Automator is a powerful automation tool that comes with Mac OS X, unfortunately it’s also another one of those applications that I basically never use. There are many tasks that I could automate, but I’ve just never gotten around to setting up automation. Well, if you’re like me, or if you’re new to Automator, this … Read More

We love tips that make your computing life easier, and this command line tip from Cedrik Morgan falls into that category, making a lengthy ssh command quite a bit shorter by creation of an alias. Here’s what Cedrik writes in:

If you use your Mac on a cross platform network often, you’ve surely run into the obnoxious creation of .DS_Store files. If you’re curious what the file is used for, DS_Store is a hidden file for Mac OS X that stores various bits of data for the Finder to remember, like icon position, making it … Read More

Have you ever known that you need to open a specific text file to a specific line number? Perhaps for a code review or adjustment, whatever the reason this is fairly common. Rather than open the text file in nano or vim and then navigate to the line number you want to access, there is … Read More

If you want to quickly shut off your Mac without seeing the warning dialog and without any sort of confirmation from the familiar power dialog box or otherwise, you can do that with a little known key modifier trick. Be aware that this approach is fairly abrupt, so you’ll want to use this sparingly for … Read More

Wireless networks are nearly everywhere nowadays, often you’ll be in range of several at a time. With so many seemingly available wifi networks, how do you know which to join? Enter WiFind, a cool little utility that integrates seamlessly into your existing Airport menu as a plugin, allowing you to see more than just wireless … Read More

The Mac has a built-in word completion and word suggestion feature that is intelligent and works incredibly well. This OS X feature is not quite predictive text or QuickType like exists in iOS, but it’s fairly similar and all you need to do is give it a start. You’ll find this very useful if you … Read More

Ever closed a browser tab in Firefox and wished you hadn’t done so? A simple keystroke can retrieve that closed browser tab! I can’t count the number of times I have been closing windows or tabs and have accidentally a tab that I wanted kept open. In the past, it has been annoying at best … Read More

It is not unusual for companies and schools to block certain ports to prevent people from using things like P2P networks and AIM. But the AIM chat protocol is quite popular, so if you want to use it and you find it to be blocked on a network, you can probably get around it by … Read More

This looks to be a week of SSH tips, beyond secure WebMail access with SSH tunnels, MacApper.com has a nice post about using secure tunnels to surf the web and talk on instant messengers. Why is any of this SSH stuff useful or important you may ask? In short, SSH provides a very secure protocol … Read More

The Mac OS X GUI and all it’s eye candy is a pleasure to use and look at. Perhaps you’ll remember a while back from our Fun Eye Candy Effects article that by holding down the Shift key, you can slow down virtually any Aqua effect in Mac OS X, from minimizations, window sizing, to … Read More

Reader Mathew Prairen asks a common question about forcibly opening files with an application on the Mac, and it has a remarkably simple answer: “I have a few documents and files from my PC that Pages refuses to open, is there any way I can force Pages to open these files?” As a matter of … Read More

MacPorts, formerly DarwinPorts, is a free open source app that allows Mac users to easily install command line software and x11 software in Mac OS X by using the ‘ports’ command line tool for package management. MacPorts is probably best for more advanced Mac users who have some experience with the command line, because MacPorts … Read More

Almost everyone likes tweaking their Mac, and LifeHacker has posted a great list of tweaks for Mac OS X users that you’re sure to enjoy. A few of the tips have been covered by OS X Daily before, but there will likely be some that are new to you.

Since Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been delayed until October, Apple is rumored to be working on an update to Mac OS X 10.4. The update will supposedly be released under the version number 10.4.10, a somewhat unusual number for Apple, who typically release a significant update like 10.5 after a .9 update. The … Read More

Firefox is a great web browser for Mac that offers a lot of benefits, and one way to really improve your Firefox experience is to learn and master some keyboard shortcuts for Firefox on Mac OS. Whether you use Firefox as your default Mac web browser, or as just one of a variety of other … Read More

If your computer is hooked up to a network, you might want to think twice about security because it’s easier than you’d think to snoop private information and emails, particularly over wireless networks. One of the better ways to protect yourself is to use a secured connection like SSH, which will encrypt all the data … Read More

Here’s a simple Dock hack that is really useful for those of us who have many applications open at once. When activated, icons of applications that are hidden (either by right clicking the icon in the Dock, or by option-clicking away from the application) will appear transparent within the Dock like the screenshot shows with … Read More