MacOS Catalina, Apple’s most recent operating system for Mac, launched in October last year, with a host of new features and functionality. Catalina offers some significant changes and improvements, but it’s important to note that the new operating system will not work on all Macs. If your Mac was able to run macOS Mojave, chances are it will be able to run Catalina – but some applications will no longer be supported.
One of Catalina’s features which has been causing some confusion is the fact that Catalina only supports 64-bit applications. This is a problem for users of AccountEdge software, as this has 32-bit architecture and will not function on Catalina.
MYOB Australia, the provider of AccountEdge software, recently released the following statement:
“We regret to tell you it will not be possible to make AccountEdge Catalina-compliant. Despite exploring a range of options to meet the requirements of the Catalina upgrade, we have been advised it will not be possible to deliver a solution which will allow AccountEdge to operate as it does today.
“If you have not upgraded to Catalina, no immediate change is required. We will actively support AccountEdge for the foreseeable future, providing all the same updates, including fresh tax tables, to enable those on previous operating systems to proceed as normal.”
Your options are as follows:
If you are happy to go Cloud-based, Xero is a really good and popular option.
If you want to stay on-premises, consider Moneyworks.
If you insist on staying with MYOB, they have recently launched a hosted subscription service allowing you to access your AccountEdge file from a Catalina environment. You’ll need to pay a monthly fee for this service.
So, the takeaway for Mac users is to be careful with updating your operating systems to Catalina, as you first need to make sure that the operating system is compatible with your Mac or the apps you’re running on it. If you’re running older apps such as AccountEdge, you will need to check their compatibility before upgrading.
If you’re unsure, don’t go ahead with anything, but give us a call here at Mac Aid first. We’ll be able to advise you on whether you are able to update to Catalina safely, or what options you have if an upgrade is not recommended.
It’s that time of year when the summer holidays are nearly upon us, and everyone is starting to think about winding down for the end of the year. During the Christmas period, many of our Mac Aid technicians will be enjoying a much-needed break from the rush and hustle of the year.
We’ll still be available to help if you need support; however, we won’t have a full team of technicians on board over the Christmas and New Year period. The Mac Aid office will be staffed by a partial team of technicians between 20thDecember 2019 and 5thJanuary 2020. If you know you’ll be needing support during this period, we encourage you to get in contact with us now, so that we can make sure you get the support you need during the holiday break. This helps greatly to enable us to manage all our client’s needs while we’re operating with a skeleton staff.
We will return to normal on Monday 6thJanuary 2020, with our technicians back on board, and feeling refreshed, rested and ready to go after the holiday!
Wishing all our valued clients a wonderful holiday! We hope you enjoy a happy, healthy and safe break.
Apple has recently launched the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, and this overhauled device offers some heavy-duty improvements over the previous model. As well as giving you a larger 16-inch screen, the new MacBook Pro offers more power, better internal cooling, a bigger battery, an improved keyboard, louder speakers plus the potential to add on massive amounts of extra storage if needed.
The specs
The new MacBook Pro delivers a range of specs that customers have been seeking. Being touted as the world’s best professional notebook, the MacBook Pro offers:
16-inch Retina display
8-core processors
New Magic Keyboard
100Wh battery
Six-speaker sound system
Next-gen pro graphics
Upgraded thermal design
64GB of fast memory
Up to 8TB of storage
Wide colour (P3) and True Tone
Aspect ratio of 16:10
Brightness of 500 nits
Custom refresh rates
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
Turbo boost up to 4.5GHz
96W USB-C Power Adapter
Weight of 4.3 pounds
Measurements of 14.1 x 9.7 x 0.6 inches
Features
The new MacBook Pro features the same unibody aluminium design that will be familiar to past users, as well as a Touch Bar and a spacious trackpad. Available in silver and space grey, the MacBook Pro features a resolution of 3072 x 1920, which is equal to a density of 226 pixels per inch (PPI). The microphone is “studio quality” with high signal-to-noise ratio, and provides amazing sound quality without the distortion and vibration that can be common in other laptops.
The massive 100Wh battery will give you up to 11 hours of wireless use and provides plenty of endurance. While it’s not considered a gaming laptop per se, it’s certainly powerful and fast enough to use for most gaming purposes.
The display is one of the brightest and most colourful around and offers slimmer borders to help users feel more immersed in the experience. The new Magic Keyboard offers more key travel, improved reliability and a more stable feel – meaning your typing experience will be much more comfortable. Plus, it includes a physical escape key. The keyboard alone represents such a vast improvement on previous versions that it is probably enough to push many users into upgrading.
While the 16-inch MacBook Pro is highly functional with the base level configuration, you can also choose custom build-to-order configs, including greater turbo boost, memory and storage.
