Toby answers your apps and social tech questions

Having trouble with photos on your iPad, or completely stuck with a hacked Facebook account? With the rapidly developing pace of technology, it’s no wonder you might be feeling lost – or have no idea who to turn to for help.

Introducing Toby Foreland – your tech expert

Toby has been a tech expert for five years, and in that time he’s helped everyday New Zealanders deal with almost every IT issue he can think of. He gets what people are struggling with every day – and how that can make them feel lost and unsure. His job is to help you find your way, so you can use technology to your advantage.

Here are Toby’s answers to your apps and social-related questions:

My Facebook has been hacked and someone is pretending to be me. What do I do? – Nicole

“Unfortunately, this problem is relatively commonplace. Two things could have happened:

  1. If you can still access your account, you have a copycat. This is where someone will copy your name and profile picture to create a new (false) account. Here’s what to do:
  • Hide your friends list to stop the hacker sending friend requests to your friends, so they can message them and ask for money. This is a good way to prevent this sort of copycatting in the first place – you can read instructions on how to do that here.
  • Find the copy-cat profile if you can and report it to Facebook.
  • Let your friends and family know to ignore any new friend requests from ‘you’ and to block the person.
  1. If you can’t access your account, and you’ve received a ‘change of password’ email from Facebook – you’ve been hacked.
  • There are lots of great resources on Facebook to help: com/help/hack or facebook.com/hacked can show you how to prove who you are to Facebook – and recover your account.”

How do I get emails on my phone? – Matthew

“This can be relatively simple – or quite tricky depending on what kind of email address you have. Here’s how.

Step 1: Download an email app. If you don’t already have an app on your phone, you can download one for free from the App Store or PlayStore.

Step 2: Open the app.

Step 3: Enter your email address and password into the app.

“If you’re using a smaller email company – like xtra.co.nz, or a work email – you might need more help. You have lots of options: Google is great for finding instructions, you could contact the IT department at work”

How do I translate recipes and articles I’ve found in Pinterest into English? – Margaret

“If you know what language the recipe or article is currently in, Google Translate will be your new best friend. Go to translate.google.com, copy and paste the text you want translating, then select the language.

“Google Translate will work on images too. You’ll need to download the Google Translate app (for free) from App Store or PlayStore. Use the camera on your phone to take a photo of the recipe – then select your language. Tip: this is great for menus and street signs when travelling too!

“Lastly, on Chrome web browsers, if a webpage is in a different language it will often ask you if you would like to translate the page.”

I would like to make a photobook, but the images haven’t transferred to my iPad as thumbnails. The iPad is an older model – is that the problem? – from Jen

“Apple recently stopped doing Photobook – so on the older versions there might still be that option, but it’s sending you to a dead-end! There are a few other things that could be causing the issue, so it might be best to bring both devices into your nearest Apple store where someone can look at them.”

Why do I get text messages on my iPad? – from Estelle

“iMessage is one of the features of iOS (Apple’s operating system) used on iPhones, Macs and iPads – they look and behave like text messages, but you get them on all your devices if you’ve linked your Apple ID to your phone number.

“It works great if you’re the only one using the devices, but can be frustrating for those who use shared devices – you grandkid might read your iMessage on the iPad, so it looks ‘read’ and you don’t notice it! To turn the feature off, you need to go to Settings on each device, and choose iMessage, then Off.”

How do I get my photos out of iPhoto? – from Kelly

“You have two options, depending on how many photos you want to share:

  1. If you simply want to share a photo to Facebook or send it in an email to someone, choose Select, tick the photos you want to share or send, then click Share (the box with the little arrow coming out of it). You’ll need to then choose how you want to share the photo.
  2. To bulk print, or back up your photos, you’ll need to export them. Choose Select, then Select All or choose which ones you need. Then go to File Menu, and choose Export. Stick with jpg files – the most commonly used image format – and with max quality (unless you need to fit them on to a small hard drive). Choose where to save them, and then hit enter.”