 I see so many clients who have so many duplicated Contacts on the iPhone, iPad or Mac. The good news is that there is a really quick and easy way to identify and merge your duplicated contacts. Find out how in this week's Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members. If you are not yet a member, find out more about the club and how to join here » Related Handy Hints and ArticlesMac Handy Hints (for iTandCoffee Club members only) iPad and iPhone Handy Hints (for iTandCoffee Club members only)
iPad and iPhone iBlog articles Here's how to learn more about your Mac!
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 A frustrating 'gap' on the iPad and iPhone is the inability to create 'contact groups' in the Contacts app, and then easily email or message such a group from your mobile device. I have just seen a really handy app that fills this gap well, and that is currently free (as at 11/2/17). I actually prefer it over a previously featured app that includes group creation functionality (Mail2Group). The app is called ContactsXL 2016 and can be found here ». (There is also a paid Contacts XL 2017 version - but the 2016 version seems to work well, so have just been using this free version.) Try it out and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. Related Handy Hints and ArticlesHandy Hints
Blog articles: A change that seems to have arrived as part of MacOS Sierra 10.12.1 has been causing me lots of grief on a couple of the websites that I use day in, day out. On my booking and account system websites, there has always been 'autofill' functionality that cleverly fills in the details of clients and suppliers based on information already stored in those two systems. The client/supplier information that it fills in is specific to each system, and is not necessarily stored in my Contact data. However, a new 'autofill' feature in MacOS Sierra and iOS 10 has enabled the filling in of these fields using my Contacts data instead. This is making it hard to get to the built-in autofill details that are displayed by the system I am using, as the Contacts suggestions are displaying on top of the system autofill details. Below shows an example of what happens on my booking system's website.  Has anyone else been having issues with this?
Luckily, there is a solution - one that allows you to tell your Mac to stop offering Contacts suggestions for fields that represent names. Find out how to do this on your Mac in this weeks' handy hint for iTandCoffee Club members. Not yet a member of The iTandCoffee Club? Find out more here. A look at MacOS Sierra - at the November Mac User Group For anyone who is interested in coming along to a one-hour 'Mac User Group' session where we will look at the features of MacOS Sierra, the next Mac User Group will be held on Tuesday November 15th at 1pm. We need a minimum of 6 people for this session to proceed, so get your booking in ASAP if you are interested. If you need more information, just call 1300 885 420. 
Last newsletter featured an article about how to correct the name on your iPad or iPhone, in Settings -> General -> About.
Since that newsletter, I have had a couple of other queries from people who have found that their Contacts app shows someone else's details at the top of the list of their contacts. Check your own Contacts app to see what is showing above your first entry. Is it your own name, or perhaps another family member's? Incorrect details here can be easily corrected. In iOS 8 and earlier, go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts and Calendar, to the My Info field. In iOS9 and later, got to Settings -> Contacts -> My Info ​Tap this field, and choose YOUR OWN contact card. (If you don't have a contact card with your phone number and email address, create this first in the Contacts app - then come back and adjust this setting.) ​ 
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 Do you have a group of people who you need to email on a regular basis on your Mac? This group could be your team, committee members, your book group, your family, or just a group of friends. Creation of Groups is done in the Contacts App. The process is
View the step-by-step instructions for creating a Contacts Group, and then how to email that group, in this week's Mac Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members. Join the iTandCoffee Club today to view a huge list of hints and tips like this one. Related Handy Hints and tips For some reason, Apple does not seem to want to make it easy for us to set up Contact Groups on our iPads and iPhone using its standard apps. Why are Contact Groups important? Let's look at an example. You may regularly want to send an email to your Book Group, which perhaps has 10 people in it. Wouldn't it be great if you could just choose a 'book group' Contact group and have all the email addresses filled in automatically in your 'To' field of the email. This would be far easier than typing the names of each member of the group every time you send such an email. For those of us who have a computer, we can get around this limitation of the iPad and iPhone by creating a group on the computer and emailing the group from there. However, many people these days don't actually have a computer. They only have an iPad, and perhaps an iPhone. I've done some research on this. The good news is that there IS a solution for the iPad and iPhone. You CAN actually create a Contact Group on your iPad or iPhone and you CAN select that group and insert the corresponding list of contacts into your Mail's To field (or Cc, Bcc field) with just a tap. Find out how in the following Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members. Not yet a member? Join the club today! Related Handy Hints for iTandCoffee Club members (Find out how to Join the Club here)
 This question was asked at iTandCoffee twice this week, and I know that it is something that is especially great to know when it comes to addressing those envelopes for the Christmas cards.
