TO UPGRADE OR NOT?
Sierra has been out for several months.
We are recommending upgrading to Sierra IF you meet the following requirements:**
1. At minimum an i5 Processor and 8 GBs of ram. (You can check via Apple Menu > About This Mac - both pieces of information will be there.)
2. Ideally** your computer is from 2011 or newer.
3. Ideally** your computer has an SSD (Solid State Drive), Flash drive (non-moving), OR a Fusion drive. Most recent laptops and now many iMacs have this type of hard drive. Sierra is truly designed to run on an SSD drive and performance noticeably suffers on a traditional spinning hard drive so you would want to add more ram (memory).
4. You have verified that all your non-Apple apps are compatible - you can check here: http://roaringapps.com.
** NOTE: Apple's requirements are drastically lower than what I have listed above - BUT it is our experience that folks who upgrade with less than what is listed above are not happy with the speed and performance of the upgraded system.
So what if your computer doesn't meet "Ronnie's recommended" configuration?
All is not lost - sometimes we can assist in getting your older machine upgraded in such a way that running Sierra is possible OR you can choose to run El Capitan which is a perfectly fine system that will run a bit faster.
Remember if you are in doubt, just ask!!!
POLICY REMINDERS
At least once a year I like to publish our basic policies related to both home/office visits and phone/remote support appointments.
1. Home and Office visits require a one hour minimum charge and then are billed in 15 minute increments for the remaining time.
2. There is a flat $25 travel charge for all service outside of Santa Rosa city limits. Distances of over 45 minutes one way drive time may have an increased travel charge.
3. Tech support phone calls / remote support appointments are billed as follows:
- 5-15 minutes: $25 flat fee
- 16 to 30 minutes: $50 flat fee
- Anything over 30 minutes will be charged at the regular hourly rate. To serve you best we prefer to schedule these calls in advance unless it is an emergency.
4. We request that you honor our 24 hour cancellation/reschedule policy. If you do miss a scheduled appointment we will invoice you for one hour's time.
5. Payment is due at time of service* and we accept personal checks and all major credit cards. Our credit card processing is done through Square.
*IF you do need to be invoiced for payment later, please let the office know when scheduling the appointment.
TECH TIPS
iPhone - Searching for Objects in Photos
Photos in iOS 10 offers a way to search by the name of an object (just like the tip I gave for Sierra last month).
To Search for Objects in the Photos App:
- In the Photos app, navigate to any of the main pages: Photos, Memories, Shared, or Albums.
- Tap the Search icon at the top right (magnifying glass).
- Some suggestions will pop up, such as One Year Ago, Favorites, etc. In the search bar, type the name of the object you're looking for and then press Search.
This results in a list of choices. For example I chose "coffee" and this is my result!
Mac OS Sierra - Autocorrect
For a long time we have had autocorrect built into the Mac OS and it works quite wellin native Mac apps such as Mail and TextEdit. With Mac OS Sierra, Apple tweaked the autocorrect with two new additions: 1. Capitalize words automatically and 2. Add period with double-space.
In any OS you get to these settings via:
Apple Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard > Text
Try it and see what options you have that you can control!
