Level up your browsing with these five Safari tips

Posted on December 19, 2021 by admin

This story has been updated. It was first published on November 18, 2019.

Safari just keeps getting better: The default browser for Apple’s operating systems adds new features every year, so you could be missing out on some cool functionality if you’re not up to speed with everything it can do. See how many of these power user tips make a difference to your productivity in Apple’s web browser.

Check for weak passwords

Safari is concerned about your password security. It will warn you if it detects that you’re using the same password again and again, or if it thinks your credentials are too short or too simple.

To run a password audit, launch the browser, open the Safari menu, and choose Preferences. Switch to the Passwords tab to view a list of all the login details Safari has saved for you. You’ll see yellow exclamation marks next to all the passwords the program isn’t particularly happy with.

Click on any of the individual list entries to get more details. If the browser has identified a reused password, you’ll see the various sites where you’ve signed in with it. Where applicable, you’ll also get a link to the relevant site so you can change your login details straight away.

If you’re struggling to come up with unique, strong passwords, Safari can suggest them for you. Just click on the key icon that appears next to the password field whenever you’re signing up for a new service, and choose Suggest New Password.

Switch to mobile (and back)

You may want to carry your desktop browsing session over to an iPhone or an iPad as you leave the house, for example, or slump onto the sofa. Safari makes it easy for you as long as you’re signed in to the same Apple ID on all your devices.

On your Mac, open the Apple menu, then System Preferences. Under General, make sure the Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices box at the bottom of the dialog window is checked. On iOS and iPadOS, go to Settings, then General and AirPlay & Handoff to enable the feature.

With those options enabled, any webpage open on your Mac in Safari will also appear at the bottom of the app switcher screen on your iPad or iPhone (swipe up from the bottom of the screen or double-tap the Home button to see it). Any pages open on your mobile devices, on the other hand, will appear as an icon in your Mac’s Dock.

What’s more, if you’re using iCloud across all your devices, the tab overview screen will display all the tabs you have open on your various computers, tablets, and phones. To find it on an iPhone, for example, tap the tab overview button in Safari (the four squares in the top right), scroll down, and you’ll see a list of web pages open in Safari on your Mac.

Rearrange your tabs

You may have more tabs open than you really should, but Safari can help you get them into some kind of order. Open up the Window menu, choose Arrange Tabs By, and you’ll be able to pick from Title or Website.

The first option arranges your tabs in alphabetical order based on the title of the page, while the second arranges them in alphabetical order based on the name of the website.

Sorting by website is probably the most useful of the two, especially if you’ve got a pile of tabs open and want to keep pages of a particular type (like Twitter profiles or Google search results) together in the stack.

Another way to get a handle on all the tabs you’ve got open is to go to View, then Show Tab Overview (or click the button showing four squares on the right-hand end of the toolbar). There you’ll see all your tabs laid out as thumbnails, making them a little bit easier to navigate around. Click on any tab to jump to it.

You might have left Safari exactly as it was when you first bought your Mac—and there’s nothing wrong with that—but you can seriously boost your productivity on the web by bringing the tools you use most often closer to hand.

Specifically, you can tweak the Safari toolbar so the options you need most are within easy reach. Right-click on a blank area of the toolbar and choose Customize Toolbar to get started.

It’s then just a question of dragging icons to and from the toolbar, and also along the toolbar to reposition them. You’ve got icons for sharing pages, accessing tabs synced to iCloud, showing or hiding the sidebar, zooming in and out of webpages, and more.

The default icon set is at the bottom—drag it up to the top to put Safari back the way it was when macOS was first installed. When you’ve got the browser toolbar looking the way you want, click Done to confirm.

Clean up your history

Online privacy is something you should always keep in mind, and it’s something Safari is quite good at. Case in point: The way it automatically deletes records of sites you’ve visited and files you’ve downloaded after a certain amount of time has passed.

To take advantage of the feature, open the Safari menu, then choose Preferences. If you switch to the General tab, you’ll see a Remove history items menu. Entries can be wiped from the record after a day, a week, a fortnight, a month, or a year—your choice. Alternatively, you can leave them all in place and delete them manually when necessary.

Further down, there’s a Remove download list items option that works in the same way. It doesn’t delete the downloaded files, though, just Safari’s records of you having downloaded them. The options here are after one day, when you quit Safari, when the file is downloaded, or manually.

To clear your browsing history manually, open up the History menu in Safari, then choose the Clear History option. Safari’s records can be wiped for the last hour, the last day, the last couple of days, or completely.

7 edible flowers and how to use them

Posted on July 20, 2021 by admin

Whether you’re hoping to decorate a cake, jazz up a salad, adorn a cocktail, or simply enjoy a snack from nature, edible flowers can add a touch of whimsy and natural beauty to your diet.

