Tips & Tricks

You can instantly print any Finder items full path and name into the Terminal by dragging and dropping an item from a Finder window and into a Terminal window. Once the Finder item has been dropped into the terminal, the entire path to the item is automatically typed out instantaneously, maintaining both proper capitalization as … Read More

Need to reveal hidden files and folders while opening or saving a file on the Mac? You can show them immediately with nothing but a quick keystroke. To instantly show hidden files and directories in the Mac OS X “Open” and “Save” dialog boxes, all you need to do is hit Command+Shift+Period together and those … Read More

Using the command line in OS X, you can enable a hidden feature in Time Machine that allows you to backup your Mac to a non-native volume, including Networked Attached Storage devices, network volumes, or even a Windows PC. This is generally best for advanced Mac users, as it must be enabled through a defaults … Read More

Did you know that you can quickly quit out of an application from the Dock of Mac OS X? And did you know that you can also force quit out of an app in Mac OS X by using the Dock icon too? Perhaps not well known, but the Dock of Mac OS can function … Read More

If you use your Mac at night or in the dark, you need to do your eyes and brain a favor by downloading Flux. The idea behind Flux is simple; when the sun is down you shouldn’t be staring at the immensely bright computer screen, whose intensity is made to emit as much light as … Read More

Want to hide the Mac menu bar? You can do that and set a few more options to automatically hide and show the menu bar with a free utility called MenuEclipse, the end result is pretty similar to the way you can automatically hide and show the Dock. In the screenshot above, I have the … Read More

The Mac defaults to using Safari as the default web browser, but what if you prefer to use Google’s Chrome web browser instead? There’s a few ways to change the default browser, but perhaps the easiest if you’re looking to use Chrome is through the Chrome browser itself. With that in mind, here is how … Read More

The next time you get an email with a date mentioned in the body, you can use this neat trick to quickly add that date to your Calendar on iPhone or iPad. This is easy and it shortens the steps required to add events to a Calendar in iOS. The secret? It’s simple, you can … Read More

As most modern OS’s go, Mac OS X is generally pretty intelligent with how it prioritizes processes. That said, if you want to give any running task an extra kick in the pants, you can use a free tool called Process Renicer.

You can instantly change file permissions in Mac OS X without getting your hands dirty in the command line by using the Finder instead. All you need to do is access the “Get Info” panel for the file, folder, or application in question. These instructions demonstrate locating the file permissions manager, and how to adjust … Read More

If you need to rename a folder in iOS on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’ll find the process to change folder names is a complete piece of cake. This walkthrough will show you how to rename any folder name in iOS, it works exactly the same on iPhone and iPad.

With all the new tools like Twitter for Mac, it’s easy to forget that email is still a dominant form of communication online. I use Gmail constantly and I like to be alerted to new messages coming in without having a dedicated window open at all times, so with this in mind here are three … Read More

Finding a decent iPhone to video converter can be a pain, and finding one that the average person finds easy to use can be even worse. Thankfully along with the Mac App Store came Miro Video Converter, a practically foolproof and no frills video conversion utility that can convert just about any video file into … Read More

If the Mac App Store is open and there are updates available, you’ll notice a red badge appear on the App Store icon in the Mac OS X Dock. Of course most users click on that and update their apps from the Mac App Store that way, but for some versions of OS X there … Read More

Wondering what the warranty status is of an Apple Product? You can easily check. Sometimes troubleshooting your problems just isn’t enough and you need to take your hardware in for service, but before you do so, you might want to check on your Apple warranty status. This is very easy to do for any hardware, … Read More

We all have that person (or ten) on our buddy lists that insist on having their IM text formatted in stupendously obnoxious ways. Maybe it’s just using tiny font sizes, but sometimes it’s a full fledged assault on your eyes with bright pink size 26 Comic Sans font clashing against a neon yellow background in … Read More

iCal automatically assumes that a new event will be an hour long, but you can manually adjust that into shorter minute intervals by using the defaults write command. Here is the syntax to enter into the Terminal: defaults write com.apple.iCal “Default duration in minutes for new event” 15 You can set the 15 at the … Read More

We’ve shown a few different ways of how to lock your Mac screen with a keystroke or a hot corner, but another option is to lock the screen and desktop of your Mac through a little-known Mac OS X menu bar item. The result is a little lock icon in the menu bar of OS … Read More