Virtual memory serves a crucial task in modern operating systems, essentially how it works is that when you run out of real memory (RAM), the slower hard disk will take over as a temporary memory source. The downside is that the hard disk is slower, so running things in virtual memory is not ideal, one … Read More

We all want our Mac performing at it’s best, and this list is quite long addressing all sorts of things. Many of the tips are common sense but there’s still some decent advice and it’s worth checking out. Not everyone is happy with the 52 tips though, MacUser has released a lengthy rebuttal addressing each … Read More

If you have an extra iPod laying around that isn’t getting much musical usage, perhaps you’d like to try using it as a boot disk. Yes seriously, though obviously by doing so you will lose the iPod ability to play music, and gain a bootable Mac volume instead.

I am frequently developing web pages and often times I find it frustrating when I can not restart my browser because I’m in the middle of a download. So when I need to download a large file and I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not Safari, Chrome, or Firefox continues to … Read More

If you make a living on Ebay or if you are the casual bargain shopper, GarageSale deserves a look. At first glance GarageSale looks like any other Mac OS X application but after a few minutes of use you will begin to feel how powerful this little tool can be. Most every function available on … Read More

Frozen apps happen to the best of us for reasons we don’t always understand, and a Mac application can just suddenly become unresponsive and we see the spinning beachball of death (sometimes called SBOD for short). For those new to the Mac platform, getting around the spinning wait cursor might be confusing, so here’s two … Read More

Want to encrypt a file quickly? You can do so with OpenSSL at the command line. A few months ago a question was posed to our readers about encrypting or password protecting a text file [How can I password protect a file?]. We got several good responses but one in particular has really stuck with … Read More

Have a handful of games that require game discs to be inserted in order to play? This was common with a lot of Mac Blizzard games, like Warcraft 3 for example. Obviously Carrying around a stack of CD’s and DVD’s just so you can play games can be very annoying, adding unwanted bulk to your … Read More

There are several ways to go about changing the volume on your Mac, but did you know you can use the command line? I’m a big command line junkie so the more things I can do from the Terminal the better. If you want to adjust your system volume level directly from the command line, … Read More

GeekTool is a really cool utility that allows you to place the output of unix commands on your desktop. Things like system logs and calenders can be superimposed on your background picture, allowing for quick reading and creating a very nice looking effect (here’s a screenshot of it in action). My only complaint with GeekTool … Read More

There has never been a time when I am saving a document in Mac OS X that I don’t click the expand arrow to see the full save dialog screen. That little button is situated alongside the file name input, and when you click on it, you have access to the expanded dialog that allows … Read More

If you want to quickly access something from the Mac Dock within the Finder, many users will right-click on the Dock icon and go to Options to choose “Show in Finder”. There’s nothing wrong with that approach and it works quite well, but there’s a faster way possible with a Command click. This is a … Read More

If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro you’ve probably noticed that it can get a bit warm, no surprise considering the tremendous amount of processing power stuffed into their respective cases. The cooling system is simple to understand; when your CPU load goes up, your fans will kick in. Well, not all users think … Read More

Regardless of how many Mac’s you administer, there will surely come a time when you’ll need to retrieve relevant System Information. This can be done from the graphical interface with the Apple System Profiler utility, but often you’ll need to pull system details from the terminal as well. Gathering system information from the command line … Read More

Reader Adam Smith writes in with the following question: “I am a new Mac user, and I love OSX! I have a MacBook Pro 15”. I would like to know though, is there a way that you can lock a MAC? Like in Windows, you can hit the shortcut “Windows Key + L”. Is there … Read More

John Hicks of Hicks Design UK has created a gorgeus theme for us Mac users who like to read our RSS using a web-based reader. The skin looks suspiciously like a native OS X application and is available as a plugin for: Firefox, Camino, Safari, Omniweb and Opera. Read more and Download

Preview is the default application to open just about any image or PDF file on your Mac, it’s a great program that blows anything comparable in the Windows world out of the water. One of the greatly underused features of Preview is the ability to view images and PDF files in full screen mode. Entering … Read More

One of my biggest peeves with Firefox 2 is how the tab system works with the scroll bar. Prior to version 2, tabs would squish in size to accommodate more. Being a tab heavy user I found this to be perfectly adequate and I got used to how it works. Enter Firefox 2; instead of … Read More