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Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly

Siri is supposed to be a competent voice assistant, but sometimes Siri can’t even pronounce your own name correctly! Luckily, it’s easy to fix Siri’s pronunciation for any name. Just say to Siri, “Learn how to pronounce Jill Kresock.” (Siri defaults to “krehsock” rather than the correct “kreesock” in this case.) Siri first asks you to say the person’s first name and then presents a list of options for the best pronunciation. Tap the play button next to each option to hear it, and tap Select for the one you like best. If none are good, tap Tell Siri Again...

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Here’s How to Hide All Windows on Your Mac So You Can Work on the Desktop

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Here’s How to Hide All Windows on Your Mac So You Can Work on the Desktop

If your Mac is anything like ours, you end up with lots of apps open, each with one or more windows that obscure the Desktop. For those people who like to save in-progress documents to the Desktop and keep current project folders there, all those windows get in the way. macOS has a solution. Open System Preferences > Mission Control, and in the Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts section, from the Show Desktop pop-up menu, choose a keyboard shortcut. Try the right-hand modifier keys—we’re fond of Right Option—because they’re easy to press and aren’t likely to be used for other purposes....

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Here’s the Fastest Way to Set Up a New iPhone

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Here’s the Fastest Way to Set Up a New iPhone

When you’re unboxing a new iPhone, it’s time to think about how you’ll move your digital life from your old iPhone to the new one. If your old iPhone is running iOS 11, you can use Quick Start, a new iOS 11 feature that makes the transfer easy. Just turn on the new iPhone, set it next to the old one, and tap Continue when asked whether you want to use your Apple ID to set up your new iPhone. An animation appears on the new iPhone for you to scan with the old iPhone—once you’ve done that, follow the...

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Don’t Use These Products to Clean Your iPhone (Or You’ll Wish You Hadn’t)

Posted by Laurie Berg on

Don’t Use These Products to Clean Your iPhone (Or You’ll Wish You Hadn’t)

All iPhones pick up fingerprints, and it’s all too easy to get your iPhone dirty with ink, lotion, makeup, dirt, food, and oil. If you’re faced with an iPhone that needs cleaning, resist the urge to spray it with window cleaner, rubbing alcohol, or ammonia, or, even worse, to scrub it with baking soda or Borax. That’s because all iPhones have oleophobic—oil repellent—coatings on their glass surfaces that make it easy to wipe off fingerprints. You don’t want to remove that coating any faster than it will wear off normally, and cleaning products will strip it quickly. Instead, Apple recommends...

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What You Need to Know about Face ID on the iPhone X

Posted by Laurie Berg on

What You Need to Know about Face ID on the iPhone X

Apple’s new iPhone X does away with the Home button, which has been a fixture since the original iPhone and has long served as the Touch ID sensor. To replace Touch ID, Apple developed a new facial recognition technology called Face ID. With Face ID, the iPhone X scans your face to authenticate you instead of using your fingerprint. It is truly amazing technology, but we’ve been getting questions that we’d like to answer here. If you have others, get in touch!How does Face ID work?Magic. Well, close. As science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology...

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