Mac OS, Mac OS X, or macOS, is the operating system that resides on Apple’s desktop and portable computer lineup. Built upon a Unix core, it is easy to use yet highly advanced, extremely stable, and an excellent OS for productivity and creation. Browse through our articles or use the search feature to look for something specific that is pertinent to the Mac operating system.
Though Macs are known for being stable and experiencing considerably fewer crashes and system freezes than some of the competition, the reality is that sometimes stuff still happens. Typically it’s just an app that crashes or freezes up, remedied with a force quit and relaunch, but on rare occasions the Mac will freeze entirely, with … Read More
A variety of applications attempt to install Adobe Acrobat Reader into Mac OS X, and many Mac users approve the installation and don’t think much of it. Typically when Acrobat Reader has been installed, it takes over the default PDF viewer that is built into Safari and uses a separate often slower Acrobat plugin for … Read More
If your Mac has multiple partitions running different operating systems, either for dual booting OS X or for Boot Camp, you may decide you want to share the exact same iTunes Library across those different operating systems. This allows you to have the same music library regardless of what OS you’re booted into, and it … Read More
Apple has released OS X Yosemite Golden Master Candidate 1.0 to those registered with the Mac Developer program, the build number is 14A379a. Separately, Apple released an update for Yosemite Public Beta users, versioned as OS X Yosemite Beta 4, carrying build 14A379b.
Apple has released an important security update for Mac users, labeled as OS X Bash Update 1.0. The update addresses a recently discovered critical security flaw known as “Shellshock” that impacts the bash shell, the default shell used by the Terminal app of OS X, and is recommended for all users to install even if … Read More
Subscript and superscript text formatting is commonly used in the math and science world when writing out chemicals, formulas, and expressions. Subscript appears slightly lower and smaller than the primary text, while superscript appears slightly higher and smaller than the primary text (like an exponent, 8^3). If you need to type subscript or superscript characters … Read More
The address bar in Safari shows you what website URL you are currently visiting, and it also doubles as a search bar in recent versions too. That makes it a fairly critical component of the Safari browser for many of us, so if you use Safari as your default web browser and find that it … Read More
Apple has issued an update to the Mail app for OS X Yosemite, which aims to fix some issues which caused the Mail application incapable of composing an email message. Apple recommends that all users of OS X Yosemite Developer Preview and OS X Yosemite Public Beta install the update, though if you don’t use … Read More
Safari 7.1 has been released for OS X, bringing several improvements to performance, stability, security, and privacy to the Mac web browser. Notably, the update adds support for the DuckDuckGo search engine, encrypts all Yahoo searches that are done from the URL bar, improves the Reader features compatibility with websites, and also improves the AutoFill … Read More
Apple has released an update to OS X Mavericks, versioned as OS X 10.9.5. The update is recommended for all Mac users to install and includes bug fixes and security updates for core system software.
The default font size in the Mail app for Mac OS X is size 12 for emails and messages that are lacking styling, which tends to be most communications that are sent by email. If you find the font size in Mail for Mac to be too small, or even too big, you’ll be pleased … Read More
Mac users who opt-in to use the Safari AutoFill username and password feature have a convenient way to show and retrieve those login credentials at any time. This is incredibly helpful if you’re prone to forget the passwords or logins for the billion and one websites we all use, and need to access that login … Read More
Apple has released OS X Yosemite Public Beta 3 to those Mac users registered with the public beta program. Additionally, Apple released OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 8 to Mac developers. The two builds include bug fixes and feature enhancements, and appear to largely be the same, pushing the release of OS X 10.10 ever … Read More
Parental Controls are a great feature of Mac OS X that allows for restrictions to be placed on a specific user account on a Mac. These restrictions are varied and chosen by whoever set the parental control feature, ranging from setting time limits for computer use, to preventing certain web pages from being accessed, to … Read More
Anyone who develops just about anything for the web knows that following resource usage of a specific tab or window, or just tracking down an errant tab or window can be difficult, but Safari on the Mac has a hidden trick up it’s sleeve that makes it much easier; the ability to show web process … Read More
There’s a rather amusing Easter Egg built into the Speakable Items function of Mac OS X Accessibility options that lets your Mac tell you bad jokes. Yes, seriously. Sounds goofy, maybe even pointless? Well that’s why it’s an Easter Egg, so if that isn’t compelling I don’t know what is. Let’s dig in and learn … Read More
Quitting apps gracefully is typically done through the appropriate application menu by choosing “Quit”, but the Mac GUI is obviously inaccessible from the command line of Mac OS X. So when most command line users are confronted with the need to exit an application, they wind up using the ‘kill’ command to terminate the process … Read More
Troubleshooting complex issues on a Mac can be challenging as is, and if you’re ever confronted with some complex situations you may find the command line to lend a major hand. In this case, advanced users can boot a Mac into safe mode through the usage of the nvram utility, a tool which allows users … Read More
