Is there a way to track xbox use?
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There are parental controls built in to the xBox itself and Microsoft can provide weekly report to devices associated to devices logged in to your child's account.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12441/microsoft-account-see-child-device-activity

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3187568/gaming/how-to-limit-xbox-one-screen-time-for-your-kids.html

Is it possible my MacBook air is hacked? Two days in a row around the same time (6 a.m) my mouse was “taken over” meaning I couldn’t control it and immediately shut computer down, now I pulled up my mail and before it “straightened itself out” all my mail headers were in kyrillic (russian writing?) Otherwise it’s been operating normally
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That does sound like odd behavior. One of the crucial factors here would be if you saw your mouse moving around on the screen and things being clicked as you watched. For a computer to be "taken over" that would insinuate that someone was controlling it remotely using a piece of software such as TeamViewer, AnyDesk, Zoom, or GoToMeeting. You would have also needed to grant permission for either of those in the past by having entered your computer's Admin password at some point then left elements of one of those applications running so someone could log in remotely. While I definitely have seen this behavior (just this week with another client) it is very rare that someone would get that far.

As for the different language appearing, I don't have an explanation for that. One guess could be that there's a problem with the graphics card of the computer as it tries to display characters. (doubtful) Another guess is that there's a problem with the operating system causing the fonts or characters to display incorrectly. (also doubtful)

The most interesting piece of evidence is the fact that it happens consistently at 6am. There are small programs or procedures that run on our computers called chronscripts. These procedures usually run when the computer is left open all night. These are healthy tasks a computer does in the background to keep our computers organized. Think of them as a background cleanup. They don't run during times when you're using your computer. It is possible one of these chronscripts is damaged and causing that behavior.

I've given several explanations to things but to give you piece of mind I would be happy to address the issue remotely or in person. Most of the time, in my experience people feel they've been "hacked" or their privacy violated when often there's a different reason a certain behavior has occurred. However, that's not to say that this doesn't happen. I've seen it plenty for many many reasons. Just this week I worked with a client who was tricked into paying a very large amount of money ($2000) because they through they were talking with Apple support on the phone and the person thought their computer was locked and the only way to unlock it was to pay this person on the phone. It was only an ad on a webpage that got them to that point.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions. You could also take a screenshot of the Russian language and share it with me. command+option+4 then drag a square around what you'd like to share. The screenshot will land on your desktop and you can email it.

Can my Mac go to Mojave 10.14?
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Apple seems to have cut off all macs prior to 2012. This leaves a 6 year window. This is more narrow than past OS requirements. Here's a list of supported Macs.

Why is my phone saying this?

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This is a setting is iOS 11 and later that changes the image format to store more information in less space. Think of it as jpg+. Standard pictures are taken in jpeg. Apple has a new compression method that allows the same quality in less space. However, it is possible that this new format could be causing your problems for your outgoing pictures. We can set it back by going into Settings/Camera/Formats. Then choose most compatible.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022

Are my pictures backing up? How do I backup my pictures?
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I like for people to have 2 backups of their photos. One on an external hard drive handled by Time Machine (the software that lives on your computer) and the second backup would be offsite. This can either be an additional hard drive or, in most cases, people use iCloud to backup their entire iCloud photo library. I feel having two backups (time machine as well as iCloud) while redundant gives us peace of mind. I’m an old man and I don’t trust the cloud completely.

To see that your recent time machine drive has completed, click on the clock in the top right area of your computer and you should see a date stating the most recent backup.

To see if your pictures are in the cloud, there are several settings you need to check first.


1. on your phone and/or iPad under settings select your name at the very top. Then iCloud. Then photos. You’ll want to have iCloud Photo library turned on. Optimize storage turned on. Photo Stream turned on. Photo sharing turned on.

2. On your Computer, open Photos. Go to preferences under the word Photos in the top left of your computer and select iCloud. Be sure iCloud Photo library is checked, Download Originals is on, Photo stream is on. iCloud Photo sharing is on.




Using iCloud photo library would require you to have enough space in the cloud if you choose to use this service. 50 gigs for $12 a year. 200 gigs for $36 a year. etc… However, if you prefer not to pay for cloud storage then time machine is just fine as a backup. Some people do run into the issue that they don’t have enough space on their computers to store their entire library of photos and therefore either have to fully trust the cloud, buy a new computer with a larger hard drive, or get an external drive dedicated to media (photos). I don’t think you are in this market. I just like to mention it for other readers as well. (this answer will be posted on my website as well).

Feel free to send specific pictures to me and I’ll narrow down what’s going on.

I tried to scan a document today but the Image Capture Icon is not on my 13”mac, did you forget to upload it on that computer? Also, I do not know how scan to to the computer from the printer, there is not an option to select my computer, only my husbands. I need more coaching on this.
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Image capture is a part of the Operating system and is on every Mac. Just like Safari, Photos, Mail, or Calendar. You can search for it by click on the magnifying glass in the top right corner of your screen and typing “image capture” or you can also find it by looking in the applications folder. Once it’s open you can right click on the icon in the dock and choose to “keep in dock”. It will then stay in the dock even when you quit the program.

How can I tell if Time machine is finished?
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To see when the last backup of Time Machine was completed, you can click the small clock in the top right corner of the menu bar. It will tell you the last time a backup was completed. Sometimes you’ll see “in progress” or “preparing backup”. If you’d like to see the actual backup, you can open your time machine drive usually found on the right hand side of your finder window or you may see its icon on the desktop either yellow or olive green in color. Open it and go to backup.backupsdb/The name of your computer/Macintosh HD. From there you will see a list of folder which contain backups relating to the time the folder is named.

How can I tell if iCloud transfers are complete?
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Photos to iCloud: you can tell by viewing the progress bar in Photos Preferences under iCloud. With Photos open, go to the menu bar under the word “Photos” in the top left corner of your screen and select preferences. Next select the iCloud pane. If you see a progress bar, it’s still in progress. If you do not, it either needs time to evaluate what the cloud has vs what Photos has or it is finished for now. Photos syncing can take a long time. Photos does need to be open for syncing to the cloud to occur.