hard drive? The battery was shot and wouldn’t hold a charge for long. He used only plugged in so maybe the just the battery was damaged? probably wishful but a thought. SO I do not know exactly his storage usage but likely mine is larger than his. Mine is 418 GB. I just don’t want to force him to back up photos to an external drive down the road and optimize to the cloud…any effort will likely not be met properly if you catch my rift.🙄 I’ll check capacity on Air and hopefully they have raised their capacity from last time I looked. Please share your thoughts.
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While having a good healthy time machine copy is my preference when transferring data, the cloud does work as a secondary backup. We’d just have to reinstall whatever third party applications he may have been using like MS Office etc… We can also pull original pictures back down from the cloud as well. We could also see when the last backup was and make a choice then as well.

Which computer should I buy?

I need a computer recommendation for family member? He primarily uses it for internet search, writing in Pages, stores photos, occasionally streaming sporting event or show - no gaming, spreadsheets, or photo-editing really, so from that stand point MacBook Air would seem sufficient. Biggest question is his photo library is likely the largest storage item for him and I know MacbookAir does not have as much storage capacity as Pro does. I personally prefer to keep originals on my computer, using a back up drive, as well as saving to the cloud. I prefer NOT to optimize on my computer with the orignal in the cloud. I know call me old school….so capacity could be an issue, but maybe not…which takes me to next issue...
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I agree that it’s a good idea to keep local copies of your photos but it really comes down to a question of connivence and finance. The MacBook Air does come in larger capacities so you should be able to increase up to 2TB therefore solving that issue.

How to save photos from an icloud library

We lost a family member yesterday. We would like to save their photo library. How do you recommend I do it?
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I’m sorry to hear of your loss. There are several ways to accomplish this.

Option 1. If you still have access to her apple computer (Mac) and she had been using it to view her pictures within the Photos app AND the setting of “download originals” was selected then we could retrieve them from there and move them over to a new machine.

Option 2. If you know the password to her AppleID and you have access to another of her devices like an iPhone then you could log in to
iCloud.com and download the entire photo library from there onto any computer you wish.

Option 3. If she had a time machine backup from a computer, you may be able to retrieve them that way as well (given the option of “download originals” had been checked from the backed up computer in the past.)

I understand how important photos are for us especially during this time, so I am happy to assist any way you. Would like if needed.

Can I lock down my child's device?

A friend mentioned you are able to set controls or lockdown the kids devices so it’s safe and clean for them ?

Please let me know how this works as far as cost and what exactly is done to their iPads ? I’m wondering if we can even remove internet browsing all together ?
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Yes, Apple has very good built in parental controls for each device. It works by the parent designating the child as a child within the family then applying a 4 digit code to the parental control area of the their phone. Once done correctly the parent has the ability to monitor and edit parental control settings from their own phone without having to even touch the child’s device. There are some places that need improvement of course but overall, a parent that can follow a few guidelines and DOES NOT forget the 4 digit code they place on their child’s device can be successful.

I often see various parenting strategies so mileage varies between situations. Yes you can remove browsing altogether if you like. You’ll hear me say the following sentence several times if we work together in the future. “Security equals inconvenience”. The more secure something is the less convenient it will be. Therefore, the more locked down you make your child’s device, the less useful they will find it and that is where the never ending struggle between child/parent continues.

Happy to assist any way that I can. You can read more details about me and what I do at my website via the link below. I work remotely via zoom the majority of my week however, parental controls are usu

Wifi and Ethernet at the same time?

Scotty, can I use the WiFi on my MacBook Pro and a network cable from my router/modem simultaneously?
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You can connect an ethernet cable using an adapter of course while the wifi is still active on the laptop but the laptop will default to ethernet as soon as it detects its presence. It won’t pull from both sources of data if that’s what you mean.

Why won't my email go out?

just tried sending an email from the gmail account in this new location and I was not sure how to answer this message that popped up?
I am unable to send the email.
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Select the Gmail option if it pops up when trying to send via gmail. Each email account has its own sending server and sometimes when one fails temporarily, the email account will ask if it can borrow another one. See if that fixes it.

How can I move pictures from my phone to my computer?

I am trying to share photos from my iphone 16 to my desktop!  I looked online and did what it suggested BUT my phone says the pairing isn't supported!  DANG I thought for sure a new desktop could do this. Both bluetooth's are on and "looking" for other bluetooth....
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Picture syncing has changed tremendously over the last decade and we really don't usually connect our phones to our computers anymore in order to move pictures. In fact, one would have to have iCloud syncing turned off for them to even only exist on your phone so my guess is that we may be missing something here. However, if you do want to move pictures from your phone, then syncing setting for iCloud would have to either have been disabled or turned to "keep originals" on your phone. Otherwise, your pictures would only exist as thumbnails on your phone and would not be transferable to a computer. So I suspect there's an additional piece of information I'm not aware of yet in your case for us to resolve the issue.

Is there built in virus protection on the mac?

My computer started doing some really wacky things last night and I’m concerned there might be a virus. Can you tell me what the built-in software virus program is so I can make sure that it’s made it run?
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There is a hidden process on the Mac called Gatekeeper. It authenticates any additional software a person adds and requests your password before it can be installed. It is not a program you can open and run yourself. Its part of the OS. Virus protection does not work. The flaw in the Mac is the human. If the human puts their password in at the wrong time, that gives the computer permission to install something. Virus protection does not prevent that.

