Mac OS

If you’re video chatting at night or in an area with limited lighting, you can brighten your face by opening up a blank white web browser window. This is obviously a really simple tip, but it’s kind of fun to see how surprisingly useful blank browser windows can be (like speeding up Safari on the … