Whenever a new Terminal window is launched, a variety of system logs are read to provide information on the last login. One way to speed up launching a new terminal window is to delete those .asl log files, but you can achieve a substantial speed boost by simply setting Terminal to open a shell rather … Read More

Using sysctl we can get extended information on a Macs processor, covering everything from CPU brand and identifier, clock speed, number of cores, thread count, thermal sensor data, cache size, and some significantly more technical information. This is a handy way to get detailed processor specs and info without turning to the system profiler in … Read More

It seems like all Mac users these days have an iPhone or iPad to compliment their setups, and this weeks Mac setup shot from Andreas H has the best of all worlds. Hardware shown is: iMac 27″ (Mid 2010) – wallpaper is here MacBook Air 13″ (Mid 2011) iPhone 4S, black, 32 GB iPad (3rd … Read More

Mac OS X has fairly good memory management but it’s not perfect, and sometimes RAM can be held unnecessarily in the “inactive” state despite the contents no longer being needed. If you’ve been participating in memory heavy activities or you just need to free up some available RAM you can actually force Mac OS X … Read More

Need to quickly return to the top of an app, web page, or document, on your iPhone or iPad? This trick is for you! The next time you have scrolled far down on a web page in Safari, at the bottom of a Contacts list, deep down in Mail, or just buried down the screen … Read More

It’s rare to find a Mac user that doesn’t have other Apple gear, and this Mac setup from Steve B is no exception. The setup includes a little bit of everything: 21″ iMac (late 2011) 13″ MacBook Pro (late 2011) iPad (3rd gen) iPhone 4 iPod touch (1st gen) iPod Touch (latest gen) iPod Shuffle … Read More

This weeks Mac setup is loaded with great Apple gear and comes to us from husband and wife Cesare and Monica. Hardware from left to right is: iPad 1 iPhone 4 64GB iMac 20″ (early 2008) 4GB RAM 200GB HD iPad 3rd gen 64GB iPhone 4S 64GB MacBook Pro 17″ (mid 2007) 8GB RAM 500GB … Read More

Want to share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple Macs? How about using a keyboard and mouse attached to your Mac to control an additional PC running Windows or Linux, and even being able to share copy and paste data between the different operating systems? You can do that with the help of a … Read More

A users .bash_history file keeps a running tab of command line history, logging every command that has been entered into the bash prompt. These command history files make it very easy to find and recall past commands that may have been forgotten, and they’re also extremely useful for system administration. We will cover how to … Read More

Assuming you have file extensions shown in the OS X Finder, attempting to change a file extension causes a warning dialog with a confirmation box to appear. The warning text says “Are you sure you want to change the extension from (this) to (that)?” then giving you two choices; keep the current file extension, or … Read More

TextWrangler is a very powerful general purpose text editor with a heavy emphasis on development and programming. We’ve long been big fans of TextWrangler around here as it is unequivocally the best free text editor out there for Mac OS X, and now that title is cemented even further with the release of TextWrangler 4.0. … Read More

Update: Apple has released an official update that removes Flashback with a Software Update. Download the latest Java updates from the OS X Software Update panel to automatically remove Flashback trojan malware. A new application has been released which makes checking a Mac for the Flashback malware infection as simple as clicking a button. This … Read More

iTunes allows users to rate songs on a 1 star to 5 star basis, song rating data can then be used for a variety of purposes, either for your own reference or for creating custom play lists that only include songs rated over a certain star value. But what if a song is somewhere in … Read More

How’d you like to drive three external displays from a single MacBook Pro? That’s exactly what this weeks Mac setup is doing with the help of an external video card. Coming to us from journalist and blogger Pierra D, here is the hardware pictured: MacBook Pro 17″ (2009) – 8GB RAM and dual 256 GB … Read More

Google Chrome automatically updates itself in the background when a new version is out, this takes responsibility out of user hands and makes it simple to keep up to date with the latest version of the Chrome app for Mac. Generally you should leave automatic update enabled for Chrome, if not for its ease than … Read More

You’re probably familiar with making your own zip files if you’ve ever needed to transfer a group of files or if you’re managing your own backups outside of Time Machine. Using the GUI zip tools are easy and user friendly, but if you want some more advanced options with better compression you can turn to … Read More

Update: Apple has released a Java software update that includes automatic detection and Flashback removal ability. Go to “Software Update” from the  Apple menu to download that update and automatically remove the trojan if you happen to have it on your Mac. Trojans and viruses are generally something Mac users don’t have to worry … Read More

If you spend a lot of time switching between web browsers for development or for whatever other reason, you’ll find Switch useful. Switch is a handy free menu bar utility that transfers all browser tabs and windows between web browsers in Mac OS X. Whether you use Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, you can easily send … Read More