Tekee Tim's Tips

Taking a screenshot of your device

If you want to capture some information that’s displayed on your screen, such as a receipt, it can often be helpful to take a screenshot.

Luckily this is easy on all devices, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

Secure your Apple account

If you have an Apple ID or an iCloud account, it's a great idea to switch on Two Step Verification to make sure your account is extra secure. Two Step Verification adds an extra layer to logging into your account, as well as your ID and password, you then need the extra code that comes out to your devices. Without this code, no one can access your account.

Stop your laptops connecting to the wrong WiFi

As you travel around with your laptop, you'll end up connecting to all sorts of WiFi networks and this can cause problems if you're back at home or in the office and there's a WiFi hotspot nearby that your device keeps trying to connect instead of your own connection.

How to change your default web browser and email apps

With such a wide choice of apps available for PCs, Macs and mobile devices, you'll often want to use a different default application for your web browsing, email, photo editing, playing music etc and this is easy to change on all your devices.

In this tip we'll go through how to set the default apps on your different devices.

Double click action!

Want to change what application opens when you double click on a file?

Sometimes you may have more than one application on your computer that can open the same type of document, for example on Windows you may have Adobe Reader and the built in Reader application that can open PDF files, and on Mac OS you may have Adobe Reader and Preview.

So, if you’d like to set which application opens a PDF file when you double click on it, then this is very easy to do. Just follow the steps below. You can then use this method for any type of file.

Get Smart with your filing

If you like to keep your files and emails organised, the Mac has great features to help you do this automatically, with Smart Folders and Smart Mailboxes.

Smart Folders allows you to create a folder on your Mac that looks like a normal folder, but instead of you having to move or copy your files into it, it will ask you for a set of rules and automatically display files that match.

Do more with desktop apps

When you're looking to get more from your PC or Mac, the best place to start is by installing new applications that can expand the things that your computer can do. For example, you might want to install a game to play, install an app to allow you to access Twitter or Facebook without having to keep visiting their websites or install an app to help you keep notes or keep your photos organised.

Turning off smart quotes

If you're working a lot with websites, you need to stick with standard ASCII characters so that they can be displayed properly on the site. By default macOS uses 'smart quotes' in order to make the quotes look better in a document but these can cause problems if you try to copy and paste the text into a website CMS.
Luckily, it's very easy to turn off smart quotes so that you use standard ASCII characters instead.

Setting up 2FA on Office 365

One of the best things you can do to increase the security of your online accounts is to set up 2 Factor Authentication. This gives you an extra code you need to sign into your account, in addition to your username and password. In this tip we'll show you how to set this up on your Office 365 account.

How can I easily backup all the data on my mobile device?

More and more people are now only using a smartphone or a tablet rather than a desktop PC or a laptop, so these devices soon fill up with emails, photos and other important data. It's important to ensure that your mobile device is backed up so here we'll show you how to ensure that your mobile device is backed up.

Using "Find My" on Mac and iOS

Most Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, iMacs and even Apple Watch can be tracked using the built in Find My app. This can be really helpful if you ever lose a device. In this tip, we'll show you how it works.

Converting an image file in macOS Monterey

One of the new features included in macOS 12 Monterey, is the ability to convert an image file into a different format, as well as changing the size of the file and removing any metadata attached to the file.

In this tip, we'll show you how to do this with just a few clicks,