At Home with Tech

January 19, 2025

How to Catch Urgent Calls when your iPhone is on Mute

Occasionally, you’ll simply miss a call, because you’ve misplaced your iPhone. Otherwise, here’s how I silence calls I don’t want while also allowing the important calls in my life to get through.

I sometimes feel like the Grinch. “All the noise, noise, noise… noise!” With all the unwanted phone calls and emails, I want to scream, “Stop! Go away!” It’s disruptive, increasingly overwhelming, and I want none of it. (Sound familiar?)

The biggest source of disruption was my trusty iPhone which interrupted me throughout the day with calls from unknown numbers and people (or robocalls) I instinctively knew I didn’t want to speak with. (Sure, my iPhone is forever in vibrate-only mode, but too much of that silent-but-buzzy haptic sensation can make you twitchy.)

Contacts Only
So, I shut it down. No, not the phone. But I restricted the list of numbers that could get through to just my contacts. (If you are anyone else, you’re welcome to leave a message.)

Yes, it a was draconian step, but necessary.
Here how to set up this communication limit on your iPhone:

Go to ‘Settings.’
Tap ‘Screen Time.’
Tap ‘Communication Limits.’
Tap ‘During Screen Time.’
Tap ‘Contacts Only.’
Then ‘During Downtime’ can be restricted further if you want.

The result created more serenity in my life, and I was grateful. But there was still another problem waiting for me at the other end of the equation…

You Can Still Miss a Haptics Call
I realized that it was sometimes difficult for my family members to reach me on my iPhone. Of course, their calls and texts got through via haptics mode, but it was still easy for me to miss those important moments.

The fix would be if I could set up a ringtone bypass that would allow my wife and son’s calls/texts to gain back their audio oomph.

Well, as it turns out, Apple gives your iPhone that exact capability!

Ring and Text Tone Emergency Bypass
In your Contacts app, you can set up individual contacts to be able to reach you with the power of full audio ringing or pinging, regardless of how your iPhone is otherwise muted.

Here’s how to do that:

Tap ‘Edit’ for a specific contact.
Tap on ‘Ringtone,’ which is set to ‘Default.’
Then on the next page, tap on ‘Emergency Bypass’ to turn it on.
Repeat these steps for ‘Text Tone.’

That’s it.

Your Updated Communications Plan
When you’ve finished tweaking these iPhone settings, you will have more effectively tuned out what you don’t want while enabling the important people in your life to better connect with you.

Sanity restored.

January 12, 2025

It May Be Time to Update your Own Online Beacons

If you want to refresh your personal online brand or simply maintain your up-to-date digital self, you first need to do an inventory of the transmitters you’ve already set up. Here’s what to keep in mind.

Do you remember where all your online beacons are located? I’m talking about the websites that ping your digital identity out to the world. Yes, the ones you’ve intentionally set up. Are they all up to date with accurate information? When was the last time you checked? I bet there are at least a couple you’ve forgotten about.

Why not take an hour to do an inventory and review it to make sure all your data is current?

If you’re committed to curating your personal brand online, it’s important to make sure the digital ‘you’ properly reflects the real you.

You may find that the most obvious of places need some freshening up. I recently realized that even my own blog, which I spend time on weekly, required a little work. It was my ‘About’ page, which housed a wicked-old photo of me from when I launched At Home with Tech back in 2012. So, I replaced it with a current one. (More on photos in a moment…)

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Profile
Of course, maintaining your own blog or website can be the center of your online presence, but for many of us, LinkedIn is the go-to place to project your professional digital identity.

So, it’s always a good idea take a look and dust off your LinkedIn profile, especially if you’ve not been paying much attention to it.

LinkedIn Photo
And don’t forget to update your photo every few years.

Yes, time marches on, and after enough years, we’re all going to look somewhat different. That’s okay. It’s not being authentic to represent yourself as your decade-ago younger self. That’s simply not you today.

I wouldn’t project yesterday. Our own stories should be grounded in today and forward focused.

LinkedIn Connections
Bonus tip: While you’re spending time updating your LinkedIn profile, why not reach out to the folks you’ve been working with recently and add them to your LinkedIn connections? (Unless you’re a regular LinkedIn user, you’ll likely have built up a backlog of potential connections.)

Social Media

I know that many may not think of our social media activity outside the parameters of our ‘friends’ and ‘connections.’ But no matter how you set up your profile, I think it should always be assumed that anyone may be able see what you post. (That’s something to keep in mind… for life!)

Every social media platform allows you to create a profile. So that’s an opportunity, but also another chore to maintain. Don’t set it and forget it.

You’re likely sharing different information than on LinkedIn, and that’s fine. But you should always be mindful to ensure it all works well together. Because it may well be consumed together.

