If you want to keep an eye on your Mac’s CPU temperature, you can choose between two different apps to display the temperature right in your menu bar. If you’re running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or lower, both apps are free, but if you’re on Lion then you’ll have to pay for one of the … Read More

Using GeekTool and lsof, you can display an automatically updated list of open network connections directly on a Mac OS X desktop. This is tip is a “safe” alternative to the previously mentioned open_ports utility. The problem with installing and using open_ports is that it is a third party script running as root, and for … Read More

You can watch all open network connections for both incoming and outgoing transfers using a free command line utility called open_ports.sh. Open_Ports is much more useful than using lsof to list open internet connectionsbecause it provides extensive network information in a very easy to read format, including what program or process is opening the connection, … Read More

This Mac setup has all you need and is checking out none other than OSXDaily.com: a MacBook Pro 15″ with matte anti-glare display sits atop a Griffin Elevator Stand while connected to an Apple Cinema Display, an iPad sits to the right, and there are two iPhones rounding it out. This is a nice clean … Read More

The powerful textutil command for Mac offers an amazing capability to convert a text documents font family and text size, transforming the document with ease and precision right from the command line of Mac OS.

Do you need to convert a text file to RTF, plain text TXT, HTML, DOC, or another familiar document format? The excellent textutil command line utility can make quick work of text file conversion and manipulation on the Mac, and there is no need to download any additional software or tools as it’s built right … Read More

Pixel art of the 8-bit flashback NES variety is all the rage right now, be it in games like The Incident and Sword & Sworcery or just for avatars on the web. If you’re wondering how some of that beautiful pixel art is created and how you to do it yourself, here are some tips … Read More

If you just want a basic command line mp3 player, you could use afplay, but if that’s not enough for you, install ViTunes. The little VIM plugin gives you full access to iTunes directly from the command line text editor VIM, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just a boring old music player, it … Read More

A day late here, but todays Mac setup won’t disappoint, it’s an iMac 27″ with dual 27″ Apple Cinema Displays, and two additional (22″?) displays are connected to PC’s running Ubuntu Linux floating above it all. I’m not sure if there’s another Mac Pro or something driving one of the Cinema Displays, or if it’s … Read More

If you have a lengthy amount of text to read or review that you don’t have time to actually read, another alternative is to convert that text into an audio track. This is kind of like making an audiobook out of any text block, and it can be as long or as short as you … Read More

Using Mac OS X Text to Speech tools, we can convert any .RTF or .TXT file into a spoken audio file which can then be transferred to your iPod or iPhone for later listening. Update: There is an easier way to do a text to audio file conversion using the OS X Services menu, the … Read More

If you want a guaranteed to be great Mac setup, get a MacBook Pro and add an Apple Cinema Display. This particular desk has a MacBook Pro 15″ with a matte display (vs glossy) connected to the always beautiful 27″ Apple Cinema Display. I don’t know for sure but I think this may be a … Read More

You can display and monitor virtually all essential system activity directly from your Mac OS X menu bar using a great utility called iStat Menu:

Uninstalling applications from Mac OS X is probably the easiest method of removing apps from any operating system, and it’s far easier on a Mac than anything you’ll encounter in the Windows world. Deleting apps is so simple that some new Mac users are left wondering what else they’re supposed to do, I have received … Read More

Sometimes the best way to avoid distraction when trying to work is to isolate other components and hardware, so I really like the simplicity of this Mac setup. It’s just the essentials, a MacBook Air 13″, some school books, and coffee, nothing to pull your attention away. Most students are out for the summer, but … Read More

The latest version of iTunes includes the great “Automatic Downloads” ability which automatically syncs your new app, music, and book purchases to all of your other iOS devices. This is the first part of iCloud that is available free to iTunes users, but most users won’t see the benefit because it’s not enabled by default. … Read More

You can set any image on the web as your Mac desktop background wallpaper directly from Safari. This means you don’t even need to download the picture to your computer to set it as the desktop background, you can just find a picture on the web and immediately use it as the wallpaper on the … Read More

Many owners of the oldest 32-bit Intel Macs were discouraged when they found that Mac OS X Lion’s system requirements demanded a 64-bit Core 2 Duo processor or newer. These users were discouraged, but not deterred, because some have managed to get the latest Lion developer build running on older Core Duo Macs… sort of. … Read More