Printing of addresses on labels and envelopes is SO easy when you have a Mac. I wrote a Handy Hint on this topic a couple of years ago not, so I figure now is a good time to recycle that hint, which is available in the iTandCoffee Club's members only area. For those of you who are members, here 'tis!  iOS 9 has brought some great new features to the iPad and iPhone.
One that I have been finding particularly useful allows me to really easily search people's contact details and call or text them (for those occasions where I don't want to ask Siri to do this for me). This feature is one of the new Spotlight Search capabilities. Find out more about this feature in this iPhone Handy Hint, for iTandCoffee Club members. Make sure you have signed in - use the link in the right-hand sidebar if you haven't yet.) Not yet a member of The iTandCoffee Club? Why not join today. You'll get access to iTandCoffee's ever-growing library of Handy Hints, special members-only information sessions and other special offers advertised from time to time.  I have a friend called Sueanne, and Sueanne is someone who I call and text on a regular basis. However, Siri has never been able to understand me when I say 'Call Sueanne', translating this to 'Call Sue and' instead. This means that I am then asked with Sue I want to call - and Sueanne is not in the list that is provided. Normally, when Siri 'misunderstands' me, I get the chance to tap 'Edit' at the top right and correct 'her' translation of what I said. (By the way, if you would rather have a smooth-talking male Siri instead, check out this other Handy Hint about how to change Siri's voice.) Today, I finally took the time to sort out this Siri annoyance. It involved setting up some additional information in Sueanne's Contact record. Find out how in this Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members. (Sign in here first, if you are not already signed in.) Not yet a member of The iTandCoffee Club? Why not join today, for access to iTandCoffee's vast library of Handy Hints, special members-only information sessions and other special offers advertised from time to time. Related Articles and Handy Hints
 Yet another reason why I love Evernote (not that I needed any more!)
If you are an Evernote user, try this out next time you get a business card from someone - one that you want to save to your Contacts. Clever Evernote can scan the business card, work out the details of the person from the business card, and then automatically create a Contact from the details it detects! Find out more about this great feature of Evernote in this article on the Evernote website. Everyone needs Evernote in their life!! Do you have it is yours? If you want to learn about Evernote and how to use it, why not come along to our next 'Introduction to Evernote' class scheduled in July. Further details of this class can be found here. Why not join us to find out how organised you can become by using Evernote. Making sure that your contacts' names appear in the Messages and Phone apps when you travel OS
9/4/2015
 One of the things that can happen when you travel overseas is that phone calls and messages that you receive while travelling don't seem to be able to show the Contact name associated with the number - even though the person contacting you is actually in your Contacts App.
The reason this happens is that the number that has contacted you has an international code in front of it, but the corresponding Contact's card in your Contacts app does not include this international code in front of that person's phone number. Because of this, the Messages and Phone apps cannot match the received number to a number in your Contacts, so no name is shown. The easy way to solve this problem is the just add the international dialling prefix to each of your Contact's phone numbers in the Contacts app - eg for Mebourne phone numbers, you would add +613. For mobile numbers, you add +61, but drop the leading zero of the mobile number. But, what do you do if you have hundreds (or even thousands) of contacts? Well, there's an app for everything - and I found an app that sorted this out for me really easily. It is called Plus One. I downloaded it to my iPhone from the App Store, for a cost of $1.29. I got this app to select all my contacts that were missing 'international codes', and then I 'unselected' any that did not need to have extra digits added (for example, 13 or 18 numbers). Then, I told it to add the Australian international code to each of the still-selected contacts. Just like magic, it sorted all of them out - even adding the 3 for Melbourne numbers. You can check out this app in the app store here >>
This hint is accessible to all readers until next Friday, 6th March - after this, it will only be available to members of The iTandCoffee Club. Why not JOIN NOW?
