iCreate - UK (2019-09)

The one-stop

column for

Geniusadvice

Apple

Expert

I have tried everything to

get my printer working

but my Mac isn’t having

any of it. Is there anything

I may have forgotten?

How about repairing disk

permissions? This has been

known to address certain

printer issues. To do it,

open the Disk Utility app,

select your startup disk and

then click on the ‘Repair

Permissions’ option.

How can I eject a CD that

is stuck in my Mac?

If a disc refuses to eject

and isn’t being used by any

open applications then try

restarting your Mac while

holding down the left mouse

button. This should force the

opening of all optical drives

and eject your disc. You

can also try opening your

Terminal app and typing

‘drutil tray open’ before

hitting Enter.

How do I reset my

administrator password?

It can be problematic if you

forget your administrator

password when you want

to install new software. You

need to reboot your Mac

to the recovery partition on

your hard drive by holding

down Cmd+R during

startup. When you see the

startup screen, let go of the

keys and when the machine

boots it should display the

OS X Utilities screen. Go to

Utilities>Terminal and then

type ‘resetpassword’ and hit

Enter. You can now select a

drive, user and password.

After saving, restart.

Is it true that I can add data to spreadsheets using my iPhone

camera? This would be a massive time-saver! James Spendlove

1

Create new doc

Launch Excel on your iPhone

and start a new workbook, then

tap the Data from Picture icon

and grant permission for Excel to

access your camera.

2

Snap and crop

Take a picture of the data

you wish to import and then crop

it using the handles. Tap ‘Done’

when you have finished and the

data will be processed.

3

Insert data

If you’re lucky the data will

have been captured perfectly. If

not, manually correct any mistakes

before tapping the ‘Insert’ button.

Simple, right?

Indeed it is true, although this feature only works with

Microsoft Excel and not Numbers at present, although

there is a workaround for this. Follow the steps below

to import data into an Excel spreadsheet using your

iPhone camera and then when the data is presented

in the spreadsheet, select the ‘Copy to Numbers’

option to transfer the captured data across to a new

Numbers document.

3

Clear folders

You can now go through

and clear out the contents of

each folder, but make sure you

keep the folders themselves.

1

Find folder

In Finder, press Cmd+N to

open a new window and then

click on the ‘Go’ menu and

choose ‘Go to Folder’.

4

More caches

Repeat step 1 but this time

type /Library/Caches (no ‘~’

this time) to find more caches to

clear out. Restart afterwards.

2

Enter location

You will now need to

manually type in the folder

location. Type ~/Library/Caches

and then hit the Enter button.

5

Clear Safari

You can clean your Safari

cache by going to Safari>

Preferences>Advanced and

enabling the Develop menu.

Someone told me that

emptying my Mac’s

caches will help to speed it

up. How do I do this?

Carol McLaren-May

The more we use our Macs,

small files are stored in cache

folders that speed up certain

processes. However, over time

these folders can get pretty

rammed and so a good clear out

is definitely recommended.