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With the forthcoming release of macOS Mojave, there is some essential preparation you need to do in advance to make sure the upgrade goes smoothly, and to make sure you can recover in case of problems.

This tip video gives you some pointers on cleaning your Mac and making a bootable backup to an external drive with SuperDuper.

We frequently interact with the Save and Open dialog boxes when using our Mac. This tip video gives you some keyboard shortcuts to help navigate those actions, as well as change the target location when saving your files.

If you really want to supercharge your use of the Save and Open actions, I briefly show you an application that I've covered before, and that's Default Folder X. Well recommended!

In this week's tip video, I take a look at how you can make some simple customisations to your Finder toolbar to increase your productivity.

Live Photos are a great addition to the iPhone and you can further transform them using one of three effects: Loop, Bounce and Long Exposure.

I love using the Long Exposure effect on any running water or fountains. It makes a huge difference on your photos, without the need for specialist photo equipment or in-depth technical knowledge.

However, when out and about recently, I had a brain freeze and couldn't remember how to access the Live Photo effects - not everything in iOS is as discoverable as it should be. So I thought it would be a great topic for a refresher tip video!

You can configure the four corners of your Mac display to instantly invoke some pre-defined system commands. It's really simple to set up, and a very useful Mac customisation.

In this week's tip, I show you how it all works.

AirDrop is a safe and secure way to transfer files between Apple devices. It requires virtually zero configuration and only needs Bluetooth and WiFi to create an encrypted connection between devices. However, there are some precautions you need to take to ensure you remain in control of AirDrop.

In this tip video, I take a look at setting-up and using AirDrop on both the Mac and iOS.

Two quick updates in this week's tip show:

Text Expansion

Back in episode 0738, we covered using the built-in features of Text Auto-correction in both macOS and iOS. This is an easy way to use abbreviations to expand to simple words and phrases. However, text expansion is not just limited to simple words and phrases. It can also be used for multiple paragraphs, making Text Auto-correction so much more useful! In this tip, Don shows you how to create a multiline text snippet that will sync across your devices.

Subtitles or Captions in Safari

One of the main support issues we come across are people being unable to switch off subtitles when viewing tutorials on the ScreenCastsOnline website or, even worse, seeing two sets of subtitles displayed at once. This is easily fixed and is due to Safari itself displaying subtitles. In this segment, Don shows you how to easily switch both sets of subtitles off, giving you an uninterrupted view of your tutorials.

Want to know more about your files or folders? Want to change its default icon? How about changing which files are opened by specific applications? All this and more can be achieved by using the Get Info panel built right into Finder on macOS.

In this week's tip video, Don takes you through the basics of mastering the Get Info panel.

There are plenty of very capable and very sophisticated text auto-correction apps on the market. However, if your needs are simple, why not use the text auto-correction features built into macOS and iOS?

In this week's tip video, Don walks you through setting up and using auto-correction and auto-completion on the Mac and iPhone, and shows you how those text snippets sync in real time between devices.

Whilst using a trackpad and mouse can be easy and effective, having full control of your keyboard is a must.

Many people take this to the next level by invoking "Full Keyboard Access" allowing them to reach parts of macOS you never thought possible with the keyboard.

This week's tip video shows you how to switch on "Full Keyboard Access" and demonstrates its usage.

There are plenty of third-party screen and video capture tools available for macOS, but you might be surprised at just how capable the built-in macOS capture tools actually are.

This tip video gives you some examples of just how powerful screen capture is on the Mac - once you master a variety of keyboard combinations!

Change ScreenShot Location Command

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location

Your Mac already has a host of security measures to keep your files and folders safe, but what if you want to add an extra layer of security?

With Disk Utility, it is possible to create a secure disk image, protected by 128- or 256-bit encryption. Simply create your disk image and copy your files over and you'll have a secure, portable container that you can sync via iCloud or upload to Dropbox.

Two tips this week...

Siri News on iOS

No need to feel left out if you don't have a HomePod. You can get the news spoken to you from your iOS devices and as long as they support hands-free "Hey Siri" commands.

Hidden Files & Folders in macOS

Display your hidden files and folders with a simple keyboard shortcut. No longer do you need to conjure up some obscure Terminal command to make this happen.

Travelling with your Mac is great - provided that you take proper precautions. There are various considerations you need to be aware of with respect to security, privacy and to minimise the risk of data theft when away from the confines of your home and office.

There are also things to consider when trying to access online services via a slow or unsecured public Wi-Fi access point. What about if the internet connection is great but expensive?

In this episode, we take you through some simple steps to secure your Mac from prying eyes or attack, and take control over which apps and services can use your internet connection. We also show you how you can create both local Time Machine and bootable backups on an encrypted local external drive in case of emergencies. Finally, we cover a simple way to connect with your home or office Mac to retrieve that file you thought you had with you!

Your Apple ID is a crucial part of how you access your devices, apps and all Apple services.

It goes without saying that you really need to look after your Apple ID and make sure that you can regain access in the event of some mishap.

In this week's tip video, we take a look at the website that's designed to help you maintain your Apple ID: appleid.apple.com

This week's tip demonstrates how easy it is to share screens via the standard Messages app in macOS.

If you ever find yourself needing to give remote support to friends, family or colleagues, there's no need to have them install third-party software. Just fire up the Messages app and use the built-in screen sharing mechanism.

Apple Mail rules allow you to create and run complex commands on incoming mail, allowing you to filter, organise or even respond automatically to messages.

In this week's tip, I take a look at some simple Apple Mail rules that demonstrate their potential power. The only downside to setting up rules locally on your Mac is that Mail needs to be running and there is no sync mechanism.

In next week's tip video, I will take a look at running Apple Mail rules on iCloud.com so that they're active 24/7, and also trickle down to your iOS devices.

In Part 2 of our two-part series on macOS Server 5.4, Todd Olthoff takes a look at managing your devices using Profile Manager, the device management tool that is part of Server. As we accumulate Apple devices, it can become challenging to manage each one for the various users, whether in your household or organization.

In this episode we'll talk about some of the things to consider before deploying a device management system. We'll then walk you through the various things that need to be set up in the Server application, so you can take full advantage of the Profile Manager service. This includes enrolling all of your devices and pushing profiles to those, so their various settings can be customized to fit your needs.

Following on from a look at setting up restrictions on iOS in last week's tip video, we turn our attention to the Mac. In a similar fashion, it's possible to setup restrictions on the Mac using Parental Controls inside System Preferences.

Parental Controls allow you to restrict access to apps, web browsing and much more. You can even set time periods as well as time limits of allowed usage.

With macOS High Sierra came updates to the Server app, now called macOS Server and available on the App Store for USD 19.99. We covered Server extensively in the past, but that was back on OS X Mavericks (10.9). We thought it was time for an update.

This version of Server is different from the previous ones in that Apple has chosen to move three server components to High Sierra itself and make them available to all users. For some, those components might have been the reason they wanted Server in the first place, so there is no longer a need for the macOS Server app when running High Sierra. We will cover each of these services in detail and take a look at a new way to access file shares on iOS devices, due to the removal of the iOS File Sharing service and webDAV sharing from macOS Server. To achieve this, we'll set up the VPN service and use Readdle's Documents app for iOS to access those file shares both locally and remotely.