1349. Sent from my iPhone. Can I change this?

Every time I send an email from my iPhone, the message includes the footer "Sent from my iPhone" at the bottom. This seems silly to me, and completely unnecessary. Can I change the footer so it’s more personal?

We agree—that footer seems like the is saying “Look at me—I’m cool ‘cause I have an iPhone.” In 2008, that may have been a reasonable assertion, but it’s not the case in 2013. Even more importantly, our guess is that you generally don’t want people to know that you’re sending from a mobile device, which is a good indication (for many people) that you’re responding while away from home. And this is, in general, information you don’t want to be sending out.

Of course, Apple wants everyone to know that you have their flagship mobile device, so they configure the phone to include the obligatory self-congratulatory message in the footer by default. Luckily, that footer information is easy to change (and you should).

On your phone, run the Settings app. Select the Mail, Contacts, Calendars option, and under the Mail section of options, find the Signature option. If you’re running an early version of the operating system (and if so, you should consider upgrading the operating system), you’ll see an option to change your signature. If you’re running a later version, you’ll see an option to select a signature for all accounts, or per account (assuming you have more than one email account configured on the phone). Select the appropriate option, and fill in a new signature, replacing the default text.

You cannot specify a separate signature for new messages as opposed to replies or forwarded messages, and you can't have extra signatures that you can assign individually while writing the email, like you can with Outlook or other email applications.

Certainly, take the time to customize the signature. You won’t be advertising the fact that you’re replying to emails from your phone (indicating that you are perhaps away from home) and you won’t look like a clone of every other iPhone user!

1361. Font Size for Text Messages is Too Small

Some of us can't see as well as we used to, and I could really use a larger font when reading text messages on my iPhone. Is there some way to increase the font size, since you can't zoom the size of the font in the iMessage text editor?

You would think that you could pinch/unpinch to zoom in iMessage (the editor for SMS text message), just like you do when editing and viewing emails, but that’s not the case. Pinch and unpinch all you like, but the text doesn’t change size.

There is a way to change the font size in iMessage, although it’s not obvious. Go to Settings, General, Accessibility, and choose Large Type. (No kidding. This really seems to be the only way to change the font size.) You can select any font size up to 56 pt, which is simply huge.

The problem is this new font size will apply to all your applications. Now your emails will have the same font size as your text messages, and most likely this isn’t what you want.

It seems clear that Apple should allow the font expand function to work on iMessage or allow different font sizes for each application. And we’re not alone in this opinion—a quick Web search for “font size iMessage” will return lots of requests for this same feature.

But until Apple works this out, at least you will be able to read your text messages, albeit with adverse effects on your other applications. 

1330. Listen to Radio Broadcasts on Smart Phone

I find that I want to listen to music on the radio while I'm at the gym. I have my iPhone, but there's no radio receiver built in. Is there some way to listen to radio signals on the phone?

Recently, I decided to look up some way to play FM or AM radio stations while I was slowly climbing the Stairmaster at the gym. And I did find an app that is available for free for both the Android and iPhone. It can’t “fake” a radio receiver—instead, it gathers freely available Web streaming that radio stations provide in one simple application.

I was able to find KNCO and KMVR and other local radio stations, as well as the radio station from my college and stations from my hometown for free on the iPhone (it works on Android phones, as well). The iPhone doesn't have an FM receiver of course (some Android phones do): this is all coming over the Internet “airwaves”.

Remember that TuneIn Radio uses the cell signal of your phone carrier if you don't have a Wi-Fi connection. Because most phone contracts include a limited amount of data, you should be wary of listening to streaming audio for hours at a time, every day, unless you’re using a Wi-Fi connection.  Luckily, my gym has Wi-Fi so it doesn't cost me anything to listen to the radio while I am working out.

Give it a look: find TuneIn Radio in your phone’s application store.  It's free for both iPhone (http://goo.gl/BLWmM) and Android (http://goo.gl/zv4Ci). 

1351. Text Magnification with a Mobile Device

I sure am getting old. I go to a restaurant and unless I have my glasses with me I can't read the menu. It seems like I should be able to somehow use the my phone to magnify the text for me. Is there an app that can do this?

