Have you ever noticed that Mail app registers a message as “read” after it has been clicked? The automatic “mark as read” feature makes it easy to quickly skim through a bunch of emails, but Mail doesn’t offer much control over the the delay for when messages are marked read.

Although everyone should always password protect a Mac to prevent unauthorized use, not everyone does. Sometimes people share general logins, be it with a roommate, sibling, spouse or whoever else. Now, if you have ever wondered if someone was using your computer while you were away, there’s actually a pretty easy method to find out … Read More

This classic Mac desk setup comes to us from Richard, who has a range of Apple gear to get work done. Shown in the picture is: Macbook Air 13″ resting on a mStand by Rain Design Samsung 24″ LED display attached to the MacBook Air iPad 2 sitting on an elago P2 Stand External 1TB … Read More

Work with text often? You can navigate, select, and manipulate text faster than ever before by remembering these twelve keyboard shortcuts.

We recently covered how to resolve an issue when Mac OS X doesn’t remember a wireless network, password protected or not, and since then several readers have notified us of another separate issue: Mac OS X won’t remember a wireless network password. The networks are remembered, but each time the network is found the password … Read More

Adding colorized ls output to the Terminal in Mac OS X is a good way to make navigating around the command line a bit easier on the eyes. This makes different items show up in different colors, including directories, files, executables, and symbolic links.

New versions of Mac OS X include the Versions feature and Auto-Save ability, this lets users restore back to previous editions of a file by creating a constant sequence of saved file states while they are being worked on. All around, Versions and auto-save are useful, but they can also leave traces of sensitive documents … Read More

Included below are new simple instructions for uninstalling modern versions of Xcode. Deleting old versions of Xcode is covered as well, this is a thorough guide to uninstall Xcode from any Mac regardless of version and Mac OS X release. Xcode is Apple’s developer suite for iOS and Mac OS X, it’s necessary if you … Read More

A little-known feature of iMessage lets any Mac send files to another iMessage user (or yourself) using an iOS device, and vice versa. Yes, this means iMessages can function as a full-fledged file transfer app for both Mac OS and iOS users, providing for simple transferring of files, pdf’s, text and rtf documents, movies, pictures, … Read More

This weeks Mac setup comes to us from Ben, a graphic and motion designer from Italy who spends his spare time composing music. The hardware he uses for these pursuits includes: iMac 21.5″ Apple Wireless Keyboard Magic Mouse M-Audio KeyStudio 49 (Keyboard) AKG – K66 headphones Logitech speakers Great Mac setup Ben, thanks for sending … Read More

Screen shots taken in Mac OS X save to files prefixed with “Screen Shot” in the file name, but the names of screenshots can be changed to anything else. We’ll use a defaults write command to adjust the naming convention of screen shots taken on the Mac. This can be helpful for many purposes, and … Read More

We have shown you how to uninstall Mac apps before, but some applications can leave residual elements around in the form of preferences, plist files, caches, logs, and even the origin DMG or PKG installer. If you want to thoroughly remove all traces of an application but don’t want to dig around in various directories … Read More

Boosting the speed of Mission Control animations can make Mac OS X feel a bit faster when switching between windows, spaces, and apps within the feature. It’s easy to do and reversible if you decide you don’t like it, launch the Terminal to get started. These defaults commands work in Lion, Mountain Lion, and beyond. … Read More

Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, … Read More

A new free app will soon be available on the Cydia store that puts an active Console log as the background wallpaper of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, giving you an overview of all low level events going on with iOS on the device. WallpaperLog will be a free download on Cydia. Of course, … Read More

This nice and clean Mac setup comes from reader Jason Y. and is used for graphic design and photo editing. Rather than going with the defacto Apple keyboard and mouse, Jason chose a wireless mouse and solar keyboard from Logitech, making it stand out a bit from the pack. Hardware shown in this setup consists … Read More

An alternative to checking a SHA1 hash with shasum is to use openssl. Yes, the same openssl utility used to encrypt files can be used to verify the validity of files. The syntax is quite similar to the shasum command, but you do need to specify ‘sha1’ as the specific algorithm like so:

Javascript is prominent throughout the web, allowing many of the various sites and features we all know and love when browsing the web to function as intended. With that said, sometimes users need to enable or disable Javascript. Need to re-enable or disable Javascript in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox? Fortunately, most modern web browsers make … Read More