From OSX Daily: Dropped an iPhone in Water? Here's How to Save it from Water Damage

I wish I had known this when I was working as a principal. I had more trouble with dropping my Walkie Talkie in the toilet! The tech guys were getting to know me well! The last time, I told my assistant to just tell the tech guy "it doesn't work". I know. I know. Not very honest.
So, he brings my repaired Walkie Talkie back to my assistant, and he says, "So, Anita dropped her phone in the toilet again, I see!"
I don't know if those of us who are retired, and not encumbered with working, little kids, or other situations need this info But it can't hurt to keep this just in case. Read more here. By the way, OSX Daily is a great blog to subscribe to. It has lots of useful information about iPhones, iPads and Apple Computers.

Connect your Mac to your Tv....... Why????

I recently purchased a new cable to connect my MacBook Pro (mid 2010 model) to the projector for the Sunflower Computer Club. Several people have asked, "How do you do that?" "Could I connect it to my TV?"
Why would you WANT to connect your computer to your TV? There are some fun things you can do with your computer connected to your TV:

1 Work on your laptop in the comfort of your easy chair and display it on the TV
2 View Netflix or Amazon Prime TV shows or movies on your big screen through your laptop
3 Show your Grand Canyon Slideshow to friends and family

What you need to know:


This shows a newer Macbook Pro and it's ports. The Thunderbolt Port is where you will connect one end of your cable. The other end of the cable is hdmi and will connect directly to any of the hdmi ports in your tv. Then, of course, you will need to change your input so that you are displaying the hdmi port you are connected to

This is the cable I purchased from Amazon: Mini Display Port to HDMI

After connecting computer to TV via cable, go to your System Preferences and click on Display

 Make sure you turn on mirroring options. This looks a bit different if you are still using Snow Leopard

 Of course, you can also pay $99 for Apple TV and connect that way, but this is cheaper, and Apple TV won't let you connect to Amazon Prime. I prefer Amazon Prime, but that is another blog post.

How to Restart a Mac in Recovery Mode

The purpose of this blog is to provide assistance for those who may be new to iPads, iPhones and Macintosh computers. I am president of the Sunflower Computer Club and one of two facilitators of the Sunflower Macintosh User's Group. When the Macintosh User's Group meets, we take questions and provide assistance to new users as well as Apple veterans. One that came up today was how to restart your Mac in Mountain Lion. Remember we used to have a boot disk, and pressed "c" and the start button. I learned that Lion and Mountain Lion has a disk-free boot option. The article in MacLife tells you how to do that.  You can read more here, but the simple trick is hold down the option key while pressing the power on button.

Using your iPad or iPhone to Track Your Health

We are really trying to eat healthier. We view ourselves as careful about what we eat (except when we aren't) . Still, food that seems good may not be good for us (duh). We gained a little more awareness recently when our daughter visited the Houston Headache Center and was consulting with a neurologist about her migraine headaches. Among other things, he told her to completely give up diet soda, anything else with Aspartame, and any food with any form of MSG. 
This sent me on a hunt for foods with MSG. I had heard from my nephew's wife Spring that MSG is disguised by other names. So, of course I Googled, "other names for MSG". I printed out a chart of other names for MSG, and have been on a mission to avoid those foods.
When I told my friend, Sherry, she said, "Well, what about Fooducate?" I had TOTALLY forgotten Fooducate, which has a free app for iPhone and Android. In fact, other than downloading the free app, I had not looked at it again. She thought that it would identify MSG.
So, now I have created an account and used Fooducate. I found a daily tip sheet at Fooducate.com which gives the many names of MSG. It also gives a letter grade to the foods you eat, and tells you why (i.e. high sodium, high sugar, etc.). 
One of the nice things about Fooducate is that you can scan a food's barcode and get an instant grade.

My husband's Fig Bars that he got from Costco (liked them so much he bought two boxes) has 5 teaspoons of sugar in a very small 2 serving package, which he has been eating every day. Actually, Fooducate rated this product a C+.
I did a search in the App Store for Fooducate and could not find it, so if you are interested in downloading it, go to www.fooducate.com.
I am using some other health apps as well, but that will be another post.

Google Ordered To Tell Us "Quit Shouting to the World What You Are Doing on the Internet!"

Google "snooped on people's Wi-Fi networks".  Google employees out in the neighborhoods taking pictures for their Street-View, used information they took from open Wi-Fi networks in the neighborhood. As a result of a class action lawsuit, Google is being ordered to let people know that they should secure their open Wi-Fi with a password. An interesting part of this is that Google thinks what they did is perfectly legal ..... (read the entire article here)

Google has maintained in its defense against the class action that it did nothing illegal by gathering data from open Wi-Fi networks. Their argument: By leaving your Wi-Fi network open, you’re essentially shouting what you’re doing over the Internet to the world. That last line may well end up in their forthcoming educational YouTube video. Read More here

I Lost My iPad. No. Really.

I lost my iPad a couple of weeks ago. I was eating lunch with a friend and I had it out in the restaurant. When I left, I did not stick it back in my bag. I just had it in my hand (first mistake). As I was walking to my car, I noticed this little gift shop was open, so I stepped in there to talk to the salesperson about an item I had seen a few months earlier. As she showed it to me, I must have just absentmindedly set my iPad down on the display table to look at the item. I ended up making the purchase, picked up a business card from the business and headed home. I needed to hurry home because I was going to teach an iPad class in my neighborhood Center. Yes. Really. I get ready to go, and........ "Where is my iPad?" Long story short,  I had to go set up for my class without my iPad. Denny said he would call the restaurant and the gift store. Much to my embarassment, he showed up at my iPad class and handed me my iPad. Phewwww! Close one! So, what to do if you lose your iPad? Go to a computer. Log in to iCloud. Click on Find my iPad.  Make sure that you have gone into settings on your iPhone, iPad or other device and said "Find my iPad (on)".

So, as you can see, I can find my iPad NOW because it is at home and online, but in the previous scenario, it was locked and offline. So, thankfully I have a husband that would go looking.

Don't lose your iPad.

Use Excel to Keep Your Passwords Safe

A simple way to keep your passwords in a secure place is to create an Excel worksheet, enter your passwords and other important information about your web login or account. Once you have saved the file, you can lock it with a password (Now that is a password you will have to remember!). Here is how you do it in Office for Mac 2011:

Once you have created and saved your password file in Excel, go to the File drop down menu, and scroll down to Passwords:

From there, you can choose a password for your file

If you are using an older version of Office, go to Excel>Preferences>Security and go through the same steps to create a password. 

Once you have saved and secured your file, save it to either 1) Dropbox or a 2) Flash Drive that you either keep with you or store away from your computer.