It’s important to remember that not every flower is edible—some are poisonous, and even the ones that aren’t may be growing in suboptimal conditions. Avoid plucking edible blooms directly from nature unless you can be sure they aren’t tainted with germs from wildlife, pathogens from the water supply, or harmful chemicals like pesticides. When in doubt, source your culinary flowers from a trusted gardener or edible flower farm to ensure quality and cleanliness.

Marigolds

Many edible flowers can be eaten whole, but some are best disassembled to avoid the inedible sepal, pistil, and stamens—basically the base of the flower and all those funky bits in the center. Marigolds are one of these: simply separate the head from the stem and pluck off the bright petals. All varieties of marigold have edible petals, but they don’t all taste the same. Some varieties are lightly citrusy, while others have a mildly spicy kick. Still others don’t taste like much of anything and are best for aesthetic purposes rather than culinary ones. If you have access to multiple marigold varieties, consider trying them all to discover your favorites.

Use marigold petals to add color and subtle flavor to any sauce or savory pie, such as a quiche or vegetable tart. You can also roll a ball of goat cheese in these bright petals and place it atop a salad. Marigolds’ fluffy, tightly-packed petals set them apart from other garden favorites, but you can be even more certain you’ve found the right plant by looking for its distinctive fern-like leaves.

Borage

While a bit obscure, this hardy herbal plant lends itself well to a variety of culinary pursuits. It produces quarter-sized blue flowers that connoisseurs say taste a bit like cucumber. These flowers commonly end up in jellies and jams, but are a lovely addition to all sorts of dishes, from a fresh green soup to a light chimichurri for fish and poultry entrees. If you’re considering growing some yourself, don’t hesitate: this flowering herb requires almost no maintenance, will return to the garden every spring, and is a favorite of pollinating bees.

Identify borage by its star-shaped flowers and the prickly white fuzz coating its stems and buds. Look for flowers grouped in downward-facing clusters and wide green leaves with gently ruffled edges. Green alkanet can look similar to the untrained eye, but its flowers are purple with rounded petals and have thicker stems than borage. Forget-me-nots may also be mistaken for borage, but they lack its signature fuzz. Both these other flowers are technically also edible, but they don’t taste like much of anything.

Pansies

A favorite of edible flower enthusiasts, pansies come in a huge array of colors, from soft pastels to vibrant jewel tones. Stick them on a cake, garnish a salad, or pop them in your favorite cocktail—they’ll add an enticing hue wherever they end up. On their own, they have a mild “green” flavor a bit like lettuce, but they’re also a favorite of dessert lovers for their wide variety of colors and flat, round shape. You can easily preserve the fresh blooms by brushing them with an egg wash and sprinkling them with superfine granulated sugar (or regular granulated sugar if that’s all you have), then leaving them to dry completely for four to 24 hours. These candied pansies can make a stunning dessert garnish or a unique homemade gift.

Pansies have iconic flat faces in watercolor hues that make them hard to miss. The flowers bloom in the spring and early summer months on short, compact plants with dark green leaves. They’re a favorite of cool-weather gardeners, and you’ll often find them in public parks, window boxes, and decorative planters—although those aren’t the best places to browse for a snack.

Roses

Roses have been lauded throughout history for their aesthetic beauty, but they have a unique floral flavor in addition to show-stopping colors. This is another flower where you’ll want to stick to the petals, and be sure to rip off the white portion at the base of each petal to avoid its bitter taste. Rose petals can be chopped and blended with softened butter for a fancy teatime spread, dried and sprinkled on a latte for a cute treat, or infused into honeys, jams, jellies, and baked goods.

You probably know what a rose looks like, but it’s worthwhile to make sure you’ve correctly spotted one before chowing down. Look for a bell-shaped bloom with tightly rolled central petals and a stem covered in signature thorns to make sure you’ve found a rose. One of the most similar plants is the thorn-free ranunculus, which is poisonous when eaten fresh.

Tuberous begonias

A group of pink flowers. — Are these tuberous begonias? If you’re not sure, you shouldn’t eat them. *Marjon Besteman / Unsplash*

If you can get your hands on some of these big, bright blooms, take advantage of their natural citrusy flavor. Pair the softball-sized flowers with sliced strawberries in a summery salad or perch one on top of a fruit smoothie for an edible decoration. You can also substitute the stems of tuberous begonias for rhubarb in pies and other baked goods due to their similar sour flavor.

Be sure to get your tuberous begonias from a reputable source—not all begonias are edible, and you don’t want to end up with the wrong variety on your plate by mistake. Tuberous begonias are large and fleshy, unlike some of their smaller cousins, but this is a flower you really shouldn’t try to identify by yourself: check the label or ask their grower directly. People with gout, kidney stones, or rheumatism should avoid even the edible ones: the flowers’ oxalic acid may interfere with the body’s ability to properly absorb nutrients.

