How Do I Turn the iPhone Off (and On Again)?

For the most part, you never have to power down your trusty iPhone, but there are two rare situations where doing so might be useful. If your battery is getting low and you won’t be able to charge before you absolutely need the phone later in the day, turning it off will prevent it from running out of juice. Also, if your iPhone is being weird (it is a computer, after all!), power cycling can reset its little iPhone brain. To pull its virtual plug, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until you get the necessary Slide to Power Off control. When it’s time to turn it back on, press and hold Sleep/Wake again until you see the Apple logo on the screen.

The Fastest Ways to Switch between Virtual Screens on Your Mac

When you click the green zoom button in a window on your Mac, that puts the window into full-screen mode. It’s a great way to maximize screen real estate on a smaller MacBook screen, for instance, but how can you switch between these virtual screens quickly? You could swipe up on the trackpad with four fingers and then click the icon representing the desired screen in Mission Control, but that’s pokey. Instead, swipe left or right with four fingers to hop between screens. Don’t have (or like using) a trackpad? You can keep your fingers on the keyboard by pressing Control-Left arrow or Control-Right arrow.

Reply Quickly to Messages on Your iPhone’s Lock Screen

Want a faster way to reply to a conversation in Messages? If you see a Messages notification on the Lock screen of your iPhone 6s or later, press and hold on it to expand it into an interactive box where you can reply without unlocking your iPhone or navigating into the Messages app. It’s perfect for those sporadic conversations where the iPhone goes back into your pocket or purse after each reply. (On an iPad or older iPhone, you’ll have to slide left on a Lock screen notification and unlock the device to open the Messages app.)

Here’s Your 30-second Crash Course in Dealing with Broken Web Pages

We’ve all hit a Web page at some point that doesn’t load fully, looks wrong, or doesn’t work as it should. It’s not your fault, but here are a few things you can try on your Mac. First, press Command-R to reload the page. Second, quit and relaunch Safari. Third and finally, try a different browser, like Google Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or Opera. If nothing works, try again later or report the problem to the site’s webmaster.

Try This Quick Shortcut for Turning Off iPhone Alarms

If you’re like us, your iPhone has replaced that old digital alarm clock by your bedside. But one way that the iPhone doesn’t match up is the ease of thwacking a big Off button to stop the annoying wake-up noise. Happily, you don’t have to open your eyes and find the Stop button to silence the alarm—instead, just reach out and press the Home button.

Clear Your Mac Desktop by Removing Unnecessary Menu Bar Status Icons

You know all those status icons on the right side of your Mac’s menu bar? Many of them are useful, but if your menu bar is cluttered with icons you don’t need, you can make your Mac easier to use by removing the extras. Just hold down the Command key and drag an offending icon off the menu bar; you’ll see an X below the dragged icon to indicate that it will disappear when you let up on the mouse button. If you later decide you want it back, look for a “Show icon-name in menu bar” checkbox in an associated pane of System Preferences.

How to Recover from the Dreaded “No Service” on Your iPhone

Have you ever found your iPhone showing “No Service” in the upper-left corner instead cell service bubbles, even when you know there should be cellular reception in your location? It doesn’t happen often, but the iPhone has been known to lose connectivity when it shouldn’t. To fix this problem, open Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of the screen and tap the airplane icon to enable airplane mode. Wait a few seconds, and tap the same icon again to turn airplane mode off and reset the iPhone’s radios. If that doesn’t work, hold the Sleep/Wake button until you see the Power Off slider. Slide it to turn the iPhone off, then press Sleep/Wake again to start it up.

Count Selected Items in a Folder with the Finder’s Status Bar

When you work in a Finder window on the Mac, take note of the helpful Status bar. It can tell you how many items are in a folder, as well as how many items you have selected. This latter bit of information is useful if, say, you need to move five items to another folder and you want to verify that you’ve selected all five. The Status bar also shows the amount of free space remaining on your drive and provides a slider to change icon size if the window is in Icon view. Look for the Status bar at the bottom of every Finder window (or the top, if the toolbar is hidden). If you don’t see it, choose View > Show Status Bar.