Mac OS

One of the most frustrating issues that has impacted some users of OS X Yosemite are persistent wireless networking difficulties. Apple has released multiple updates to OS X aimed at addressing the problem, but for some Mac users, they either offer no help, or even worse, may add new trouble for wi-fi connections. We have … Read More

Many users who send PDF documents with sensitive data back and forth will password protect the files from their Mac so that only authorized users can read and access the data contained within the document. This is fairly common with everything from contracts to accounting and financial records, and it’s equally common to sometimes require … Read More

Most Mac users know what type of Mac they have, whether it’s a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, or whatever, and many know the model year of their computer too, but typically much less known is the model identifier number for a given Mac. Model identifiers are generally in the format of ModelNameModelNumber,Revision, for example, … Read More

Now that the Continuity feature allows the Mac to receive incoming calls from your associated iPhone, in addition to standard FaceTime video and audio chat, you may want to take a moment to customize the ringtone that sounds when a call is coming to a particular Mac. This is particularly helpful with multiple-Mac environments with … Read More

The Mac Notification Center gained widgets in OS X Yosemite, which are revealed when the Notification Center is opened and the “Today” view is chosen. This looks and functions a bit like Widgets in iOS, and these widgets range from World Clock, Calculator, Weather, Reminders, Calendar, Stocks, Social, and an to an iTunes widget, but … Read More

The Instant iPhone Wi-Fi Hotspot feature in Mac OS X is incredibly useful if your Mac is on the go or you need an alternate internet connection, but even if you’re not aiming to use the cellular internet sharing capability of iPhone there are some other handy uses for the feature, like checking two of … Read More

If you’re not happy with the usage of Helvetica Neue as a system font in OS X Yosemite, why not go completely ridiculous and replace the Mac system font with Comic Sans? Yes Comic Sans, somewhere high on the list of worst fonts ever, can now be the universal system font on Mac OS X. … Read More

Apple has released the first pre-release seed version of OS X 10.10.3 to developers. This particular beta version of Mac system software arrives as build 14D72i and seems to focus primarily on a new Photos app, which aims to replace iPhoto in OS X.

TextEdit is a surprisingly handy Mac app that is mostly underutilized and under appreciated, and while it’s certainly not going to compete with the abilities of pro text editors like BBEdit and TextWrangler, it can function as a simple code editor in a pinch. One of the quintessential features of any good text editor is … Read More

Mac users can adjust the idle time to sleep their computers easily through the Energy Saver preference panel, but many advanced Mac OS X users may wish to turn to the command line to perform such a task. This allows for scripting, remote checking and changing idle sleep behavior through SSH, and you can also … Read More

Mac users who have multiple user accounts on a single machine may sometimes wish to hide a specific user account from appearing on the login screens of OS X. This is fairly common for systems administrators who want to hide an admin account that can be used for direct or remote troubleshooting, but it can … Read More

Some Mac users who have been experiencing longstanding wi-fi issues with OS X Yosemite have discovered that updating to OS X 10.10.2 does not resolve their networking difficulties. Perhaps more troubling, some Mac users who had functioning wi-fi previously have discovered that new wireless difficulties have appeared on their Macs after updating to the OS … Read More

Mac users who are running the newest version of iTunes in OS X Yosemite can choose to enable an optional iTunes widget in Notification Center. Despite being the primary change to iTunes 12.1, the widget is not enabled or shown by default on any of the Macs I’ve updated, which is likely to be the … Read More

Mac users can find iTunes 12.1 available if they are running OS X Yosemite or OS X Mavericks. The update is said to include some performance improvements for syncing an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to iTunes, and may include bug fixes as well. Perhaps the most notable change to iTunes 12.1 is the addition … Read More

Adware is generally something most Mac users won’t have to worry about, but that doesn’t mean that OS X is entirely immune to the potential nuisance, and nobody likes it when their browser has been hijacked by that type of junk. If you’re at all concerned about adware impacting your Mac and web browsing, you … Read More

Users who require higher than usual security measures often set a firmware password on a Mac, which requires that a password be entered before the typical OS X boot sequence begins. While these low level passwords are quite secure, but that higher security also means a forgotten firmware password can be a significant problem. Nonetheless, … Read More

Apple has released important security updates for Mac users who are continuing to run OS X Mavericks (10.9.5) and OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5). The updates are versioned as “Security Update 2015-001” for both system software versions and are recommended for all Mac users running prior releases of OS X. Additionally, new versions of Safari … Read More

Apple has released the OS X 10.10.2 software update to all Mac users running OS X Yosemite. The OS X 10.10.2 update focuses on bug fixes and security updates, and is said to help resolve some of the persistent wi-fi problems that have negatively impacted some Mac users running the newest versions of OS X … Read More