Nasturtium

The flowers, buds, and leaves of nasturtium plants are all safe to eat, and they have a peppery bite that sets them apart from other edible blooms. Try adding the flowers to a salad or using them to decorate an appetizer. This plant is an annual, meaning it won’t grow back year after year—just another reason to take advantage of the flowers while they’re in bloom.

If the bright orange flowers with darker orange and red streaks in the centers don’t tip you off, nasturtium also has distinctive leaves. Round and delicate, these bright green saucers have veins that fan out from a small white center. You can often find these flowers and their leaves growing in clusters on thin, roaming stems.

Squash blossoms

An edible squash blossom. — Squash blossoms: stuff ’em, fry ’em, stick ’em in a soup. *Monika Baechler / Unsplash*

A favorite of chefs and home cooks alike, you may not have to look far to find edible squash blossoms. Some high-end grocery stores carry these crinkly treats, as do many farmers markets that sell squash in the fall. Because these flowers grow on the roaming stems of squash plants, you’re unlikely to find them out in the wild.

These trumpet-like orange blooms can grow up to 7 inches long and are delicious stuffed with ricotta cheese, coated in breadcrumbs or pretzel dust, and fried in a pan. You can also cook them into a creamy soup, or even use them as the filling for a quesadilla. The size of these fluted flowers make them much more than a garnish—they’re an ingredient in their own right.

For GREAT deals on a new or used Nissan check out STAR NISSAN OF BAYSIDE TODAY!

The best ways to reduce light pollution and improve your quality of life

Posted on July 5, 2021 by admin

This story has been updated. It was originally published on January 11, 2019.

Plastic in the ocean, greenhouse gases in the air, chemicals in the soil—we discuss these types of pollution in dinner table conversations and international media alike. But we often forget about one form of environmental damage: light pollution. Because its effects are more subtle than dirty air and water, we often fail to notice it, but the constant abundance of light can also harm our health, environment, and way of life.

“I think humanity has so far terribly underestimated the significance of manmade light from an environmental perspective,” says John Barentine, director of conservation at the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). “What makes this issue special is that, unlike other forms of environmental pollution, it’s very easy to deal with and very simple to solve.”

By making just a few swaps, you can fight light pollution on three fronts. We can show you how to protect your personal health, darken the environment around you, and petition the nearest city to make changes for the better.

Prevent light from disrupting your sleep

The 24-hour cycle of day and night works in rhythm with our bodies, allowing a glow to signal when it’s time to sleep and when we need to stay alert. However, as we constantly subject ourselves to light, those rhythms are losing their power—and as a result, we’re damaging more than just our sleep cycles.

When you keep bright room lights shining in the hours before bed, they can suppress melatonin, a natural hormone that, among other things, helps regulate daily wake-sleep cycles. Without it, your body doesn’t get the signal that it’s time to unwind, your brain stays more alert, and you often get less sleep—which increases your risk of depression, diabetes, and heart problems. And that’s not all this hormone does. According to a study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, melatonin disruption could raise blood pressure and possibly even increase your risk of type 2 diabetes.

[Related: How to take the best naps]

The worst offenders in our homes are LEDs. More cost-effective and energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs, they also require fewer watts to produce the same amount of light. And compared to the glow from traditional bulbs, the waves LEDs emit fall in a bluer part of the color spectrum. However, research suggests that this type of light makes us more alert and cognitively active. As a result, LED lights may disrupt our circadian rhythms more than incandescent bulbs and their rosier rays.

In fact, any blue-tinged light—including that emanating from digital screens like those of cell phones, computers, and TV—delays the onset of melatonin, reducing our sleep and harming our health. Still, we just can’t quit them: The National Sleep Foundation found that 90 percent of Americans use some sort of electronic device in the hour before bed at least three nights a week. Those who texted or used their computers in that time reported that they were less likely to get a good night’s sleep and more likely to wake up feeling groggy the next day.

A man holding a phone while using a laptop. — Digital screens emit blue light that can affect your sleep and harm your health. *Free-Photos / Pixabay*

Luckily, indoor blue light is a problem that’s relatively easy to fix. If avoiding screens for an hour or two before bedtime is out of the question, change the color of those screens. Apple devices, for example, offer a Night Shift setting that automatically changes the color temperature of their emitted light when the sun goes down (or at any other time you choose). Androids have a similar option called Night Light. If your device doesn’t have a built-in setting, you can find an app to do it for you.

As for the bulbs that illuminate your evening activities, swap bright white LEDs—in both indoor and outdoor fixtures—for versions with warmer color temperatures. And if you can’t eliminate all the blue light, try on a pair of special glasses that filter out blue light.

