Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are eight things that you should stop doing with
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So I've been using Macs for more than 30 years and helping people with their Macs for more
than twelve. Often when someone is having a problem it's because they're practicing
a technique or doing something that they really should stop doing. So, for instance, I hear
about people having a lot of trouble using printers. They're using cheap inkjet printers.
I hate inkjet printers. I find that they only really work well when you first get them using
the original ink. If you stop using them for a little while the ink kind of dries up and
doesn't work quite right anymore. You try to save some money on ink and not get the
manufacturer's ink. The colors don't look great anymore. I find that they breakdown
easily. They're just all sorts of trouble.
I'm a big believer in a paperless office and try to print as little as possible. If I need
to print I use a laser printer. Laser printers used to be very expensive and some people
still think of them as such. But in fact they're pretty cheap now. For a $100 or $200 you can
get a black and white laser printer which is probably what most people need to just
print out simple documents. But for about $200 you can get a color laser printer as
well. Instead of buying ink you buy toner and toner is much more consistent. Laser printers
just don't seem to breakdown as often. I've been using the one I have for years and I'll
go months without using it. When I start it up and print something out it looks just as
good as the first day I got it.
So my main tip is to try and printout less. If you carry an iPhone with you then put documents
on your iPhone or access them by iCloud instead of carrying around a printed copy of it. If
you must use printouts think about getting a laser printer even if you spend a little
more money up front it will pay for itself in less frustration in years to come.
Probably one of the most major categories I get asked questions about is email. Email
problems often come down to email provider, not the mail app on your Mac or iPhone or
iPad. Email is really all about the server and which server you're using. If you're using
ISP email, that's the free email you get from AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, whoever your ISP is
that's like the bottom of the barrel. There are all sorts of problems with ISP email not
to mention the fact that if you move and you have a new service you won't be able to take
your email address with your.
Instead go with a big online email provider. The only two that I can really recommend are
Apple's email service, iCloud or use Goggle's gmail. Both of these work great. They cut
down on the amount of spam you'll get. They are portable to wherever you move to. They
use all the modern email techniques so that things should work a lot smoother.
I often get asked questions about Bookmarks. Usually they involve somebody that has hundreds
or thousands of saved bookmarks. Stop using Bookmarks so much. Basically bookmarks are
great if there's a website you need to go to really often or maybe not so often like
maybe once a month to pay a bill. But don't use bookmarks for a site that you won't be
going back to consistently. If it's just an article that you want to read later use the
Reading List built into Safari. That way you can go back to it, read it later, and then
it goes away. It's not stored permanently cluttering up your bookmarks.
Bookmarks are also handy for security. You could bookmark, say, a banking site and know
by using that bookmark you're going to a real site, not some fake site that an email may
include. So you should leave your bookmarks as clear as possible having less than a hundred
bookmarks as being ideal. Use your Reading List for other things and also trust yourself
that you could find something interesting later on. If you see a page that's kind of
interesting, but you're not sure you may go back to it don't bookmark it. Trust yourself
that later on you could do a similar search and find the same page.
Now a lot of people don't want to pay Apple a monthly price for iCloud. But those same
people, sometimes, ask me questions about how to do something which iCloud is perfect
for. iCloud is great to be able to share your files across devices. It's great for having
all your photos, every photo you've ever taken, in your pocket on your iPhone or have new
pictures you've taken on your iPhone instantly get to your Photos Library without having
to sync and transfer things.
Most people can get by with the 99 cent per month iCloud Plan. Even I use only the $3.00
per month plan which gives you a ton of data. You pay a premium to use Apple products. You
could have a very cheap windows computer, super cheap android tablet and a free android
phone if you really want it. But we all pay a premium to use Apple products because they
work really well. Then why miss out on some of the best features just because you don't
want to pay 99 cents per month.
This one is really specific and I've done videos on this before. Stop shutting down
your Mac. A typical Mac should never be shut down. You should just put it to sleep or let
it go to sleep on its own. When you do this while it's sleeping it performs maintenance
tasks. If you don't let it sleep, instead shut it down as soon as you're done using
it and start it up when you want to start using it again then it's going to try to perform
those maintenance tasks while you're working. Slowing you down. Sometimes they can really
build up. Things like backups, Spotlight indexing and such can really take up a lot of processor
time but they won't bother you if you just let your Mac sleep so it can do this maintenance.
So I also find a lot of fear of updating your Mac. Updating to the next minor version or
the next major version of the operating system. I understand this fear. In general people
don't like change. You know how to use everything on your Mac now and when you update things
change a little bit. But to get the most out of your Mac I think you really need to embrace
change. You need to upgrade to the latest operating system. Learn what has changed.
Use the new features to be able to use your Mac to its fullest. After all, you've paid
for your Mac which includes all these upgrades. So if you're not upgrading to the latest operating
system you're not getting your money's worth out of your Mac.
Now we all know we should backup, right. But a lot of people procrastinate when setting
up a backup. You get your Mac. You think, well I will maybe next month get an external
drive and start backing up with Time Machine. Then you wait and wait and wait. Don't procrastinate.
If you do not have a Time Machine backup going now order a hard drive today. Just get a standard
USB 3 hard drive. It doesn't have to be super fast. Hook it up to your Mac and start a Time
Machine backup. Don't do anything less than a default backup. I know people that only
backup their Mac like once a week or once a month. That's a really bad idea. I mean
you do once a month and something goes wrong with your Mac you could be one, two, three
weeks behind on all of your data which could be a big disaster. Just use it as it's supposed
to be used. Keep it plugged in. Let it do its backup every hour. Hourly backups barely
take anytime because usually not much has changed over the period of an hour. Now if
you have a MacBook and you can't keep it plugged in all the time just get into a regular routine.
Have it plugged in every night, for instance. Or use a network drive so it's automatically
doing the backups when your home connected to WiFi. At the very least, if you're using
a MacBook, consider storing all your files in a service. Either iCloud DropBox or something
else because then, at least, if something happens to your Mac and you haven't been doing
regular backups you're probably have all your files still available to you on the Cloud.
You won't lose everything.
This last one is kind of tricky. Basically, the thing is I see people who have a problem
with their Mac. Don't assume when you have a problem that that's how it's supposed to
work. Instead investigate it. Try to find out if there is a better way to do it. Maybe
find out if it's supposed to work this way at all. If not try to fix the problem or get
some help. This is very common and I think a lot of us, maybe myself included, fall into
this trap. Assume that they can't do something because it just doesn't work that way when
in fact you just need to solve the problem.
One example maybe thinking that you can't sort files in the Finder or music in the Music
app. But you just need to figure out that you need to click on the top of the column
to Sort By that column. Another example might a system preference that you set when you
weren't using that feature much. Now that you are you find that it's not working the
way it does for everybody else. You just need to learn more about it and figure out that
there's a system preference for that and change that back. Now you can use that feature.
I guess the general tip here is question everything. If something isn't working right or if something
doesn't work like you think it should then don't assume that's just because it's the
way it is. Try to solve the problem and see if you can get it working the way you want.
So please take these suggestions to heart. My goal here is to help improve everybody's
experience and help you get the most from your Mac.