How do I sync text messages across my devices

How do I sync iPad texts to Mac & phone texts?
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First, make sure you're logged into your AppleID on all devices. Next, on the phone and iPad go to settings, on the computer you'll be going to settings within the Messages application itself.

Once in settings on the phone and iPad, scroll to the bottom and select "all apps". Next scroll down to the m's and find messages. Now that you're in the settings area for messages you can check to be sure of the following:

1. You are using your AppleID for iMessage and iMessage is turned on on both devices.
2. You have both your phone number checked as well as your email address in receive but only the phone number checked on outgoing messages.

Repeat the process on the computer by opening the messages application, go to settings within the application and compare the same settings. If you see a box that says "Enable messages in the cloud" be sure that's checked as well.

My junk filtering is too strong

I do not know why all the sudden so much of my legitimate email is going to junk. If you have any idea of how to handle this, please let me know.
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If you find that email is moving into junk more often than you’d like then you may decide to take the (sort of) drastic step of resetting your junk mail filtering.


I call that drastic as you may open the flood gates a bit since you’ll be telling the computer, forget all the times I ever said something was junk. Junk filtering happens at two places. On the email server before it gets to you, then again in your email client. In this case, the application called “Mail”. You may also want to check the other settings in the Junk settings panel as seen above to make sure you aren’t being to restrictive before using the reset option.

I'm getting to much junk

I used to never get spam in my inbox. It has somehow now gotten through and I’d like to know if it’s okay to hit the Unsubscribe button or is it phishing, hoping I’ll hit it and then they somehow get into my computer?
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Junk or spam is a never ending battle. There are many methods to try to fight it. Using the "unsubscribe" at the BOTTOM of the email is not always the best way. Legally every company within the US is required to provide an unsubscribe button but that rule also allows for companies to automatically subscribe you to other services. Dirty practice.

So on to the next option. You may see an unsubscribe button on the top right corner of some emails. Not all. This one is safer to use as it puts Apple in the middle and doesn't allow you to have direct contact with that company. Better.

Next method: Use the junk button. I use Junk every single day. It takes a long time but selecting an email and hitting junk will eventually weed out garbage. It's safer than unsubscribing. Problem with this method is that junking something only junks that one specific exact email. This means the company can still send you emails using a different spelling of an email. Like 3kdlse@company.com instead of kd45l@company.com.

Last method: If all else fails you can always create a rule that says something like: if email contains the word "politic" then delete it. That can be found in Mail settings. Warning however, the broader you make a rule the better chance there is of it deleting something you didn't really want deleted.

Keynote on dual monitors during Zoom

My dissertation defense is tomorrow on Zoom, which includes a slideshow presentation. I realized that if I connect my laptop to my monitor, which allows me to see everything better, my slides don’t always advance properly, especially the ones that use the “appear” animation function within slides (on Keynote). Can you think of a solution? It’s not a do or die situation, but would definitely enhance my experience if I could get that to work.

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First thing I would consider is which display the slide show presents on. Check if you are mirroring both monitors or do you have separate monitor set ups. You can try a few variations of monitor set ups.

Closing the laptop and only using a bigger monitor
Keeping the laptop open and just having the exact same screen on both (yuck)
Keeping the laptop open and having double the screen space (Yay!)

So then playing the slideshow on a different monitor may produce different results. Keep in mind that when using Zoom with multiple monitors, you need to let Zoom know if you are sharing only the left one, only the right one, or both. Sharing both monitors via Zoom results in the viewers seeing a way smaller space however.

Hope that helps. And of course you may want to practice switching zoom sharing between monitors. Good luck. Defend!!!

Buying a new computer?


Buying a new computer?


The biggest mistake I see when buying a new computer is buying too small a hard drive. Happens all the time! I've started so many data transfers only to discover the new computer has less space than the old one. This is usually because people go to Apple.com, start shopping, then buy the least expensive one.

As a general rule, almost no one should be buying anything smaller than a 1TB drive. Keep in mind, "memory" (aka RAM) is different than hard drive space. Unless you are a professional photographer, musician, or video editor, RAM is not as important as it once was so that's not where to invest your money. Instead, you need to consider a larger hard drive. The best thing to do is find out what size drive you currently have and how much of that drive you're currently using. Then base your decision on that. To find this information, go to System Settings/General/Storage. Example:


Screenshot 2025-03-22 at 6.28.58 AM

Don't get too worked up about what you see here. There's a lot of mislabeled data here. For example, an old music library that is no longer needed might be categorized as "documents". So don't worry too much about the labeling. If you're only currently using half of the space of your drive, you may be able to get away with buying the same size drive on your new computer. However, consider that our phones are constantly shooting higher and higher resolution pictures and videos and those take up space even when you'e chosen to optimizer your photo library.

While there is a way to store lots of data on the cloud, nothing beats good old fashioned local storage! In some cases, we are able to find unnecessary data that can be deleted but we'd need to work together before hand to determine that of course. If you have any questions as to which model is best for you, or you'd like to try and reduce the amount of old files before you purchase, I'm happy to walk you through what I think fits you best then assist with the data transfer once it arrives. Here's a quick guide to what you'll need for the data transfer ahead of our session. And as always, please email me if have additional questions.

TLDR: buy a big hard drive. Don't buy "memory" aka RAM.

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