Mac OS

The tap-to-click ability is enabled by default on most PC laptops, while on the Mac side of things it’s usually disabled by default. For the unfamiliar, tap-to-click means that a single tap or touch on the MacBook trackpad or Magic Trackpad is registered as a click, thereby preventing the need to actually press down the … Read More

The menu bar of OS X has two default color choices, simple grey, or translucent, which varies a bit based upon the wallpaper used. Neither of these looks are really anything to write home about. That’s why the third party mod ObsidianMenuBar is a nice alternative, it gives your Mac a black menu bar. It’s … Read More

The Disk Utility app bundled with Mac OS X has a command line equivalent which offers advanced users the ability to perform disk maintenance from the terminal, including disk verification and repairs. This allows for a variety of helpful troubleshooting abilities, including the possibility to remotely issue disk repairs though SSH, or through Single User … Read More

While some writing and text apps have native word and character counters as part of their built-in feature set, not every app does. That can be changed easily though by creating a Mac OS X Service that will provide word counts and character counts from just about anywhere on a Mac that text is selectable. … Read More

The Mac menu bar clock isn’t particularly fancy nor is it meant to be, but if you’re a tinkerer and like to customize things, you might find some enjoyment in adding some time-changing emoji characters to the clock as an addition to the standard AM / PM indicators that show up alongside the time. Adding … Read More

If retro Macs built out out LEGO that double as iPad stands aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll enjoy this little Easter Egg of sorts that Apple seems to have left on their 30th Mac Anniversary website. It’s a free 62 character font of Mac icons, ranging from the original Macintosh 128k through the PowerBook lineup, … Read More

The default subtitle text size for video playback can be fairly small in Mac OS X, and while it may be tolerable on a smaller screened device, once you send the Macs display it to a larger screen like a TV, it can be difficult to read. Fortunately, Mac OS X provides a lot of … Read More

Do you remember the original Time Machine backup animation of the slowly spinning green galaxy vortex? Triggered when a user entered Time Machine for backups, backup file management, or restoring files, the original animation was a snazzy space rendering that sort of looked like entering into a spinning black hole, shooting out stars and space … Read More

The newest versions of Google Chrome have a fantastic feature addition that allow you to instantly see what open web browser tab or window is playing audio. That may seem ho-hum, but if you’ve ever gone on a wild goose chase trying to figure out which tab out of 50 million tabs is playing some … Read More

The Mail compose window has long had an auto-complete function that lets you start typing a name or email address to see a list of suggestions for completing the contacts email. That list is based upon who you’ve email and also what contacts you have in your address book, but now with the newest versions … Read More

Though some of iOS 7’s appearance has become a matter of controversy, the one portion of the iOS facelift that is practically universally adored is the new, simplified, image-focused lock screen, which displays nothing but a clock and the date in minimally thin text overlaid against the devices wallpaper. It’s beautiful, and now thanks to … Read More

Many Mac users who come to the platform from the world of Windows have become accustomed to defragging their PC hard drives from time to time, and thus the inevitable question arrises: do you need to defragment a Macs hard drive? The answer is usually no, you don’t need to defrag a Mac as part … Read More

Ever wondered where on earth your Mac hard drives disk space has gone to? There’s little reason to wonder, because Mac OS X has a very simple disk usage summary tool that that will show you exactly where drive capacity is being used, conveniently sorted into a variety of file types. Looking at the storage … Read More

Web browsers generally work fine on the Mac, but every once in a while Safari in OS X will misbehave in some way or another. The most common of these issues encountered are typically things like random pages inexplicably being inaccessible or displaying oddly, stale cache being delivered (in normal person terms, that means an … Read More

Mission Control is the excellent window management utility in OS X that lets you get a quick overview of everything you have open. While Mission Control has always been able to drag windows and apps between different virtual desktop Spaces, a new ability has been added to modern versions of OS X that allows Mac … Read More

Do you use the Safari browser and shop on the web often from a Mac with Mac? If so, you can greatly speed up your checkouts and online ordering by storing credit cards securely within Safari’s AutoFill Keychain. This makes it possible to instantly autofill card information when ordering on any site, and if you … Read More

Mac users in higher security risk situations may wish to enable an optional firmware password on their machines,which offers an advanced level of protection. In short, a firmware password is a lower level layer of security that is set on the actual Mac logicboards firmware, rather than at the software layer like FileVault encryption or … Read More

Assistive Devices and Assistive Apps are applications and accessories which can control parts of the Mac and MacOS beyond the normal scope of app limits. While it’s primarily thought of as an Accessibility feature, it’s also commonly uses for general apps too, ranging from screen sharing functions, to apps that require microphone access, to even … Read More