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Using Your iPhone: Answers To 13 Questions You Were Afraid To Ask

Article from www.businessinsider.com by Ellis Hamburger

We often hear the same problems from first-time iPhone owners. They don't know how to use their fancy new device.

It can be daunting moving from that ancient flip phone to a powerful touchscreen device. Those newbies don't always know what they're missing. Here are the most common questions we're asked about iPhones, as well as the clever answers to those problems. Plus, you'll find a ton of useful tips and tricks along the way.

"How do I select multiple pictures or emails?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To select multiple items in your Photos app, tap the arrow in the top right corner of your screen, then start tapping on pictures to select them. You can email a maximum of five photos. To select multiple items in your Mail app, tap Edit in the top right corner of your screen, then tap on emails to select them.

From there, you can move emails, mark them all as read, and delete them.

"How do I get my push emails like on my old Blackberry?"

 

 

 

Setting up your Gmail account by tapping Gmail is not the best way to do it.Setting up Gmail as an "Exchange" account means you can do more cool stuff like get emails pushed to your phone and access all of your Google Calendars.

"Can I view more emails on screen at once?"

 

The iPhone's default "email preview" makes it so you can't view that many emails on screen at one time. If you want to be more economical about scrolling through emails, check out this option:

Go to your Settings app, then tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, then tap "Preview" and pick how many lines you want each email to take up in your inbox. The more lines, the more words of "preview text" you get below each email header.

"How do I change music tracks without unlocking my iPhone?"

 

 

 

Unless you discover this feature accidentally, you probably wouldn't know that if you double-tap your home button, you can play/pause music, as well as snap a quick picture! We use this trick all the time to take pictures and change music tracks.

One more camera tip: use the "volume up" button on your iPhone's side as a camera shutter button.

"My picture came out the wrong way, so I have to cock my head to look at it."

 

 

A cool new iOS5 feature is that you can rotate pictures once you've taken them. Open a picture inside your Photos app, tap the screen to bring up your options, and tap edit in the top right corner. Then tap the arrow in the bottom left corner until the imageis the way you like it. Then, tap Save.

"How do I stop my battery from dying so quickly?"

 

 

The most important reason that the iPhone's battery life stinks is because everyone uses it so much. But there are a few things you can do to make your battery life a bit better.

1. Turn off the Weather Widget and Stocks Widget in Notifications Center. Go to Settings, Notifications, Weather or Stock Widget, then switch to "Off."

2. Turn down the brightness on your screen a bit. Go to Settings, then Brightness, and make sure "Auto Brightness is "On." Then, lower the brightness slider to just below halfway.

3. Change your email "Fetch" settings. Go to Settings, then Mail Contacts And Calendars, then "Fetch New Data". Turn off Push (if you receive a million emails per day), and change Fetch to "Every 30 Minutes" or more.

"How do I view my week at a glance?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you're in your Calendar app, turn your iPhone sideways. That's it!

"Why won't my phone go into landscape mode when I turn it sideways?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, but you accidentally tapped the "Orientation Lock" button. To turn off "Orientation Lock", double tap your home button, swipe to the right and tap the arrow button.

"I can't connect to my Wi-Fi network anymore."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wi-Fi routers are fickle creatures. Whether it's a problem on your iPhone or a router problem, one quick trick to "start from scratch" with your Wi-Fi connection is by forgetting a network you've joined.

Go to Settings, then Wi-Fi, then tap the blue arrow next to the network you want to forget, then tap "Forget This Network."

Once you've forgotten the network, tap it in your Wi-Fi screen to do a fresh re-connect.

"How do I get those emoji icons everybody uses?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone seems to be having a ball sending emoji emoticons back and forth. Here's how to enable them in your iPhone, no app required!

Go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then International Keyboards. Tap "Add New Keyboard" and tap "Emoji."

Now whenever you're typing, you can tap the Globe icon to the left if your space bar to use Emoji emoticons.

"How do I go back to where I just was?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're reading an email and you click a link, you get warped into Safari, the iPhone's web browser. But how do you quickly get back to the email you were reading? Double tap your home button and you'll see a tray pop up. Tap  the bottom left icon to go back to your most recently used app. It's that simple.

"I can't find the settings I'm looking for."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty often, the settings you're looking for (like turning off Facebook's annoying push notifications) aren't actually located inside the app itself.

