Like other forms of unix, the root directory of Mac OS X is simply /, but from the Finder it also takes the name of your primary hard drive. By default that is “Macintosh HD”, and newer versions of Mac OS have started to hide the root folder from users because most users simply don’t … Read More

Preview is a greatly under-appreciated app that has been bundled along with Mac OS X since the beginning, getting better and better with each Mac OS release. One quiet feature that has been around for a while is the ability to mass convert a group of pictures from one file type to another, often referred … Read More

A web browsers user agent is how a website knows what type of computer, operating system, and browsing app you are using. Some sites serve different themes, CSS, content, or even different sites to different browsers and OS’s, and many developers often need to change their own user agent to be able to test these … Read More

TextEdit is a reasonably decent text editing app that has been bundled along with just about every version of OS X since the beginning. If you’ve ever opened an HTML file with TextEdit you have probably discovered the app actually renders the HTML code, displaying the formatted text, rather than displaying the source itself. This … Read More

MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit, and a larger MTU size generally increases efficiency of a network connection because each packet carries more data, but sometimes the default MTU sizes (often 1500) will cause issues with some networks and needs adjusting. If you need to change the MTU size on a Mac, you can do … Read More

This weeks great Apple setup comes from Fletcher C. in the UK. He’s got a pretty snazzy desk and uses his Mac and other gear for video production and amateur photography, the hardware shown in the shot includes: MacBook Air (2012) – 1.8GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Acer 23″ S235HL external display connected … Read More

Have you noticed that when you’re browsing through folders on the Mac that icons are actually previews of images and even live playable videos? This sure makes the OS X Finder snazzy looking, but in some situations where tons of images and video files are contained within single folders, it can have the unwanted side … Read More

Those who use external Bluetooth devices with a Mac, whether it’s a keyboard, mouse, headset, or anything else, are probably aware that connection strength between the device and the computer is going to directly impact how usable the device is. The next obvious question then is, how do you check the strength of such a … Read More

Retrieving a list of preferred wireless networks can be helpful when troubleshooting wi-fi problems, amongst other reasons too. If you’re looking to print out a list of wi-fi networks the Mac has used as preferred and connected to before, the following trick will do just that!

This weeks Mac setup comes to us from Dean K., a musician who uses his Mac setup for listening to music and editing. MacBook Pro Retina 15″ 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 – 16GB RAM – 256GB SSD MacBook Air 1.6GHz Core i5 – 4GB RAM – 128GB SSD iPad 3 – 16GB LTE MacBook … Read More

This weeks Apple setup comes to us from Pierre C., who uses his Mac for amateur photography and personal use. Pierre moved back to the Mac platform after a significant hiatus with Windows, and prior to this iMac his last Apple desktop was a Mac SE! As it often goes these days, his transition was … Read More

Knowing which wireless networks a Mac has been connected to in the past be can be helpful for a variety of reasons, including network troubleshooting, determining where a Mac has been, if a specific wifi password is recoverable, and a myriad of other technical reasons. Searching for past networks is completely different from finding currently … Read More

If you accidentally permitted a Mac app to gain access to things like your personal contacts list or location, or you’d just like to start over again and have granular control over which applications can access certain data, you can use the command line tool tccutil to change this and reset Mac app access to … Read More

If you’re a frequent command line user, you’re likely to have found the history command to be quite useful before, whether it’s for discovering your most frequently used commands, dumping history and searching it to find specific past commands, listing all defaults commands used, or whatever else. That said, there are some obvious situations where … Read More

Have you noticed how some sites promote their own app to download when you visit their website while browsing through Safari on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? This is done through a little pop-up menu that appears at the top of Safari when browsing some sites with iOS 6 onward, and it’s done through … Read More

This weeks great Mac setup comes to us from Caleb M., the owner of a production company in New Zealand that specializes in cinematography with rapid turnaround. The Apple gear is used to edit, color, process, and deliver materials. Hardware includes: MacBook Pro 15″ (early 2011) – 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 240GB … Read More

Photos taken with digital cameras, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, all include some level of EXIF data, which is basically metadata with information about the image. With pictures taken from the iPhone and other smartphones, that data can even include details like precise geographic coordinates where the image was taken, (though that’s easy … Read More

The command line is often considered the realm of advanced users, but that doesn’t mean every usage of Terminal has to involve rocket science. This collection of terminal tips should apply to a wide variety of Mac users, and everyone from beginners to advanced users should find something worthwhile here.