Is SSD worth it on an old computer? Yes! SSD prices are dropping and the migration/installation is very easy. The “Data Migration Program” that came with my Samsung EVO did the cloning perfectly – it was a drop-in replacement and, boom, it was all fast like never before.

Please, forgive me if it sounds too incredible. But it is true: you change 1 (one) component and suddenly everything is snappy fast (unless all you do is CPU data crunching).

Since 2009, I started using a Macbook as my main work computer. It came with a traditional hard-disk and I used it that way during 4 years. Then I changed its HDD for an SSD… what a difference! In 2013 those 500GB were expensive – but the productivity gain was brutal. It was my working tool, so it was worth the price.

Besides the Mac, we always had a PC around at home. We use it sporadically… so, we never considered buying an SSD for it – until now.

Check it out on Amazon:

Here you have my affiliate link*. The Samsung 850 EVO line is offered in 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities. I bought the 500GB one. Once at Amazon, you have easy buttons to change the capacity and compare the prices:

• Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD 

* Whatever product you buy, soon after clicking my link, you are helping me a big deal. Thank you for your support!

On both occasions I bough SSDs from Samsung after reading lots of reviews and some performance/endurance/energy-efficiency tests. There are other SSD brands who demand even more energy than an mechanical hdd, which on a laptop is a deal breaker to me. Right now Samsung offers a very good relation between price/capacity/performance/endurance and consumption (battery time).

This content was NOT sponsored. I just like Samsung TVs and SSDs

Quick and easy, step-by-step, troubleshooting guide:

The new Apple TV is a hit! And the AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring got much more stable and faster on the 4th generation device! Even so, problems can still happen, specially with AirPlay. It can be some weirdness on your router, or the iPhone itself… streaming video/screen of the iPhone to the Apple TV involve a lot of technologies.

But don’t worry. Just watch the video and do all the following 9 steps to fix AirPlay problems:

1. Turn OFF the Cable Modem, Router and Wifi
2. On the Apple TV, close all running apps
3. Restart the Apple TV
4. On the iPhone and/or iPad, close all the running apps
5. Restart the iPhone and iPad
6. Turn ON your Cable Modem, Router and Wifi
7. Enable Bluetooth on iPhone and iPad
8. Be sure all devices are using the same Network
9. Keep your devices updated

Putting all devices in the same network and enabling Bluetooth makes AirPlay much easier to work. It is also possible to do “Peer-to-peer AirPlay” from an iPhone or iPad who is NOT connected on the same network, which is useful mostly at offices and schools.

AirPlay Support links

Apple has some very nice and detailed support content about AirPlay troubleshooting:

• Get help with AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204291
• Use AirPlay to wirelessly stream content from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (contains some information about peer-to-peer AirPlay):
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204289

I hope it helped you!

The battery of my iPhone 5 suddenly expanded…

Not fixing your iPhone’s swelling battery can be very disastrous: the battery can expand so much at the point of cracking / breaking the screen/display glass!

In the case of expanding / swelling batteries, take it seriously: even if there is no “official” program for it, take your device for an inspection at an Apple Store. Lithium-Ion batteries store a big deal of chemical energy and can generate flammable gases.

After I published my video, a few friends contacted me privately saying they also had the expanding battery problem and Apple replaced their phones.

My old iPhone 5’s battery was terrible

Our only complaint about that first iPhone 5 was the battery: shorter than my previous iPhone, the 4S, and very often it shut down around 20% battery indication. Apple announced an “iPhone 5 Battery Replacement Program” – but its serial number was not it the list… I inherited this iPhone from my wife, when we bought her the iPhone 6 Plus – she got immediately delighted with the 6 plus’ huge battery life.

I got used to my inherited iPhone 5’s short battery life – battery aside, it was a very good phone: fast, slim, beautiful, great camera (for photos)… I was happy with it.

