Mac OS

iTunes allows users to rate songs on a 1 star to 5 star basis, song rating data can then be used for a variety of purposes, either for your own reference or for creating custom play lists that only include songs rated over a certain star value. But what if a song is somewhere in … Read More

The recent outbreak of the Flashback trojan (Apple released an update and fix, get it!) has brought a lot of attention to potential viruses and trojans hitting the Mac platform. Most of what you’ll read is overblown fear mongering hype, and practically all Mac malware has come through third party utilities and applications. What that … Read More

Google Chrome automatically updates itself in the background when a new version is out, this takes responsibility out of user hands and makes it simple to keep up to date with the latest version of the Chrome app for Mac. Generally you should leave automatic update enabled for Chrome, if not for its ease than … Read More

You can drag and drop files directly from Spotlight to elsewhere in the Mac OS X Finder. This allows Spotlight search to function as a sort of basic file manager, not quite like the Finder, but at least for quickly locating and moving a document of any type on the Mac to another location, or … Read More

You’re probably familiar with making your own zip files if you’ve ever needed to transfer a group of files or if you’re managing your own backups outside of Time Machine. Using the GUI zip tools are easy and user friendly, but if you want some more advanced options with better compression you can turn to … Read More

Update: Apple has released a Java software update that includes automatic detection and Flashback removal ability. Go to “Software Update” from the  Apple menu to download that update and automatically remove the trojan if you happen to have it on your Mac. Trojans and viruses are generally something Mac users don’t have to worry … Read More

Archives can be deleted automatically after expansion with the help of a hidden preference panel in Mac OS X. This little known ability is an option in Archive Utility, which is the engine and settings controls to the Mac decompression agent that launches anytime you open a zip, sit, tgz, or other archive file formats … Read More

Need to refresh the App Store or iTunes Store from a computer? To quickly refresh the App Store on Mac OS X, just hit Command+R at any screen in the iTunes, iOS App Store, or Mac App Store, and the page will reload with whatever new data awaits, whether it’s a revised Top Charts listing … Read More

If you spend a lot of time switching between web browsers for development or for whatever other reason, you’ll find Switch useful. Switch is a handy free menu bar utility that transfers all browser tabs and windows between web browsers in Mac OS X. Whether you use Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, you can easily send … Read More

Safari is the fast and lean default web browser bundled with every Mac and Mac OS X. You probably already know a keyboard shortcut or two, but there are tons of shortcuts in Safari worth remembering that can really improve your experience browsing the web. We’ll cover 31 different keystrokes for Safari on Mac, they … Read More

Your iPad 3 can now act as a stunningly high quality HIDPI display for a Mac or PC with the help of a great iOS app called Air Display. A completely wireless solution, Air Display takes advantage of OS X Lion and Mountain Lion HIDPI display mode to turn the new iPad’s 2048×1536 display into … Read More

Signing up to use the App Store requires a credit card, right? Wrong. We showed you how to use iTunes without a credit card, and it turns out you can do the same thing with the iOS and Mac App Store too. A credit card-free account is a perfect solution for setting up an iPhone, … Read More

Have you ever set a desktop wallpaper from Safari on Mac OS X, only to wish you had saved the file directly so you could access it later or do something else with it? As long as the desktop picture is still set as the active wallpaper on a desktop, you can retrieve the original … Read More

Activity Monitor can be used for more than just managing tasks and killing processes, it can also turn the Mac OS X Dock into a live system monitor where you can keep an eye on processor usage, CPU history, network activity, disk activity, or RAM use.

With the help of a buried menu item, we can lock the Mac OS X screen right from the Terminal. This does not log a user out, it just brings up the standard Mac OS X lock screen and login window, requiring a valid user and password before the Mac can be used again. This … Read More

Want to change a user name that appears at the login screen of Mac OS X? It’s very easy to do: Open System Preferences and click on “Users & Groups” Select the users name you wish to change from the left side Look for “Full Name” on the right side options and click in the … Read More

Personal Hotspot is one of the best features of an iPhone and iPad, allowing you to share the devices 3G or 4G LTE internet connection with up to five other connected devices through wi-fi, be them Macs, iPads, iPods, or PC’s. Personal Hotspot may be a mobile users and telecommuters dream, but tethering an internet … Read More

Automatically hiding the Dock is one of the more useful features you can enable if you work on a Mac with limited screen space. That experience can be improved by removing the auto-hide delay from the Dock in OS X, which reduces the delay from when a mouse is hovered near the Dock to when … Read More