Mac OS

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.

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Setup a User Name Alias as an Alternative to Changing Account Names in Mac OS X

May 22, 2011 - 1 Comment
advanced options for accounts in mac os x

If you don’t want to deal with the lengthy process of changing the short user name in Mac OS X, an alternative is to setup user name aliases. A user name alias functions as a simple way to create a shorthand version of an account name. For example, if a users full account name is … Read More

Have a new iOS Device and an Intel Mac Running Mac OS X 10.4? Call Apple for a Free Upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5

May 21, 2011 - 10 Comments
Free Mac OS X Upgrade from Tiger to Leopard

Do you have an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.4, and you just bought a new iOS device? If so, you’ve probably noticed you can’t sync that new iPad, iPod, or iPhone to Mac OS X… but don’t despair, try calling AppleCare Support (1-800-275-2273) and you might be eligible for a free upgrade from … Read More

6 Free Screen Savers for Mac OS X

May 21, 2011 - 7 Comments
flying icon screensaver

Bored with the Mac OS X default screen savers? I was too, sure you can make your own screensaver out of pictures but I wanted something more than that. Here are six random and free screen savers for Mac OS X: a new fancy Instagram feed, two cool galaxy animations, 2001’s HAL computer display animations, … Read More

How to Change the Short Name of a User Account in Mac OS X

May 20, 2011 - 22 Comments
Change user short name in Mac OS X

In Mac OS X, a users short name is what their home folder is named after and it’s also the shorthand name for logging into the Mac either from a lock screen or a network connection with remote access through SSH and SFTP. There’s various reasons that you’d want to change the user short name, … Read More

Pause Downloads from the Mac App Store

May 20, 2011 - 5 Comments
Pause downloads from the Mac App Store

You can pause any active download from the Mac App Store by right-clicking on the apps icon in the Dock and selecting “Pause” from the menu. Resuming the download is just a matter of right-clicking again and selecting Unpause.

TermKit is the Terminal Beautifully Reimagined, Here’s How to Install It

May 19, 2011 - 34 Comments
TermKit is a GUI Terminal

If you’re tired of the antiquated (retro?) text-only appearance of the command line and Terminal.app, check out the fascinating new TermKit project. TermKit aims to bridge aspects of the GUI with the command line, allowing this re-imagined terminal to see anything from icons to images, with progress bars and indicators that commands have executed successfully … Read More

Migrate Files from PC to Mac Easily with Parallels Transporter

May 18, 2011 - 3 Comments
Migrate files from PC to Mac

Migrating from a Windows PC to Mac just got a whole lot easier thanks to an app called Parallels Transporter. It’s actually two apps, one client that runs on the Windows PC and the other runs in Mac OS X, install both and they’ll talk to each other and do almost the entire file migration … Read More

Show Image Dimensions in Mac OS X Finder Windows & Desktop

May 18, 2011 - 21 Comments
Show image dimensions in the Mac OS X Finder

The default setting in Mac OS X Finder is to display no file information, but you can easily set the Finder, Windows, and the Desktop to show image dimensions through a setting in View Options. Basically, you’ll see the complete resolution of a picture highlighted in blue underneath the file name, hugely useful for Mac … Read More

6 Videos of Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3

May 17, 2011 - 9 Comments

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around Lion yourself yet, check out these six videos from the latest Lion Developer Preview 3. There’s a general overview of changes in DP3, a video showing the new boot login screen and animation, Mission Control, Safari’s new Download manager and Reading List, and another video showing … Read More

Access Debug Options in Desktop System Preferences of Mac OS X

May 16, 2011 - 10 Comments
Mac OS X Desktop Debug Options

You can access two unusual debugging options in the Mac OS X System Preferences for Desktops and Screen Savers panel by using a keystroke while accessing the panel.

2 More Mac OS X Lion Wallpapers: Lotus Flower & Moon

May 16, 2011 - 3 Comments
Lotus Flower Wallpaper from Mac OS X Lion

After posting the Lion wallpaper pack we got several requests for the two pictuers missing from that wallpaper pack; the pink lotus flower you see above and that was also the wallpaper in the first public demonstration of Lion, and the blue sky moon wallpaper which is below. Both of these are from Mac OS … Read More

Mac OS X Lion Adds Amazing New Text-to-Speech Voices – Listen to Samples

May 15, 2011 - 27 Comments
Mac OS X Lion Nuance Speech Voices

Mac OS X Lion is set to include a wide variety of new high quality text-to-speech voices in a multitude of languages, thanks to a long suspected partnership between Apple and Nuance, a speech technology company. The new voices are of surprisingly good quality and speak in major world languages including English, Mandarin, German, Japanese, … Read More

Mac OS X Lion Gets New Lock & Login Screens with iOS-Style Animations

May 14, 2011 - 10 Comments
new Lion Lock Screen

Lion Developer Preview 3 brings some nice new UI changes to the lock and login screens. Now when you lock your Mac screen in Lion with Control+Shift+Eject, you’ll see a small login window over the current background wallpaper like the screenshot up top. What you can’t make out in the screenshot is a small HUD … Read More

14 Beautiful New Wallpapers from Mac OS X Lion Dev Preview 3

May 13, 2011 - 26 Comments
14 Beautiful New Mac OS X Lion Wallpapers

Mac OS X Lion Dev Preview 3 was just released to developers and along with it came a new bunch of beautiful high-res wallpapers at 3200×2000 resolution. You can download all 14 wallpapers in a zip bundle from Mediafire Here’s a few to see, but you’ll need to use the above download link to get … Read More

Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 Update Available for Devs to Download

May 13, 2011 - 20 Comments
Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 Software Update

Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 is now available for developers to download. The release is labeled as another update to Developer Preview 2, but MacStories notes that Apple’s Mac Developer Center indicates the release is in fact Lion Developer Preview 3. The update is available through Software Update and weighs in between 1GB … Read More

Drag & Launch Apps from Finder Window Sidebars

May 13, 2011 - 5 Comments
Drag Apps to Finder Window Sidebar

Just like you can drag your own folders into the sidebar, you can also drags apps into Finder window sidebars for quick access. Once apps are in the sidebar, if you click on them they will launch, which makes desktop windows serve a dual purpose as both file manager and a quick application launcher.

Twitter 2.1 for Mac OS X Includes a Developer Console

May 12, 2011 - 3 Comments
Making sense of console messagse

Twitter developers have a compelling new reason to update to Twitter 2.1 for Mac: the developer console! You can enable the developer features through Preferences > Developer tab > “Show Developer Menu”. Unfortunately for tinkerers and those just looking to casually poke around, you’ll need Twitter apps API keys to actually use and access the … Read More

Relaunch Finder… from the Mac OS X Finder

May 12, 2011 - 5 Comments
Relaunch Finder from Mac OS X

Don’t want to dig out the Terminal or Activity Monitor to relaunch the Finder? No sweat. Hold down Option and then right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock. You’ll now see an otherwise hidden “Relaunch” option, select it and Finder will quit and relaunch. It only takes a few seconds to reload. Relaunching the … Read More

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