Tips & Tricks

Tips and tricks for all things Apple! Whether you want to learn tips for a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or much more, you will find many tricks, tips, tutorials, and excellent walkthroughs for Apple devices and software here.

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Quickly Enter LaunchPad “Jiggle” with Option Key in Mac OS X

Jul 13, 2011 - 10 Comments
LaunchPad Jiggle

Clicking-and-holding on an app icon in Mac OS X LaunchPad activates the jiggle, but you can also hold down the Option key to immediately start the jiggle.

How to Install Mac OS X Lion Using Target Disk Mode

Jul 13, 2011 - 16 Comments
Lion Installation Image

Another method to install Mac OS X Lion on other personal machines is by using Target Disk Mode, this allows you to use one Mac as the installation drive to install OS X 10.7 directly to another Mac via Firewire or Thunderbolt. This is fast, prevents redownloading which saves bandwidth, and works flawlessly. This tip … Read More

Test for Defective RAM Modules Easily with Rember for Mac OS X

Jul 13, 2011 - 6 Comments
Rember is GUI frontend to MemTest

If you just got a RAM upgrade and you want to test the memory, or if you just want a great free addition to a Mac troubleshooting toolbox, download Rember now.

Show Weather & Temperature in the Mac OS X Menu bar

Jul 12, 2011 - 8 Comments
Weather and Temperature in the Mac OS X Menu Bar

We showed you how to display the CPU temperature in your Mac OS X menu bar, but what about showing the real temperature outdoors? A little free app called Meteorologist does just that, sitting in your menubar and giving you weather updates on the locations you specify. Meteorologist puts a tracked locations temperature along with … Read More

3 Ways to Make the Mac OS X Cursor More Visible for Presentations

Jul 12, 2011 - 11 Comments
Mousepose makes the mouse easier to see for presentations

If you present or create screen casts with any regularity, you probably know that being able to clearly show the cursor can make a huge difference in the audiences ability to follow what you are doing on screen. This is especially true for product demonstrations and high resolution screens shown by projectors, where a tiny … Read More

Display CPU Temperature in the Mac OS X Menu Bar

Jul 11, 2011 - 7 Comments
CPU and Hardware Temperature Monitor in the Mac OS X Menu Bar

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

Display a List of Open Network Connections on the Mac OS X Desktop

Jul 11, 2011 - 10 Comments
Display open network connections on Mac OS X desktop

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

Watch All Open Network Connections in Mac OS X with Open_Ports

Jul 9, 2011 - 20 Comments
Show open network connections on the Mac OS X Desktop

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

Set a Mac Mouse to be Left Handed

Jul 9, 2011 - 12 Comments
Secondary click in the left corner on a Mac

Most lefties have adapted to the righty-centric world of computing, but this isn’t necessary on a Mac. The Apple Magic Mouse, Apple wireless mouse, wired mouses, trackpad, and even most 3rd party mice have a symmetrical shape, so those that are left handed just need to adjust a few settings in Mac OS X to … Read More

Make a Bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer from a USB Flash Drive

Jul 8, 2011 - 297 Comments
Mac OS X Lion Installer mounted on Mac OS X Desktop

I’m going to walk through the process of making a bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion installation drive out of any USB flash drive key. This is similar to the process of making a bootable Lion installer DVD, but I prefer a USB flash drive because it’s faster, smaller, and I have a MacBook Air … Read More

Convert Font Family and Text Size of a Document from the Command Line

Jul 8, 2011 - Leave a Comment
Convert font and text size of a document

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.

Refresh Dashboard Widgets: Command+R Sends a Widget into a Whirlpool

Jul 7, 2011 - 7 Comments
Refresh Dashboard Widget into a Whirlpool

Mac OS X has a fancy way of refreshing your Dashboard widgets. It’s better watched than described or shown in pictures, so open up Dashboard, click on any widget, then hit Command+R and watch the widget disappear and reappear into a twirl. The larger and more colorful the widget the better the effect, and you … Read More

Get HTTP Header Info from Web Sites Using curl

Jul 7, 2011 - 7 Comments
Terminal in macOS

The easiest way to get HTTP header information from any website is by using the command line tool curl. The syntax to retrieve a website header goes like this:

Enable Facebook Video Chat Calling in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Jul 6, 2011 - 16 Comments
Enable Facebook Video Chat in OS X Lion

Facebook just announced their built-in video chat feature that uses Skype to initiate video calls, but unfortunately support for the new feature is lacking for users with Mac OS X Lion and the latest version of Safari. If you try it, you’ll see the video call button has been greyed out with a message saying … Read More

Convert a Text File to RTF, HTML, DOC, and more via Command Line

Jul 6, 2011 - 9 Comments

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

Jailbreak iPad 2 with iOS 4.3.3 by Creating a Local Web Server

Jul 5, 2011 - 16 Comments
Jailbreaking iPad 2 from your own local webserver

Update: JailbreakMe 3 is out! It’s the easiest jailbreak ever and works to jailbreak iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.3. It is recommended to use JailbreakMe.com directly.

Pixel Art Guide: 3 Ways to Create Pixel Art with Photoshop, OS X Zoom, and Pixelfari

Jul 5, 2011 - 6 Comments
Create pixel art in Photoshop

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

ViTunes is a Full Featured Command Line iTunes Player

Jul 5, 2011 - 6 Comments
ViTunes command line iTunes player

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

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