TECH SUPPORT & TECHSPLANATIONS

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Make sure you check out these important support articles on Apple’s website to better understand the latest features.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE RETINA DISPLAY

To find out which Mac computers are equipped with a retina display, what their native resolution should be, and how to optimize your retina display, head over to bit.ly/ml172ask1.

GIVE YOUR KIDS MORE PURCHASING FREEDOM

If you want your children to be able to make purchases on an iPhone, iPad or Mac - whether it’s a new app, book, song, or something else - without your say so, Ask to Buy makes the process completely painless. Find out more at bit.ly/ml172ask2.

BEST SETTINGS FOR WI-FI ROUTERS

Apple has listed recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points, and you can view these at bit.ly/ml172ask3.

> Backing up Photos libraries to Dropbox

I back my MacBook up to Dropbox, but some things don’t work well there, like Photos libraries. How can I fix those?

To make a faithful backup, as Time Machine and other backup apps do, the disk that you’re storing your backups on needs to support all the features used in the original files. Few cloud services provide those, and Dropbox has limitations which make it unsuitable for storage of Photos libraries which can break their backups.

Photos libraries are really folders containing images, thumbnails, databases, and more. There are known problems which may arise in syncing changes in images and databases which can at best cause strange effects, and at worst can make a restored library unusable.

Another common problem with cloud storage is that it doesn’t support metadata such as extended attributes, used by many Mac files. Even iCloud limits which metadata it handles. One way round this is to use iCloud Photo Library, if you can afford sufficient storage space, opting to Download Originals to the Mac in Photos preferences. Ensure you also keep a full local backup using Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or an app like ChronoSync. Third-party cloud services are great for sharing files, and for off-site storage of important documents, but normally aren’t a reliable way to back up more complex structures like libraries.

Back up your Photos libraries using Time Machine, or an app such as ChronoSync which makes an identical copy to local storage.

Get official documentation at support.apple.com | Get help with hardware atsupport.apple.com/repair

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