Tips: Caller ID for Phone app

The Phone app is one of the most commonly used iOS apps on the iPhone. You can find a handful of features in the Settings->Phone. For instance, you can configure your caller ID to be either shown or hidden when making a call.

However, occasionally, you might wish to display or hide your caller ID for specific individuals or businesses without having to reset this setting from the Settings menu for every single call, which can be quite laborious. Here are two tips for using the Phone app to achieve this temporarily.

Use the code #31#  before your phone number to hide your caller ID, like in this example:

Use the code *31# before your phone number to display your caller ID, like in another example:

Those codes are very easy to remember. Think of *as a star presenting you, and # as a fence hiding anything. The remaining codes are the same.

Updated to macVentura 13.0.1

Last night, I updated my macBook Pro macOS to Ventura 13.0.1. I had to to do this because my development tool Xcode 14 is only availalbe for this macOS version. This morning I saw my macOS update is done.

Here is the space difference before and after the update.

Before:

After:

It seems that I got more space after the update.

Mi Band 4 For Better Health Monitoring

For 2022 New Year, I got a gift of XiaoMi's hand wist device: Mi Band 4 NFC. I have been very interested in Apple Watch for long time. The only things put me on hold are its price and necessity of features I want. This time I got another alternative device to try.

The main interest is its spleep monitor feature. iPhone has a bed time feature in Apple's Clock app. However, it only sets times to the bed and out of bed, ie, bed times. It does not have a way to determin whether if I am really asleep or in deep sleep mode.

Mi Band 4 has a sensor on the back of the watch. This sensor seems being able to monitor my sleep mode: light sleep and deep sleep. The device has an iOS app called Mi Fit. From there I can see my sleep score and data in detail.

The app provides 2 comparisions of my sleep data to other people.

From Heart Rate item in the main screen, the rate information is available from the detail view,

and sleep rate is also avaible from there.

The app also syncs those data back to iOS Health. Unfortunately, it only syncs all light and deep sleep data, back to Health' sleep module as asleep data.

Sometimes, I do see some sleep data duplicated. This might be caused by multiple syncs.

Anyway, I like Mi Band 4 device very much. In addtion to its detail sleep information, it also monitor my heat beat, and movements(walking, running, and cycling). The most important feature is its long lasting battery life, up to 5 days a charge (comparing to Apple Watch 2 days for the most recent model).

UPDATE

I found another trick to record my awake time. When I awake in a night, for example, going to washroom, I shake my left hand with Mi Band on up and down 10 times. I think that this is the way to let the band detect I am really awake. I have tried sever nights, and it is accurate to record my awake time.

In terms of price, Mi Band 4 is about $40.00 on Amazon.ca as to the blog date.

Secret Cache of WeChat

By chance, yesterday when I clicked on a message with a link to a document file in Mac's WeChat app, I was prompt to Finder. To my surprice, this is a deep and secret space where WeChat stores temporary files.

Further exploration, I found its path from file info in Finder.

From there I copied the full path from Where. Here is the full path

/Users/xxx/Library/Containers/com.tencent.xinWeChat/Data/Library/Application Support/com.tencent.xinWeChat/2.0b4.0.9/f5210b300b4abef170762c8c1ddf67c5/Message/MessageTemp/2d14efe546045554426bdf707c13cead

I understand that WeChat saves some information such as images, files, videos in local cache so that there would be no need to download those information again for displaying (and much qicker) when user clicks on thos items. However, I don't know where they are and how long those items are stored, forever?

From this sneak, I could go up to other folders to see what items are saved. There are quite a lots of items in this library cache. I guess that those items would be purgeble items in system cache.

I got Mac mini M1

I just got Mac mini M1 2020 model, refurblished one. I have been kept watching Mac mini M1 for long time. The Mac mini box is very small, powerful, and attactive Mac computer. In addition to that, the cost is another reason, much less that iMac or macBook air or pro. This model saves me CAD$170.

This is my first expirence with Mac mini. Basically, it is just computer box with powerful CPU & GPU, internal speaker and several ports for peripheral connection. To make it work in a way as same as iMac, for example, a monitor, a keyboard, mouse or trackpad are needed as minimal.

In addtion to the minimal, for my case, I purchased a web camera for facetime or web conference. I have an external speaker with better sound quality. The Mac mini box does not have any internal microphone, but I found that web camera's microphone is good enough. There are 2 USB ports in the mini box. I need more ports for my keyboard, mouse, web camera, extrenal HD as time machine, and printer. Therefore, I need two USB hubs (4 USB ports for one hub) for more connections.

For my experienment, I tried to use USB port to connect the Mac mini to my existing iMac 21, using iMac screen as monitor. I thought that if I could see Mac mini HD, I would be able to boot from it through System Preferences' boot disk setting. Unfortunately, I cannot see Mac mini HD from my iMac. Finally I realize that it makes sense. The HD within Mac mini box is not in the same way as external HD to USB port. Any way, it is a good try. Currently I have an old monitor for use. The new one, Samsung 24" FHD 75Hz 5ms GTG IPS LED FreeSync Gaming Monitor (LF24T350FHNXZA), is on the way shipping to my house.

References

• Apple Certifiled Refurbished (Canada): Guaranteed Apple quality

Add Picture to PDF File

Preview is a versatile tool to view and edit various types of files, including PDF. For example, by using Preview, you can add new text, lines, object shapes to a PDF file. However, it seems, at first,  that images could not be directly added to PDF file(no ways from Previews' menu or toolbar icons), none be directly pasted to.

Just a shorting time searching from internet, I found a way to do that.  Here is the trick to do that:

1. First copy and paste an image to Preview by Ctrl+N as a new image file;
2. then select all or part of image and make a copy (Ctrl+C).
3. Paste the selection by Ctrl+V.
4. Select all again (Ctrl+A), and
5. cut the selection(Ctrl+X). This new copy will be as an object instead of image.
6. The last step is to paste the object to your PDF file in Preview by Ctrl+V!

References

• How-To Geek article: Hwo to Add An Image a PDF File with Preview

Link to a note in Notes.app

Notes.app is a very good app in Apple eco-system. You can add a note on Mac or iPhone or iCloud. Then all the notes are synced in iCloud if you enable notes on iCloud.

There is a problem to access to a note, especially when you have hundreds or thousands of notes. It is really hard to find out an interested note.

I developed an app: TapToCount-3W. This is a convenient and creative tool to write notes anywhere when you have an iPhone. By categories you define, it is very easy to organize your taps or notes. With a finger tapping on screen, you can create a tap with 3 pieces information: When, Where and What. "What" is a note associated to a tap.

Normally, I don't like to write a lot of text in my app's note. It is much better to use Notes.app or EverNote to write a note. Then, a question comes to my mind. Can I have a URL link in a note, and then I copy/paste the link to my app.

Yes, it is possible. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Click or tap a note's Add People icon
2. Enter an email, it can be just you!
3. Then a link is available in Sharing. I could not find Copy Link in iPhone, but it is in Mac.

In this way, I can have a link in my app.





From this story, I think that any shared resources in Apple devices should have a link or URL available for accessing.

References

• Stack Exchange - Ask Difference(Answers for your Apple questions): How to connection note with links in Notes.app?
• iOS app: TapToCount-3W