Do you Need to Share So Much of Yourself Online?
Several years back, I wrote a blog post that proposed you really don’t exist if you can’t be found online. I got some blowback on that, and for good reason. Today’s online landscape is complicated. I’ll just use the word ‘risk’ and leave it at that.

So, you’ve got to be smart and pay attention. And that means you need to keep track of those beacons you’ve set up.

I also wrote a blog post titled, At Home with Paper. It referred to imagining life at home without a computer printer (I still can’t).

But the title holds a different meaning for me today. It taps into a hidden yearning to ‘simplify.’ None of the above is simple. Sure, it’s easy, but that’s where your trains can easily go off the tracks.

Stay Close to your Digital Self for Life
But this is not blog for Luddites (though I bet there would be a growing audience for that).

I continue to promote what I believe is a best practice to curate your personal brand online. But you can’t forget about it. And of course, never share too much.

This needs to be a life-long strategy.

So, buckle up!

January 5, 2025

Why iPhone’s Camera Burst Mode is Better than Live Photos

If you think you’ll miss the moment when snapping an iPhone photo, using Burst mode instead of Live Photo mode can save the day. Here’s why.

If you like the Live Photo feature on your iPhone so you can later choose a better ‘Key Photo’, you might want to reconsider your preference. Why? Well, it houses a huge limitation that can really ruin your shot.

Sure, it all seems so magical that you can take your 3-second mini-movie that’s behind a Live Photo and then, after the fact, scrub through all of video frames to select a better still frame. It’s a wonderful technique to use when shooting a group pic when someone’s eyes are inevitably mid blink. The ability to later choose a better freeze a fraction earlier (or later) can make all the difference between the perfect photo and one that goes in the digital trash.

I’ve been shooting Live Photos this way for a long time. But when choosing a different Key Photo, I’ve sometimes not been satisfied with the final results. Here’s the problem…

Choosing a New Key Photo will Crop It!
The ‘prime’ image your iPhone snaps is higher quality than other frames from a Live Photo. And as soon as you choose an alternate frame, the entire picture frustratingly crops in a bit (not a lot… but enough).

That can be a deal breaker if you’ve taken a group shot and someone is close to the edge of your framing. After choosing a different Key Photo, that person will likely get cropped out, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This picture-killing crop just happened to me at a family gathering, and the cropped-out person was me! (Yes, thankfully, the group allowed me to take another shot.)

Even if you overlook that limitation and tell yourself you’ll give your shots enough ‘safe space,’ it’s also hard to ignore the overall quality difference. The new Key Photo doesn’t look as crisp.

Under well-lit and well-framed circumstances, this isn’t an issue. And to be fair, it took me a while to discover these drawbacks.

And while a Live Photo with a different Key Photo can be better than nothing at all, there’s a more effective way to capture additional visual frames around a particular photo moment.

10 Burst Photos are Better than 1 Live Photo
iPhones offer Burst mode, which captures 10 photos a second. (That’s likely going to get you what you need!) Instead of tapping the shutter button on your iPhone, you simply slide it to the left and hold it there until you’re done ‘bursting.’ (Then release.)

For a more tactile experience, you can also squeeze your ‘Volume Up’ button.
To activate that feature, go to:

Settings
Camera
Turn on “Use Volume Up for Burst”

While primarily designed for action moments like sports photography, it’s also ideal for posed group shots when you’re trying to get everyone’s eyes open at the same time.

Each of these high-speed photos will be the same quality. No compromises.

Burst Mode with Countdown
You can also use Burst mode for your iPhone shots using a countdown timer. It’s a perfect way to set up a group shot that you also want to be in.

Pro tip:
If you’re wearing an Apple Watch, use its Camera Remote app to control your iPhone. (Just be sure to first turn off Live Photo mode. Otherwise, you’ll snap a Live Photo instead of the 10 standard burst shots.)

I like to prop my iPhone on a window ledge and have the group face the window. Not only does the window ledge double as a tripod surface (be careful), but the light from the window will nicely illuminate your subjects.

Delete your Unwanted Bursts
You do need to do a bit more work afterwords with your Burst photos to manage the 20 or 30 shots you’ve generated from a particular moment (instead of 2 or 3 Live Photos).

Just review your Bursts and select the images you want to keep. The rest are deleted. (If you don’t follow this organizational task, you could quickly get overwhelmed with too many photos on your iPhone.)

Not Mutually Exclusive
Too much work? Well, you can leave it to the automated but limited structure of Live Photos. That’s a set-it-and-forget it solution. It’s easy, but it won’t always give you best-quality pictures. On the other hand, Burst mode will.

Can you use both? Absolutely (though not simultaneously).

Burst Away
Moving forward, I’ll think of a Live Photo as a backup plan. But if I’m really being planful in framing the moment, then using Burst mode is the way to go.

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