For those of you who are already iTandCoffee Club members, check out these other great tips for using the Contacts app ...
 Your iPhone and iPad are very clever at remembering the email addresses of people with whom you correspond via email. But what if you send an email to someone for the first time from your iPhone. Your iPhone will remember that email address, but your iPad won’t necessarily know about it. Even worse, if you lose one of your devices (or just switch to a new one), you may find that all the email addresses that you thought were 'saved away' were actually only 'known' to that lost device.  To ensure that all devices 'know about' the email addresses of the people you contact (and who contact you), and to ensure that you don’t lose all this information if you no longer have the device, it is important that you save email addresses to your Contacts app.
(Note. The same applies to phone numbers, but we'll cover that in a separate handy hint.)Your Contacts app is your Address Book on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, to which you should save all information about email addresses, phone numbers and addresses for the people in your life. Your Contacts app is your Address Book on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, to which you should save all information about email addresses, phone numbers and addresses for the people in your life. If you sign in to iCloud on each device and turn on the ‘Contacts’ setting in iCloud, you will find that all your devices can share the same address book information. This means that you only have to create or change a Contact on one device, and it will magically appear on other devices. From your Mail app, it is so easy to get the email addresses of the people with whom you correspond into your Contacts - all it takes is a couple of taps! Find out more here in this week's Handy Hint - which includes both a video AND written instructions. (Important Note. This hint will be available to all readers until Friday 27th Feb 2015. After that, only members of The iTandCoffee Club will have access to view this hint. Join the club today, and gain access to a huge number of handy hints just like this one!) With my daughter's 21st coming up very soon (eeek!), there was, over the weekend, the need to send out a batch of invitations to some family members. Here is yet another thing that I love about my Mac! Printing of addresses on envelopes is just so easy, as long as you have people's addresses in your Contacts (which I do). It is all done using the Contacts app on your Mac. You can either
  So, I set up an 'Amy Party' group in Contacts, then dragged the required Contacts into that group. Once I had the list set up , I clicked on my new Group in Contacts, and selected all of the names in the list using Command-A. I then chose File->Print, chose my envelope size, then hit the Print button! There are standard envelope sizes provided in the Print dialog, or you can customise your own envelope size and the positioning of the address on the envelope. You can even choose whether or not to include a return address at the top left of the envelope. For the envelopes I was using, I needed to quickly create a custom envelope of the required size, which I called Std Envelope (which will now be available for any future envelope printing requirements).  We'll be writing a more detailed handy hint about this feature soon, for those out there who need more information than that provided above.
For now, you can check out the below link for a Macworld article which provides a pretty good overview of this fantastic built-in feature:
After trying initially to work out the source, she determined pretty quickly that she needed to call the fire brigade, who were there within 4 minutes! It turned out that the source of the smoke was a fire that had started in her computer tower, down under her desk!
While she was so incredibly lucky to have been awake and have detected the smoke so early, her poor computer was not so lucky! And while she had a back up of her important files, what she did not have on that backup was her list of contacts - all the email addresses for family, friends, work colleagues etc. So her lesson learned, she called iTea&Coffee to find out the best way of ensuring now that her contacts (especially) are 'cloud-based' so that she can access them even if something were to happen to her computer. She was very keen for me to get the message out to other iTea&Coffee clients and subscribers about the lesson she has learned - don't think this sort of thing can't happen to you! If you need help with better understanding or putting in place any cloud storage solutions for your contacts and other important data, just contact iTea&Coffee on 1300 885 420 - or email enquiry@itandcoffee.com.au. |
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