Spotlight won’t work? Fix a broken Spotlight menu with these troubleshooting tips

Feb 15, 2007 - 122 Comments

Spotlight is probably the greatest feature to hit the Mac OS in years, once you get used to using it, going to a PC without it feels hopelessly inadequate. I use Spotlight for everything from launching applications, retrieving pictures, searching for old emails, literally just about everything. If you aren’t using Spotlight, you’re missing out. … Read More

Rumor mill: iChat 4.0 to include Voicemail

Feb 15, 2007 - Leave a Comment

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is confirming older reports from MacRumors that the upcoming version of iChat (to be bundled with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) will include voicemail features. The MacRumors report from December of 2006 says that users will be allowed to create a video greeting to serve as an answering machine message of … Read More

img2icns – Instant Drag & Drop Icon Creation

Feb 13, 2007 - 4 Comments

Here is a great little app that works exactly as advertised, creating icons instantly with just a matter of dragging and dropping an image file on the program. Whether you want to create icons for personal usage, desktop customization, or you’re a developer and you need an icon for the latest shiny cocoa software you … Read More

UNO – Unify the Mac OS X Appearance

Feb 13, 2007 - Leave a Comment

UNO is a nice interface enhancer for the Mac. Mac OS X looks great, no arguments there, but if you ever get tired of the various themes of Brushed Metal, iTunes, and Aqua, then you might consider unifying the appearance with UNO. Installation is simple, and you’ll be given three choices for various aspects of … Read More

Chax – Tabs and other improvements to iChat

Feb 8, 2007 - 1 Comment

iChat is a great instant messaging client, but Chax makes iChat even better with a slew of feature improvements that add to the functionality. My personal favorite is the ability to use tabbed chat, I frequently have several instant message windows going at once, and on a relatively small MacBook screen it sure is nice … Read More

Vertical Highlighting Using the Modified Selection Tool

Feb 2, 2007 - 2 Comments

Highlighting, cutting, and pasting is a part of virtually every computer users daily routine. We select the desired text by dragging horizontally across the screen, highlighting what we want to copy or edit. But say you want to highlight vertically, in a column of text, rather than choosing an entire line. Easily done thanks to … Read More

CoconutIdentityCard – Mac & iPod Build Info

Jan 25, 2007 - 3 Comments

This is a fun little program that quickly gives you information on when and where your Mac and iPod were built (it claims to check any Apple products based on serial number, but we couldn’t test this feature). There’s also an ability that allows you to check your serial number against a database to see … Read More

Easily Determine Architecture Type of Mac OS X Apps – Universal, Intel, or PowerPC

Jan 24, 2007 - 1 Comment

Regardless of your thoughts on Apple’s switch to the Intel architecture, we are now in a transition period where many apps are either PowerPC, Universal, or Intel only. While most new applications are at least Universal binaries, some are PowerPC, and running these through Rosetta on your Intel Mac can cause a performance decrease. So … Read More

Capture iSight Images Using the Command Line

Jan 24, 2007 - 7 Comments
Terminal icon

We all know that Photo Booth is great fun and is sure to entertain our friends and family with the goofy effects. But what if you want to take pictures using your iSight from the command line? Unfortunately Apple doesn’t provide this option (at least that we know of), but thanks to a crafty individual … Read More

Easily Change the Short Username in Mac OS X

Jan 22, 2007 - 1 Comment

Have you ever wanted to change the short username in Mac OS X? Dig around in the System Preferences and you’ll soon find it’s not as easy as just typing in a new name. Apple has some directions on how to do it, but the instructional document is painful just to look at, let alone … Read More

What happens in the Mac OS X boot process?

Jan 22, 2007 - 36 Comments
Finder icon

Ever wondered what happens during the Mac OS X boot and startup process? With Mac OS X it’s a bit more complicated than things once were, and long gone are the days of Classic Mac OS (System 9, 8, 7, 6), where watching our Macs boot up with a series of extensions and control panels … Read More

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 9A343 Released to Developers

Jan 20, 2007 - 2 Comments

We are all excited for this springs release of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5, and each new developer release can give us hints of what is in the pipeline. The Mac speculation site MacRumors says that the latest seed of Leopard includes a few new features that have been suggested, including tabbed window support in … Read More

RadioTuner – Listen to Any Radio Station via Dashboard

Jan 17, 2007 - Leave a Comment

There are quite a few ways to listen to the radio on your Mac, through iTunes, Safari, various Dashboard widgets, but RadioTuner is probably the best way yet.

Visor – Systemwide Terminal Access via Hotkey

Jan 16, 2007 - 5 Comments

For those of us who have ever played Quake, this is an easy one to explain. Remember hitting the tilde (~) key would bring down the Quake terminal? Well that is what Visor does for Mac OS X. You assign a hotkey, and when Visor is triggered, a nice Terminal slides out of the top … Read More

7 Useful Dock Shortcuts & Key Commands for Mac

Jan 6, 2007 - 2 Comments
The Mac Dock

The Dock is a major part of most Mac OS users daily lives, used for everything from application launching, to storing of minimized windows and apps, where the Trash is located, and more. But the Mac Dock has more tricks up its sleeve than what is readily visible, and with the help of key command … Read More

SantaSnaps – Christmas Fun Photo Booth Clone

Dec 24, 2006 - 3 Comments

Christmas is here, and what better way to get in the spirit than to make you and your loved ones into Santa! SantaSnaps is a lot like Photo Booth except instead of distortions and color changes, you get elf hats, beards, ears, reindeer horns, glasses, and a few other holiday accessories. There’s also a strange … Read More

Twenty Steps to Help Diagnose and Fix System Problems

Dec 20, 2006 - 3 Comments

Mac ownership is largely troublefree, but sooner or later you’ll probably run into some kind of problem with your systems performance. MacOSXHints.com is one of the best sites out there for tips and helpful information for the Mac, and although this article is dated (almost three years now!) it is just as useful as ever. … Read More

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 9A321 Screenshot Gallery

Dec 20, 2006 - Leave a Comment

The Apple Rumor site ThinkSecret obtained the latest release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and put together a nice screenshot gallery for all of us to see. Notably missing is the much anticipated GUI revision that has everyone buzzing, but perhaps Apple is hiding the final GUI until release day. There might be some … Read More

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