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AT&T adds wireless emergency alerts update to iPhones

AT&T announced that it is rolling out wireless emergency alerts to all of its U.S. customers that have an iPhone 5 or 4S.

This means that anytime there is a government-issued safety announcement, like when there's natural or man-made disaster, a presidential alert, or an Amber alert for a missing child, a message will pop up on users iPhones explaining what's happening.

Such alerts are critical for getting information out to people who aren't immediately tuned into a television or radio, and would have been helpful during disasters such as the floods from Hurricane … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions sent in by our readers.

This week, readers asked questions on how to fix a problem with the system crashing whenever printers are accessed, how to get custom or manually installed fonts to appear in Microsoft Office, and where the wireless monitoring windows went in the system's Wireless Diagnostics utility.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Printer access crashes the system. MacFixIt reader jmackane asks:

When I try to print … Read more

Insignificant bug keeps encrypted disks unlocked after ejecting in OS X

Apple's CoreStorage disk encryption technology has a small bug that will keep a disk unlocked, even after it has been ejected from the system.

In OS X Lion, Apple introduced a drive management technology called CoreStorage. When enabled, CoreStorage will create a "logical volume group" out of one or more physical drive partitions, and then create usable "logical volumes" from this group to serve as storage for your system. This setup allows the logical volume to span multiple physical partitions (as is seen with Apple's Fusion Drive), and support features like encryption for Apple'… Read more

Hide and unhide apps from your iPhone's purchased list in iOS 6

Turns out, I've been giving you bad advice. Or at least outdated advice. In my post on this topic from last year (in the heady days of iOS 5), I showed you how you could simply swipe on an app on your purchased list right on your iPhone to hide it. For no good reason at all (at least any that I can see), iOS 6 did away with this functionality. Perhaps iOS 7 will bring back the ability to cull your purchased list from your phone, but for now, it requires a trip to iTunes. *sad trombone*

Open … Read more

A brief primer on Microsoft Office for iOS rumors

We can now safely say that rumors that Microsoft was working on a version of Office for Apple's iOS platform weren't false. They were just early.

But boy has it been a long road to Friday, when Microsoft made it official by releasing its Office Mobile for iPhone app -- which is officially dubbed "Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers" in the iTunes Store.

Reports that Microsoft was aiming to bring a version of its productivity software to Apple's mobile platform date all the way back to February 2010, just a few weeks after the … Read more

iOS 7 said to let users zoom while recording video

As users wait for Apple's new iOS 7 to come out of beta, developers are learning all of the ins-and-outs that the upcoming operating system will have to offer. The use of camera zoom controls while recording video is the latest feature said to be discovered.

According to iDownloadBlog, users will reportedly be able to zoom in and out by using the pinch gesture while shooting video. Most likely, there will also be a zoom slider at the bottom of the screen -- like when using the camera in iOS 6. Apparently, users will also supposedly be able to … Read more

Bookmark files and folders in Safari

If you are a Safari user then you might be familiar with the program's Bookmarks bar, where you can save links to individual Web pages, or group them as collections in folders.

You can also use it to save any other location you can link to through Safari's address bar, including files and folders on the system.

To do this, simply drag a file to the address bar, and you should see a bookmark to it as you would any other file. You can also load some files such as images directly into Safari by dropping them on … Read more

Options for secure file removal in the OS X Terminal

While deleting files in OS X simply involves moving them to the trash and emptying it, this routine does not remove the data of these items, but instead only clears the directory entry for them. The content of the items is kept on disk with the system having no way to access it; as a result, there is potential for the content to be scanned and recovered by data recovery tools.

To prevent this from happening, you can use secure-erase features in OS X, one of which is to securely delete the files in the Finder by choosing this option … Read more

Facebook mimics Twitter with hashtags

CNET Update is #trending:

In this episode of Update:

- Follow trending stories on Facebook with hashtags.

- Get excited for universal game controllers for iPhones and iPads.

- Lose a dimension when ESPN drops its 3D channel.

- Keep track of all the Galaxy S4 smartphones, as Samsung reveals the S4 Active.

- Print anywhere from your Android phone with the Cloud Print app.

CNET Update delivers the tech news you need in under three minutes. Watch Bridget Carey every afternoon for a breakdown of the big stories, hot devices, new apps, and what's ahead. Subscribe to the … Read more

Vouchr makes it easy to brighten up a friend's day

There are times you want to treat a friend to a scoop of ice cream, but quickly getting a gift card into his possession isn't always possible. And you don't always know if your gift was actually used, since there's no alert mechanism to notify you when a gift card has been redeemed.

A free iOS app, called Vouchr, will allow you to create a gift certificate (of sorts) and let any of your Facebook friends claim it when they visit a location you've specified. Originally launched in a small beta just in Canada, it's … Read more