Imagine walking into your local big box store to buy a $500 gift card. You try to redeem it to pay for your iCloud storage, but the card number gets declined. To make matters worse, Apple flags your account for fraud. Suddenly, they lock your entire account. Now, you are completely shut out. Your iCloud account, photos, music, and every other Apple service you subscribe to are now inaccessible.

Everyone always talks about using long and complex passwords and two-factor authentication to keep hackers out. But what if the company you entrust with your data is the one that locks you out? What is the recourse? What if they don’t see the problem the way you do? They might simply say you violated a policy, never tell you the specifics, and leave you with no access.

taking pictures or recording video with an iPhone and having it automatically back up to the cloud is incredibly convenient. I am not going to stop doing that anytime soon, and neither are most of you. However, we really need to think about situations like the one I described above because this isn’t just a hypothetical scenario; it actually happened to, Paris Buttfield-Addison, a user in Australia. As of this writing, I don’t believe he has resolved the issue. Apple reportedly won’t tell him exactly why they locked his account, at least not with enough detail for him to fix it. You can read all about his nightmare situation on his blog.

Do you have a backup of all your data in case that happens to you?

I wrote about a possible solution a little while ago using an app called Parachute. This tool connects to my iCloud account, downloads all the synchronized pictures and videos, and backs them up to my NAS at home. I also have another instance running that downloads my pictures onto an external hard drive or SSD at a different location. The app even lets you download your iCloud Drive files, which I have opted to do as well. Just in case.

If you don’t have a plan yet, I suggest you start thinking about your exit strategy. Just like it happened to that gentleman in Australia, it could happen to any of us. The folks at MacBreak Weekly did a great job explaining the problem and discussing solutions, so check them out in the video below, too.

#DataBackup #iCloud

I wanted to try embedding some video from a site other than YouTube, so I am trying it out here. The primary goal, therefore, is not the content of the video, but whether I can embed it successfully and have it play reliably.

It is a short video I found from 2023, where I was participating in ARRL’s Field Day event at the local ham radio club. If you are a ham, you can appreciate the video and know how exciting it can get when you are working a pile up. This was probably late into the night, so things are a bit slower and more relaxed. If you are not a ham, and this sort of thing seems interesting to you, go check out your local ham radio club. People in those clubs are generally extremely welcoming and willing to take the time to show you the ropes and teach you a thing or two about communications around the world. It’s great!

I love watching Pewter McKinnon’s videos. He is always so pumped, funny and makes great content, to boot. Check out his gift guide (for yourself) below.

Two essential accessibility tools for us visually impaired computer users are the magnifier and text-to-speech. Personally, I use the Magnifier/zoom feature to navigate around, but I lean heavily on text-to-speech when “reading” anything on websites, PDFs, or other documents. Both Windows and macOS offer these tools, and they’re virtually the same across platforms.

I’ve had an easier time using them on macOS because I use a trackpad where a three-finger swipe combination zooms the screen in and out. This is very smooth, and I can control it precisely. Windows, on the other hand, relies on keyboard shortcuts to enable the Magnifier. You typically press the Windows key and the plus key to zoom in or the minus key to zoom out. The problem? It’s very clunky. I’ve always had to press the Windows key and repeatedly tap the plus or minus key to reach my desired zoom level. A workaround was to get a configurable mouse like the MX Master series and map the mouse keys to zoom in and out more easily. Well, apparently one of the latest Windows 11 updates has changed this.

Most of us have a preferred zoom level we like to work at comfortably, but we do need to zoom out occasionally to get our bearings. In the past, it was especially annoying to repeatedly press a key to zoom out in steps. This new update apparently allows you to press Control + Tab, then use the plus or minus keys to zoom in and out very quickly. You zoom in to whatever level you want, then press the key combination to zoom out all at once with the minus key or return to your zoom level by pressing the plus key.

The other improvement involves the text-to-speech voices. If you’ve ever heard anyone use text-to-speech or use it yourself, you know the voices tend to be pretty robotic. I have to say, they are getting better, especially if you’ve been using these voices for a while. They were horrible before and are pretty good now, although they still don’t sound completely natural. Well, Microsoft, along with other companies, has started working on that. In this Windows 11 update, there are new voices that sound more natural and are more comfortable to listen to, especially for the longer articles you might come across.

This YouTube video below, by The Blind Life, walks through both of these updates in more detail. If you or someone you know uses these features and would benefit from watching it, please share.

#Accessibility #AssistiveTech

Some YouTube channels, like MKBHD, produce truly great content. What makes it great? The production value of their videos is consistently top-tier. In a recent video, “The MKBHD Method™ For Editing High Quality Videos,” his team gives us a sneak peek into what it takes to achieve this level of quality. It’s essentially a mini masterclass in what happens after the video is captured.

They cover everything: taking raw footage and crafting the most compelling story possible, color grading to enhance the visual appeal, adding motion effects, and much more. One of my favorite parts was when they discussed audio, including music selection and voice treatment. They make it look so easy, but you can clearly see that it is not.

Once again, I had the pleasure of attending a marching band competition. Like previous times, I was amazed by the talent these high school students display. Not only are they exceptional musicians playing some of the best music you’ll ever hear, but they also possess a level of coordination and synchronization that’s second to none.

Even though today was the first competition of the year, they’ve been working tirelessly for months, perfecting their craft. Their dedication and relentless drive is a characteristic I wish I saw in more people.

If these are our leaders of tomorrow, our future looks bright!

Below is a tiny glimpse of what you can expect to see at one of these competitions. I strongly recommend you check one out at some point in your life. You won’t be disappointed.

No matter how you feel about Steve Jobs, he was clearly an intelligent and focused individual. While he admitted he wasn’t great at everything, he excelled at two things: telling it like it was and delivering on what he set out to do.

Here’s the good news: we can do this too. It starts with focus and knowing when to ask for help.

A few years ago, I started learning about sketchnoting. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, bought a book on it, and used it for a while. I even collaborated with my local art teacher and passed on our knowledge to quite a few people. I admit, I’m not a very good artist, but the sketches were more than adequate to achieve my goal: to record information and have it make sense to me at a future date. Although I slowed down in using sketchnoting, I still use some remnants of it today. Then, I saw this quick little video on sketchnoting, and now I want to get back into it using my iPad and GoodNotes.

If you’re interested, take a look yourself. It’s a very short video, but very concise and informative.

I am always fascinated to see how things are made or how things work. This is especially true for things that I love, like books. Adam Savage did a great job showing us how old books were made in this video.

iPadOS 26 has officially turned the iPad into the most Mac-like device ever — but there’s more happening under the surface.

Fernando from 9to5Mac hits it right on the head. The iPad is getting closer and closer to being very Mac-like with the new iPadOS 26 and I really like it.

The 5 biggest improvements for me have to be…

• True background processes, so you don’t have to babysit things like video exports.
• The Files app acts more like the Finder with functionality like being able to pin files and rearrange column headers.
• The new windowing system lets you resize and reposition apps to your liking.
• The top menu bar for easy access to app-specific shortcuts and keyboard commands.
• Preview app to scan documents and annotate PDFs.