While the new MacBook Pro is already widely considered to be one of the best Apple laptops in years, there are a few small negatives. In terms of size, it’s a bit heavier and thicker than the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
The upshot
Apple has clearly listened to its customers and provided them with a laptop that delivers on many fronts. If you’re looking for a decent amount of power and sheer storage volume, you can’t go past the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Although it’s slightly larger, heavier and more expensive, the benefits far outweigh any slight drawbacks. Its great battery life means you can use it anywhere, and it’s very, very fast. It’s one of the best laptops around for power users.
We’ve all experienced the frustration of trying to work with a Mac that is running slow. When everything takes forever to load and you’re sick of spending half your time waiting for things to happen, it’s time to take action. Here are a few quick tips to try to speed up your Mac.
Clear up your hard drive
A full hard drive could be the main culprit to a slow-running Mac. When your hard drive is full of folders and files, it will take much longer to respond, to display objects and to load. It’s probably time to sort through those ancient folders that you’ve been meaning to delete for ages and get rid of what you no longer need. To make it easier, you can sort your folders by size or date, to find ones which are particularly large or old.
If you find that you want to keep all your old files, take the pressure off your hard drive by moving them to an external hard drive or using cloud storage. Or you could consider using an SSD (solid-state drive) to increase the speed.
Free up some RAM
When you run out of RAM, your system will have to use virtual memory instead, which relies on the hard drive to store information. This makes your Mac run super slow. Have a look at all the apps you are running, close the ones you don’t use and relaunch all the rest. Close out of your web browsers and reload them, and remember not to keep a heap of tabs open at once.
Remember to re-start your Mac using safe mode (or safe boot) to help prevent certain software from automatically opening, verify your startup disk, repair directory issues and delete system cache files. Start up in safe mode by taking the following steps:
Start or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold down the Shift key until you see the login window
If your Mac is running FileVault, you might then have to login twice – to unlock the startup disk and to login to the Finder
To clear your browser cache in Safari:
Choose Safari from the top menu and select Preferences
Choose the Advanced tab
Enable Show Develop Menu in the menu bar
Go to Develop in the menu bar
Choose Empty Caches
Quit your browser and restart it after clearing the cache
As Apple enthusiasts know, you can use your Apple devices to do awesome things. And when you use them together, what you can achieve is magnified, leaving you able to do so much more. Many people don’t realise just what is possible when you use the Continuity feature – which is a seamless way to move between your different devices and use them together. You can take calls on your iPhone without even picking it up, by using your Mac. You can also send text messages from your Mac. You can log in to your Mac using your Apple watch, rather than typing a password. You can copy images, text or video from one device to another easily and quickly. It’s possible to start work on a document on one device and then pick up where you left off on another. There are so many possibilities available to you when you use Continuity – but here are a few that we think will be useful.
Handoff
Handoff is where you begin working from one device, and then switch to another device nearby and seamlessly pick up where you left off.
Applications that will work with Handoff include Mail, Maps, Safari, Reminders, Calendar, Contacts, Pages, Numbers, Keynote and some third-party apps. Handoff can be activated on any Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple Watch.
To use Handoff, complete these steps for each device:
Sign into iCloud with the same Apple ID
Turn Bluetooth on
Turn Wi-Fi on
Turn Handoff on by:
Mac: Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > General > Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch: Go to Settings > General > Handoff, then turn on
On one device, open one of the above listed apps
When switching to:
Mac: Click on the icon in the Dock
iPhone, iPad or iPod touch: Unlock device; Open the multitasking screen (same method when switching between apps); Tap on the app banner at the bottom
Universal Clipboard
When you have multiple devices, Universal Clipboard is great for copying content such as text, images and videos on one Apple device and then pasting this same content on another Apple device, with unprecedented ease and speed. You can also use this feature to copy entire files from one Mac to another Mac; however just make sure that they both are on macOS High Sierra.
To use Universal Clipboard, complete these steps for each device:
Sign into iCloud with the same Apple ID
Turn on Bluetooth
Turn on Wi-Fi
Turn on Handoff
On the first device, copy the desired content as you would normally. It will then be automatically added to the clipboard of your next device. It will remain there for a brief period of time or until it is replaced by other copied content.
On the second device, paste the content as you normally would.
Instant Hotspot
The next time you want to go online and don’t have Wi-Fi, try Instant Hotspot, where your Mac or other device can remotely activate your iPhone’s personal hotspot when they are near each other, and provide internet access.
On your iPhone or iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular), go to Settings > Personal Hotspot.
To use Instant Hotspot, follow these steps on other devices:
Sign into iCloud with the same Apple ID
Turn on Bluetooth
Turn on Wi-Fi
To connect to your Personal Hotspot:
On Mac: Use the Wi-Fi symbol in the top menu bar, and click on the name of the device, providing the Personal Hotspot
On iPad, iPod touch or any other iPhone, go to Settings > Wi-Fi, then choose the name of the device, providing the Personal Hotspot
While all these features outlined above have different requirements and work in different ways, they are quite easy to set up and use once you know how, so give them a try. You’ll appreciate the added functionality your devices can provide.