When that iPhone 5 got 2 years and 6 months, I started noticing a weird color movement when I touched the sides of the screen, like when you push a notebook LCD’s screen. In only one week, it got much more visible – and then I realized: the screen was being pushed up from behind. On the laterals, the front glass was almost 2mm up from its original position in the aluminum bezel. The battery was expanding – that’s dangerous, poses risk of fire or even explosion.

Apple replaced my old iPhone 5 with a new one. The Genius Bar experience was superb. At the “Puerta del Sol” store in the center of Madrid, the ‘Geniuses’ were very kind and knowledgeable – they assisted me on upgrading the replacement phone’s iOS to the newest version so I could restore my iCloud Backup. You cannot restore a backup made on iOS 8.3 on a phone with iOS 8.1, for example. But you can restore older iOS backups (lets say 8.3) on a newer iOS, such as 8.4.

My ‘new’ iPhone 5’s battery is EXCELLENT! All the short life and premature shutdowns are gone. I am finally ending my day with plenty of juice left

Apple’s Exchange and Repair Extension Programs

http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/

Programs like this are great for consumers. No production line is perfect. It is very brave of any company to put it open which devices/batch/serials are known for presenting problems – and even offer new devices in exchange. Very recently, Apple determined that a small percentage of iPhone 6 Plus could have cameras with problems to focus: iSight Camera Replacement Program for iPhone 6 Plus. My wife’s 6 Plus is eligible, so we are taking it there too (I still don’t know if they replace the camera or if it is a full replacement).

Even if you don’t use “Apple Watch” app, Tips, Stocks or Newsstand, there is no way to remove them (without jailbreak*). But you can hide them easily creating a folder with all the Apple Apps you don’t use that often – and move the group icon to a new home-screen at the back of your iPhone.

And if you have too many apps in the iPhone or iPad, the “Spotlight Search” is a super useful and quick shortcut, by just typing the first letters of any app. Watch this super short tutorial and see how easy it is:

A screenshot, or screen capture, is like taking a photo of the screen – without a camera. To do it you press the Power Button and Home Button at the same time. The screen flashes and you hear a camera sound. The image is captured directly from the display memory, so it is a perfect image, exactly as you were seeing on the screen.

It works the same on the iPhone and the iPad, no matter which app you are using: it can be during a FaceTime; to grab a frame of a video; playing a game, to register a tweet, a conversation… whatever you have on the screen.

Screenshots are saved together with your photos. Just go to the Photo app and find them at the Camera Roll.

If you want to capture only part of the screen, you will need to do it in two steps: capture the whole screen normally, and later Edit and Crop the image using the Photo app that comes with iOS – or any other image-editing app you prefer.

Which cable/adapter should you buy? Should you go wireless with Apple TV? Here is the ultimate overview tutorial on “Connecting iGadgets to the TV”.

About the adapters: I’ve seen lots of knock-off adapters being sold online… many of them stopped working since iOS 8. I really recommend you to only buy original adapters directly from Apple.

Apple TV in the Classroom / Presentations / VGA Projectors

The Apple TV allows the teacher to mirror his/her iPad to the projector without wires. The absence of cables allows the teacher to freely walk the room while using the iPad and easily hand over the iPad to a student. If students also have iPads / iPhones, they also can engage on AirPlay to show their activities for the whole class on the projection.

But many Projectors only have VGA cables (not the HDMI as the Apple TV outputs). There is great product made specifically for Apple TV that solves this problem: Kanex ATV PRO (HDMI to VGA Adapter). It converts the HDMI output into a VGA + Stereo 3.5mm audio connections.

Check them out on Amazon

• Kanex ATV PRO (HDMI to VGA plus Audio) for AirPlay / Roku 
• HDMI Cable, AmazonBasics, 6.5 feet (2 meters) 
• HDMI Cable, AmazonBasics, 25 feet (7.6 meters) 
• VGA Cable, AmazonBasics, 15 feet (4.5 meters) 

Buying from these links, you are helping me a big deal! Thank you for your support!

