I went thru the steps we discussed and, though I can now view the Apple ID settings, the sign out portion is still greyed out “due to restrictions.” Do I need to turn off Screen Time for that family member completely?
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From Wife’s phone you should be able to go to Settings/Her account name/Family Sharing/Screen Time/Child’s name/ the select to turn off screen time. Then on child’s phone perhaps turn off then back on again and you Should be able to make changes. Let me know if not. You could also send me a screenshot of the setting that’s still greyed out. Or just take a pic with your own phone.

Seagate is finally downloading. Tells me it will take 14 hours for first completion. That seems impossible. I feel like there is some corruption. Promise this is last message.

Any suggestions are appreciated.



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In the last couple years, Apple has locked out other programs from having full access to things so something like Grammarly may hit a wall when the Apple Operating System blocks it from certain functions. That screen shot seemed to indicate that Grammarly was asking that you grant it permission for time machine use. That could have been why it took so long to complete. If you continue to have issues, you can schedule remotely and we can look at permissions issues within System Preferences. There may be something there slowing Time Machine’s process down.

had a Zoom radio show interview again last week and got several alert “dings” in the middle. Luckily, this hasn’t happened before! I can’t let this happen again. I need to turn off all sound notifications on my computer going forward. I have a very important Zoom Podcast on Monday and really must address this. Can you advise me how we need to proceed?
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All notifications are handled via the Notifications area in system preferences. If you can remember what type of alert you saw, ie: calendar, email, iMessage, etc.. then you could go into system preferences, select Notifications, find the corresponding service, then disable alerts completely for that specific service.

I don’t like pages and want MS Word on my MAC but don’t want the subscription.

I’ve read there were issues with installing MS Word 2021 purchase for Home and Student.

What are your thoughts?
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Three Office plans:

1. Subscribe for multiple computers $99 a year. (Up to 6 computers) Includes Outlook (which no very people use on a Mac), Mobile iPad versions of Office, and One Drive space (which you don’t really need if you already use iCloud Drive or Google Drive or Dropbox.)

2. Subscribe for 1 computer $69 a year w/ all the same as above.

3. Buy it outright for $160 with no upgrades. Also none of the above add-ons. Microsoft doesn’t want you to use this option because they make more money off of you if you subscribe. So they try to dissuade people from this option by removing the above mentioned. Most people get along just fine with the buy-it version. Only major issue would be if you wanted to use it on more than one device. Only issue is that they sort of hide this option on their site. You have to dig a little to reveal it.

I’ve not run into any issues installing Office on a Mac recently at all and I do many installs a month. Maybe when the first M1 chips came out about 2 years ago but nothing lately at all.

I am going to purchase a new laptop and give my oldest daughter my MacBook Air (I have the 13 inch 16 GB 2020). I would like a bigger screen and am looking at the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros. Do you have thoughts on which one is a better computer? Do you recommend purchasing it directly from Apple? I do not travel much with mine; I most often use it sitting at my desk. I mostly use it for emails, Slack communications with my work group, photos and videos, zoom calls. I am planning to purchase it in the next few weeks and would then like to set up an appointment with you to transfer everything to my new computer and clear out this current one to give to my daughter when she comes to visit in early August. I’d love your thoughts,
thanks,

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Between the 14 and 16, both are equal in terms of speed. Apple didn’t limit the 14” in power this time around so either would be a great choice. Just be sure you purchase the appropriate amount of hard drive space on your new computer. So many people buy too small a drive and can’t fit all their old data onto it. In general a 1TB is usually a good bet. But to see exactly how much space you’re taking up on your current computer, go to the apple in the left corner, choose “about this Mac” then select storage. It will tell you how big your current drive is along with how much data you are using.

One thing to consider is possibly purchasing a second monitor down the road. It doesn’t have to be an apple monitor! Just any nice monitor will connect to your laptop and give you double the screen space. Then when you want to travel, just unplug it and take it with you. We can discuss the pro’s of that some time.