Go to Settings, then scroll down to a list of apps. Here's where you'll find many miscellaneous settings you won't find elsewhere.

"I hate having to scroll all the way back to the top of the screen."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter what app you're in, tap the clock (or anywhere  in the Status Bar) to instantly return to the top of the webpage or app you're looking at.

We use this one all the time.

Need help with something not covered here?

 

If you want to know how to do everything on your iPhone, you'll need to do some experimenting.

Press every button, go into every Settings menu. Double tap random stuff to see what happens. Long press (hold down your finger) on stuff to see what kind of menus pop up.

This is the best way to ever truly get to know your iPhone.

 

For more Tech Tips 247 Click Here

Did you know that if you own an Android phone, it can be used as a substitute for an external drive or a USB key? It's easy! Simply plug your phone into a PC with a USB cable, then select "Mount" when you are prompted by  the  system. This will mount the internal storage of the Android device as an external drive, and you can drag and drop files or create folders on the device just as you would with an external USB drive. It is best to do this on an SD (secure digital) card, which you can buy for your phone, if it did not come with one already installed.  

 

 

More Tech Tips 247

 

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 Many small businesses have them: the accidental IT man or woman who was hired for one thing, but ends up doing that plus all the computer work.    

It’s a common scenario—after all, most small businesses are full of employees wearing multiple hats. And while these accidental IT workers may know basic technology procedures like how to network printers, manage email or set up smartphones, often times they aren’t experts, which can expose a business to potential security problems. 

“There’s a misconception that if someone is an expert in one piece of technology they know everything,” says Cindy Bates, vice president of Microsoft Small and Midsize Business. “If someone knows about setting up email they may not know about databases.”

These accidental IT employees can make small businesses vulnerable to hackers if they aren’t deploying adequate security software correctly and staying current on potential threats. Small businesses have increasingly become targets for hackers because of the assumption they don’t have the funds to have the same level of security present at larger companies.

“Technology is a competitive advantage that can’t be taken lightly,” says Bates.  

Small businesses with limited resources don’t have to put security on the backburner, there are cheap and free ways to get IT help without relying on non-expert employees.

“Today technology is much simpler,” says Bates. “There are a lot of great cloud-based offerings bringing the power of enterprise software down to the single-person office.”

There are a host of cloud- based applications that do everything from managing customer relationships, to sales contacts and contracts. Small businesses don’t even have to house the hardware on sit. Companies like Amazon.com  will provide the storage and computing power for a monthly fee. 

Outside IT help doesn’t stop at cloud-based applications. Small businesses can get help and support for as little as $100 a month, according to Bates.

“A big trend is managed services where small businesses pay monthly for a technology provider to take care of everything,” she says. She adds more small business owners are choosing to go this route because they are realizing the cost is minimal to have an IT company manage the systems compared to if the business goes down for a day or more.

On top of accessing the cloud for applications and turning to a service provider to manage IT, many companies offer affordable software packages to handle all the different aspects of running a small business. For instance Microsoft’s Office 365  costs $6 per month per user, and gives a small business email, the ability to share documents and web conferencing. Meanwhile Google Apps for Business costs $5 a month for each user and gives the company business grade email, a Google calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites--which is an easy way to create intranets and group websites.

Keeping a small business’s computers security up to date and protected is important to ensure the business stays up and running. While it’s easy to assign that task to an employee, there are free and affordable applications available that can take on the load.

Article by Donna Fuscaldo from the Fox Small Business Center

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ACH Hoax Alert

It's not often we send out a special alert to clients but we feel that is important to pass along some information about an ACH hoax that has been circulating through many of your email boxes lately.

If you transfer any kind of funds through ACH (Automatic Clearing House) such as payroll transactions, recurring invoices or membership dues you need to pay particular attention to any correspondence you may be receiving related those transfers. We've had at least two clients affected to date who have been compromised by replying with information to a seemingly official email. The emails we have seen lately have ACH in the title and refer to a failed transaction.

Our quick advice - if it looks the least bit suspicious to you, make a call to the bank or clearing house that you use. Prevention is always better than the cure!

This is an example of the one I received again this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Holidays,

Deana Pizzo, CEO

IT Solutions of South Florida

more of TechTips247 by IT Solutions of South Florida