Replace your outdoor lighting

As mentioned earlier, you should swap your outdoor LEDs for warmer ones. And there are other ways to reduce the amount of light pollution you spread around. While indoor lighting disrupts our health, outdoor lighting negatively impacts animals, plants… and would-be astronomers.

Studies suggest that human lights disrupt mating and migration patterns in many animal species. For example, they distract migratory birds, drawing them off course. On beaches, they contribute to the declining sea turtle population, disorienting hatchlings and drawing them toward city streets—and nocturnal predators—rather than the ocean. Plant life suffers because moths and other beneficial insects wander toward artificial light and die rather than pollinating the greens that rely on them. Even humans might mourn: As bright lights render the stars invisible, amateur and professional astronomers have lost their view of the cosmos.

By changing your outdoor light setup, you can help wildlife thrive—and earn the thanks of any neighboring star gazers. Start by switching off outdoor lights. If you’re worried about safety, some studies suggest that outdoor lighting may have no effect at deterring crime, and that criminal activity may actually increase in better-lit areas. If that doesn’t convince you, install a motion sensor. That way, lights will only switch on when something moves nearby.

Another easy fix is to buy outdoor lighting fixtures that focus the beams. Lamps that don’t direct light in any way contribute more to light pollution, and they’re also inefficient: In 2015, the International Dark-Sky Association estimated that US residential property owners annually waste at least 117 kWh (that’d cost roughly $22 in New York) per household on misdirected outdoor lighting that does nothing but contribute to sky glow.

Replace those types of fixtures with more focused lighting, which you can find at your local home improvement stores or online. Some options even have a dark sky-friendly seal right on the box. Even without this label, you can still see whether a potential purchase will do the job: Look for directional or shielded fixtures that point light downward, so the bulb is only visible from directly underneath.

Dim your city

Reducing the light pollution that big cities emit is not as easy as swapping your light bulbs. For this, you’ll have to petition local governments to act on your behalf. Still, it can be done: Cities like Tucson, Arizona, where IDA is based, and Flagstaff, Arizona, have implemented citywide changes to protect the night, making the sky darker and the stars brighter for all.

Flagstaff led the charge in 1958, when the city passed a lighting ordinance banning sweeping searchlights. In 1972, Tucson required outdoor lighting to have shielding that directs it downward. Flagstaff did the same in 1973. Then in 1986, Tucson updated their ordinance by banning mercury vapor lights and bottom-mounted billboard floodlights. Next, Flagstaff required all roadways and parking lots to switch to low-pressure sodium lights. In 1998, Coconino County passed the world’s first code to restrict both the type of light permitted in the county and the amount of light per acre. Starting in 2016, Tucson replaced its streetlights with LEDs that emit less blue-spectrum light than most, all of them shielded and most of them with wireless connections that make them remotely dimmable.

The result? Flagstaff has one of the most accessible dark skies in the US—you can see the Milky Way from downtown. Tucson has decreased its overall sky glow by 7 percent and the total amount of light by 70 percent.

How can you bring similar changes to your city? “It’s not a technically difficult problem,” says Christian Luginbuhl, a retired astronomer at the US Naval Observatory in Flagstaff. He’s been leading the charge for that city’s dark sky-friendly ordinances since the 80s. “The reason it doesn’t get solved in so many places is that we need more cultural awareness and initiatives. The technical solutions are just a link in the chain,” he says.

An aerial view of New York City at night. — At night, urban areas like New York City light up the sky. *Free-Photos / Pixabay*

According to Luginbuhl, the key factor is getting people passionate about the value of clear night skies, and how light pollution takes them away. To that end, the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition hosts annual star parties in the fall and year-round events—art exhibits, lectures, and musical performances—that promote cultural connection to the night sky.

You can start the journey to dim your city by creating or joining a dark-sky advocacy organization like IDA (which might already have a local chapter near you). Partner with environmental, astronomy, and outdoor-advocacy groups to spread the word about the importance of maintaining dark skies. IDA even has resources to help you get started.

Once community support and commitment exist, talk to jurisdictional authorities like commissioners, zoning boards and elected officials, explaining what people can gain by reducing light pollution. Then ask these authorities to consider city-wide ordinances and positive changes, similar to the ones Flagstaff and Tucson adopted.

Implement lighting zones, so they can have different levels of brightness in, say, more rural versus more urban areas.
Ban upward-facing billboard floodlights.
Limit the amount of light (lumens) that non-residential properties can use.
Require streetlights and parking lights to have shielded fixtures that point down, focusing the rays away from the sky.

“The only way to address light pollution effectively is that we as a society need to decide it’s something we care about,” Luginbuhl says.

This will take time, but light pollution is a problem with a clear solution. Once we solve it, the results benefit us all.