A few companies and people have asked me to check out their computers that may have been affected by the Lahaina fire’s smoke. The smoke leaves a residue on the logic board that looks and feels sticky.

This eventually will seep into the board and kind of melt the plastic, causing the whole computer to shut down.

If anyone needs me to write up a report on their computer’s condition caused by the smoke, call me at (808) 280-5055. Hopefully, the insurance claim will enable the owner to be compensated with a new computer.

Well, iOS-17.1 came out, bringing more features to the iPhone. One that stands out is the new feature for the Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. When you press the Action Button, the Apple Translation App pops up, where you can translate your spoken words into another language. This is fantastic to have traveling to foreign countries and asking for directions or eating at a restaurant.

In iMessages, you can now share or request your location by pressing the Plus button, and you can leave a Facetime video message. Audio messages will now be transcribed so that you can read them.

I haven’t used iMessage much, but now with the new features, I’m going to use it more.

If you wanted to crop a photo, you would have to open up Photos and choose edit. Now, all you have to do is just pinch-to-zoom. Once you pick up your hand, you’ll see a Crop button. The Photo App now identifies and prompts you to name your pets, creating an album for your dog or cat and making it easier to search for them.

In the new Freeform App, you can drag 3D objects, click on them to swivel and spin them around. In the Photo App, you can click on a photo and share it with a friend.

In Spot Lite Search, you can search for a contact, then you’ll get a pop-up screen where you can immediately call that person. So instead of using Contacts, just type in a name in Spot Lite Search.

In the Weather App, you can see the wind patterns in your local area (also the moon phase and sunset time). There’s a lot more cool features in Sonoma and iOS 17.1 that I’ll be talking more about in the next article.