Apple has pushed iOS 7 Beta 6 to all compatible iOS devices registered with the iOS Developer Program. The 6th beta build is 11A4449d, and is said to include improvements and bug fixes. Arriving as a remarkably small OTA download weighing in between 12-25MB for most hardware, the smaller builds are appearing on the iPhone … Read More

PNGcrush is an image optimization utility whose primary function is to reduce the overall file size of the PNG images in a lossless manner. It’s quite popular with developers and designers alike, and though it’s bundled in some versions of linux from the get-go, it’s not included in OS X by default without installing Xcode. … Read More

The command line is usually thought of as serious and we usually only cover useful terminal tricks that are fairly advanced, but not everything in the Terminal has to be useful. To prove that, we have three command strings that when pasted into the OS X Terminal, do nothing but scroll screenfuls of random text, … Read More

Ever had a window get lost partially off screen in Mac OS X, where the window titlebars and close/minimize/maximize buttons are no longer accessible? Typically this looks something like the following screen shot: There a variety of potential causes and even random situations for windows to move offscreen like that, but it often happens with … Read More

Don’t you hate it when you misplace your iPhone and can’t find it? Or when it slides between the couch cushions or under a pile of laundry and you spend 20 minutes checking every possible place in the house to no avail? The old trick many of us use is to call the iPhone from … Read More

Like every other operating system, iOS stores temporary files and app caches locally on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and these files can build up over time. Generally iOS is pretty good at housekeeping, but if you’ve had a device for a long time and haven’t deleted old unused apps, resynced recently, or restored … Read More

Deleting mail from the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch is a little more cumbersome than it should be, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By making a quick settings change, we can turn the existing “Archive” function and swipe gesture into a “Delete” button and gesture instead. This also carries over to the … Read More

Despite Time Machine being a remarkable solution for easy backups, a peculiar issue can arise for some Time Machine users that causes the Mac OS X Trash to not be able to empty when the backup drive is connected to the Mac. This will usually manifest itself as the following; a user attempts to empty … Read More

Apple will unveil the latest iPhone model on Tuesday, September 10, according to a new report from the always reliable AllThingsD. The report confirms only the launch date, but seems to suggest that Apple may actually release two distinct iPhone models; the expected update to the iPhone 5 (iPhone 5S?), and possibly a lower-cost color … Read More

No longer want an email account on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod? Entire email accounts are very easy to remove from an iPhone or iPad, so whether you changed jobs, email addresses, an email provider was shut down, or perhaps you just don’t want to get emails for a particular account on your device any … Read More

Having reliable and regular backups of your Mac should be considered a mandatory part of maintenance, and for most users Time Machine provides that with easy and peace of mind. But what if you want multiple backups stored in different places, like a backup at home, and another at the office, or perhaps a backup … Read More

Chrome is an excellent web browser alternative to Safari on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and if you use the Chrome app you’ll probably want to know how to clear out the common browser data that gets stored locally in iOS. This includes data like web caches, cookies, site browsing history, and possibly saved … Read More

Each file type has a default application that is associated with it on the Mac. This means that when you double-click a file from the Finder it will open a specific application, for example on a fresh Mac OS installation, all image files (png, jpg, gif, pdf, etc) will default to opening in Preview, and … Read More

Apple has released OS X Mavericks Developer Preview 5 for registered Mac devs. The release includes bug fixes and feature enhancements, and all users who are running Developer Preview 4 are recommended to update to the newest version.

Using Disk Utility through Recovery Mode is the preferred and primary tool for repairing disks on the Mac platform, but if Disk Utility is either unavailable or not able to repair a drive, then Single User Mode and the command line tool fsck should be your next choice.

Time Machine is the simplest way to keep a reliable backup of everything on your Mac, but sometimes we don’t want every file or folder saved, or maybe you just no longer need a given directory to be preserved by external backups. In these situations, removing backups of any specific file or folders, or even … Read More

Apple has released the fifth beta version of iOS 7 for developers. The new beta includes many bug fixes and several feature enhancements, and arrives as build is 11A4449a.

Calendar is one of the most useful features of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and many of us wind up managing our schedules entirely through the app. But even if you’re just a casual Calendar user, you’ll still get some great use out of these five tips aimed at improving the speed of your … Read More