Syncing with iCloud

The greatest benefit of iCloud is keeping all your devices in sync. Add, edit or remove a contact on one device and it will automatically update on your other devices. But be aware, your master file is on icloud.com, so if you find you have duplicates, sign into iCloud and make your changes there.

For syncing photos, you must have iPhoto 9 ($14.99 in the App store) to automatically upload your Photo Stream to iCloud. To activate:

On your iOS devices, go to Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream, and turn on Photo Stream (or My Photo Stream).

On your Mac, go to System Preferences > iCloud and check the box for Photo Stream.

Photos are uploaded only when you are connected via Wi-FI, not over cell connections. Once there, they will be stored for 30 days to give all your devices time to sync. Your last 1,000 photos will be stored in Photo Stream on your devices- to keep them permanently, move them into another folder. (Click the + at the top of the window, use "edit' to add photos.) Photos sent to Photo Stream on your Mac will remain without the need to send them to other folders.

You can see which photos are in your album by choosing the Photo Stream tab- at the top of the Photos window on my iPad 1, which runs iOS 5, and at the bottom of the window on my iPhone, running iOS 6. Read  more about using Photo Stream with iCloud here.

Learn more about iCloud here with specifics here.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

when you can't wake your mac

I loved the old mac days when you could go into the system files and customize/tinker with them. As iPods, iPhones and iPads became more commonplace, more people moved to using all Macs (yay!) and Apple thought it advisable to hide some of the system folders to keep new users from inadvertently - or incorrectly - changing them. That’s great for families and casual users, but for pros, it meant giving up some control.

I work off a MacBook Pro connected to a Cinema display and this morning I couldn’t wake it from sleep. I had been advised to leave my laptop plugged in when using the Cinema display, but always working from direct power isn’t good for the battery, so my compromise has been to unplug my MacBook when I’m not working and it’s asleep. When I couldn’t wake it this morning, I carted it off to the Genius Bar to see if they could help me, and that’s exactly what they did- something I don’t think I could have done from home.

One of the new features of Lion is that your mac will start up every program you had open when you shut it down- a nifty feature if you tend to se the same programs every day. Your mac will start up and bring you back to just where you left off the previous session. But the more programs & windows you have open when you put it to sleep, the more your mac must remember each time. The only way to clear out all these remembered items is to actually turn the mac off and restart it, and if you never turn your mac off, eventually the space allotted for remembering items will fill up and your mac won’t wake up at all. The folder for this sleep data bank is hidden, so most users will need to bring their laptops to the Genius Bar to have the folder emptied. To avoid this eventuality, just remember to shut down your laptop sometimes and restart it, instead of always putting it to sleep.

Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! All content ©2011Canzani Graphics