Drown out distractions on your Mac

March 14, 2025

🎧 Drown out distractions on your Mac: If you’re in a loud place, turn on background sounds to mask unwanted noise. Go to Accessibility > Audio > Background Sounds > Choose, then pick from Rain, Ocean and more. Pair this with noise canceling earbuds (like the Apple AirPods Pro 2) for an even better experience.

We may earn a commission from purchases, but our recommendations are always objective.

Tags: Apple, Apple AirPods, Apple AirPods Pro, distractions, experience

Printer friendly

Flying or cruising? They’re watching you.

ID 154706440 © Jakub Gojda | Dreamstime.com

You might not realize it, but airlines and cruise lines collect a lot of data, from your seat choice to the websites you browse on their Wi-Fi.

When you book a flight or cruise, they collect the usual stuff, including your name, email, phone number, passport info and payment details. But it doesn’t stop there. They also track:

Continue reading →

How to train your autocorrect to actually work

Apple.com, © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com

I bet you’re frustrated with how often autocorrect is auto-wrong. Even with new AI features included in many platforms’ latest updates, autocorrect remains annoying. Let’s fix that for iOS and Android.

Yes, you can just turn it off — no more bad guesses or awkward corrections. Just type what you mean letter by letter, like in the early days. (Note: Depending on your Android make, model and OS, your steps may differ. There are just too many variations for me to cover all of them.)

Continue reading →

Don’t fall for this! Fake CAPTCHA tests are popping up. They’ll ask you to do three things: Press Windows Key + R (opens the Run command box), then Ctrl + V (pastes “I am not a robot – reCAPTCHA Verification ID: XXXX”) and hit Enter. You’ve just executed a hidden prompt that downloads malware onto your computer. Snap.

Zero butter

For the ultimate pancakes. For thick, fluffy cakes, use two eggs, 200 grams of flour (1⅔ cups) and 200ml of milk (about .83 of a cup). This is according to scientists, not chefs, so take it with a grain of sodium chloride.

How to get a job as a mystery diner

ID 36602112 @ Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com

Any restaurant worth its salt wants to know what it’s doing right and what it’s screwing up. And they’re willing to pay you for that info. But they can’t just judge servers and kitchen staff when they’re on their best behavior. They need someone undercover.

Continue reading →

📱TikTok’s parental controls: In a total PR move and after seven years in the U.S., the app is rolling out Family Pairing tools. You can block access at certain times and check who’s following your teens. There’s a new “Time Away” feature to set a schedule and a “wind down” option for bedtime. Why now? It’s looking at a sale or ban next month, silly.

🦆 Duck off: Tell that to your AI chatbot collecting data. Duck.ai is out of beta and lets you chat anonymously, for free, with no account required. You can use GPT-4o mini, o3-mini, Meta Llama 3.3, Mistral Small 3 and Claude 3 Haiku without worrying about your data being collected. Chats are fully anonymized, meaning they’ll never be used for AI training. Try it out.

Doing taxes this weekend? Fun times. Remember that if you made over $5,000 using apps like Venmo, PayPal and Cash App for your side hustle, you’ll get a 1099-K form. I answer your FAQs about this here. Here are each app’s reporting rules.

😃“My knees feel so much better in only one month!” That’s what Andrea wrote to me since she’s been taking NativePath’s collagen. You ought to try it, too. Go here now to claim your 45% discount, free shipping and a free gift bundle, exclusive for my listeners.*

Over 400,000

Medical records reveal surgeries scheduled on a Friday tend to be riskier than those earlier in the week. Why? If you need to stay over the weekend, there are fewer doctors and nurses on duty. Mondays are good.