Finder Tabs are one of the better Mavericks improvements brought to the OS X Finder in years, letting you use the file system in a single window view, with each open folder or directory path as it’s own unique tab. Used properly, Finder Tabs will prevent the enormous amounts of window clutter that can occur … Read More

Though we generally recommend staying on the latest versions of OS X, some users may find incompatibilities or problems associated with updating their Macs to OS X Mavericks, and for these unique circumstances it can make sense to downgrade the Mac back to a prior release version of OS X. For such specific cases, we’ll … Read More

Changing the login screens background wallpaper is a great way to customize the appearance of a Mac. The process of doing so seems to change with every release of OS X though, and that’s no different with swapping out the login wallpaper in OS X Mavericks. Changed yet again with OS X 10.9, you will … Read More

Dictation is the new speech-to-text engine that lets your Mac type out what you are saying as you talk, and it’s one of the many excellent features included with modern versions of OS X. Now from Mavericks onward, you can improve Dictation considerably by enabling an option called “Enhanced Dictation”, this will provide two significant … Read More

Already installed OS X Mavericks, but now you want to create an install drive for other computers? Or maybe the Mavericks installer became corrupt during the process? Whatever the situation, you can easily re-download OS X Mavericks from the Mac App Store.

Java has plenty of real-world applications and uses, but because it has been used as an attack vector in the past, Apple has made OS X reasonably aggressive in limiting Java on Macs. As a result, Mavericks does not come with Java preinstalled, and upgraded Macs will remove Java in Mavericks installation process. For most … Read More

Network Utility is a great tool that has been around on the Mac since the very first version of OS X. It provides a variety of helpful networking tools and details, the “Info” tab includes general network info on a per interface level showingIP address, MAC address, link speeds, and sent/received data transfer statistics, and … Read More

Sharing files between Macs and NAS drives and Windows PC’s has always been very easy, but Mavericks brought a slight change that has caused some problems for certain users in mixed PC and Mac environments. Without getting too geeky, Apple adjusted the default protocol for SMB (Samba, the Windows file sharing ability) from SMB1 to … Read More

App Nap is a great feature that arrived with OS X Mavericks which automatically pauses applications once they have gone unused for a period of time, helping to reduce energy consumption and saving battery life for portable Macs. Though App Nap can make a big difference in extending the battery life of MacBooks, there are … Read More

All of the latest versions of OS X have opted for a conservative approach to showing the users ~/Library/ directory, a folder which contains a variety of important files, settings, preferences, caches, and many specific files that are required for apps to run as intended. Because of the possibility of unintentional harm to a users … Read More

For Mac users who use external screens, multi-display support has been greatly improved in OS X Mavericks, but one feature that is either loved or hated is the addition of the secondary menu bar that is visible on the external display(s). The secondary menu bar serves the obvious purpose of providing easy access to menu … Read More

The default solution for installing OS X Mavericks is to download it free from the App Store and then perform an upgrade from a previous version of Mac OS X, whether that’s from Mountain Lion or Snow Leopard. Upgrades are fast, efficient, and most important, very easy, and that’s the recommended option for the vast … Read More