Unfortunately, Amazon stopped selling Apple TVs (read about it on  The Verge).

Of course, you can buy Apple TVs directly from Apple and many other resellers.

This is a great tutorial for iOS newcomers – I hope you enjoy!

FAQ:

• “I want to completely delete, uninstall the App, not just remove its icon”
  When you delete the ‘icon’, as shown in the video, you are REALLY deleting the App. iOS is different from Windows (where icons in the desktop were only shortcuts). In the iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch, when you delete the ‘icon’ you are actually uninstalling/erasing the App from your device – and all the associated data. Also, ‘data’ (like: documents or photos) created inside that app are also erased (unless there is a ‘server/cloud’ feature the developer explicitly provides to keep them for you).
• “I want to delete EVERYTHING about that App, including data”
  When you delete an App, all its local data is deleted with it. If a game uses “Game Center”, you will be asked if game center information should be removed as well or not. About iCloud: remember that the whole idea of iCloud is being able to share data between all your devices – you might want to delete an App from your iPhone, but continue using that app on the iPad, along with the content you created before. Anyway, on the Settings App → iCloud → Storage and Backup → Manage Storage you can see how much space each app is using on iCloud, and even delete it if you want.
• “I don’t want some deleted apps to apear in the ‘Purchased’ section!!”
  You can hide individual purchased items – but you’ll need to use iTunes in the computer: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4919
• “Everybody knows it!”
  Well, no. Erasing/moving/grouping/recovering apps are very basic operations – but I noticed lots of newcomers to iOS not knowing how to do those things – and we frequently receive requests from our apps’ users about it.

iPad User Guide: Arrange your Apps:
http://help.apple.com/ipad/7/#/iPad997db08a

iPhone User Guide: Organize with Folders:
http://help.apple.com/iphone/7/#/iph59d79d61e

Pro iOS users: I bet you have people who ask for your help on such things, please share the video with them!
Blogs, bloggers, vloggers, website owners: you are more than welcome to share the link to this video or embed it on your site. It helps me more than you can imagine! Thank you!

Backstage

Just a glimpse of the ‘big awesome studio’ where I shoot my videos, ha ha. It is either filming or relax watching TV – with a few hours of sweat in between assembling/disassembling equipment:

PS: I recently stopped filming my videos the living room… I am now shooting on the same table where I work with my iMac.

iPad and iPhone sound problems are very easy to fix!

This tutorial shows you:

• how to un-mute the iPad (lots of people don’t even know it can be put on mute)
• how to un-mute when the side-switch is used to lock the rotation of the screen
• how to turn the volume up
• how to bring up and down the Control Center
• how to close all the background apps in iOS 8 and 7 (it is basically the same on iOS 9, only that now you are presented with a stack of screens, not side-by-side)
• how to reboot/restart the iPad

Hope you enjoy!

Headphones Only

If you tried everything in the video but have “headphones” indication even when you don’t have headphones inserted, your iPad might moisture in the headphones connector. Try inserting and removing your headphones a few times. Also, be sure the docking connector (where you charge the iPad/iPhone) is clean: use a dry toothbrush to remove any dust/dirty particles from the bottom connector. Keeping the iPad in a plastic zip bag with some silica envelopes for a night might help in the case of moisture messing up with the headphones detection or the external docking audio detection.

“Mute” doesn’t mute it all

The “Silent” function (either on “side switch” or  in “Control Center”) doesn’t mute content such as videos in YouTube – this is expected and explained by Apple in its documentation… but it causes some confusion as Apps get silenced and people don’t understand why since videos plays sound but apps are quiet.

Understand the Lateral Switch:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4085

Reset iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch: (rebooting, forcing it ‘off’ and ‘on’ again)
https://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430

Unresponsive iOS device, resolution checklist:
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS3281