Yes, that concept makes a lot of sense, and you’re not the first to think of it! There are quite a few apps that use your phone’s camera as a magnifier, presenting the live image it captures, magnified by the amount you specify. There are versions of the application for both iPhones and Android phones, so no one has to miss out on the opportunity to leave their reading glasses at home. Most of the apps we’ve seen take advantage of your phone’s camera flash, as well, to light up the text. If your phone doesn’t include a flash, the apps won’t work quite as well.

Ken just gives in and wears old-person glasses all the time, but Doug has resisted, and so found the app Magnifying Glass (by Falcon in Motion) to be a great free app for iPhone (http://goo.gl/P6D1y). There are lots of other inexpensive or free options, as well. You can find other options by searching for “magnify” in the App Store or in Google Play (or other Android store).

If you find yourself in a dark restaurant, using one of these apps is far more dignified than either holding the menu four feet from your eyes in front of a dim candle, asking a friend to borrow their glasses, or worse yet, asking your child to read the menu to you (and we’ve succumbed to all three options, before finding the iPhone app). 

1336. Private Domain registration

When I purchased my domain name it asked if I should protect it. The protection service costs an extra $10 per year.  Do I need to do this?

As a quick recap for those who haven’t purchased a domain name, it’s worth noting that anyone can purchase any domain name that isn’t already in use. This involves signing up with a domain registrar, indicating the domain name you want (like thisismydomain.com) and paying for the service. Along the way, you must provide some personal information, and it’s this information to which the question refers. (For a list of popular domain registrars, visit this site: http://goo.gl/VZntw).

In general, we think you should always keep your personal information as private as possible. If you do not have a business under which you can register the domain name, then we recommend you use the domain privacy service that most domain registrars offer, for an extra fee.

If you want to know information about a domain name, you can go to the website http://whois.com, and enter the domain name. You will see information about who owns the domain, when it was registered, when it expires and much more. Often, this search provides personal information about the person or company that registered the domain name, which is exactly what you would be trying to avoid.

For a small fee, the registrar of your domain will provide a service that allows the real ownership information to be hidden from public view. This service normally costs around $10 per year, and if you purchase the service for multiple years, you can save some money.

Spamming engines use the whois registration info as a prime source of email addresses for spamming, so make sure you hide your personal information when registering for a domain name if at all possible. Remember that information on the Internet is “forever”—protect your privacy every way you can.

1286. Word Page Numbers

Jackie asked - My word document has page numbers that start numbering 1, 2,3 and then all of a sudden it starts to number pages from 1 again.  What's up with this document?

This problem was caused by using the Sections feature in Microsoft Word.  One of the many feature in Word allows you to create sections.  Section among many things allows you to have different headers, footers and other attributes that include page numbering.

As it turned out she had copied parts from different documents and the page numbering definitions for each "Section" was maintained.  So when the document was printed the page numbers for each would be maintained.

The solution was to remove the Sections and make the document one section using common settings.

Or you could "Link" the Sections.  This would make the page numbers flow from one section to the next section.

Use the "Help" function in Word to Link or Unlink sections as the procedures vary slightly between versions.

Word is very powerful and sometimes you want just simple.

1287. My Mac has no sign in screen

Molly indicated she tried to boot her Mac and all she saw was the gray screen. . What could be wrong and how could she fix it?

There could be many reasons for this problem.   But very often the Mac needs to have the PRAM (Parameter Ram contains settings for the clock, and other internal features) reset.  Doing this cannot hurt the machine. Here are the steps:

1.        Shut down your Mac.

2.        Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.

3.        Turn on the computer.

4.        Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.

5.        Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

6.        Release the keys.

If the problem was a corrupt PRAM your computer should start.  

If this doesn't solve the problem try putting yout original Operating DVD in and booting from it.

If you still have problems it is most likely a hardware problem.  I always look at the most likely hardware to fail and that is the hard drive.  There are good instructions on the internet on how to remove the hard drive for your make and model.  Do it yourself or find a friend that is comfortable doing this or take it to a local computer repair store or of course Apple will fix it.

Molly's computer had a bad hard drive and as soon as I disabled the drive I was able to boot to the OS DVD.  I replaced the hard drive and re-installed the Operating system.  This is a good time to mention backups.  If you have done your backups you won't lose data, if not you are out of luck.


Here a some links that will help with PRAM

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2010/12/04/how-when-why-to-reset-the-pram-smc-on-your-mac/

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379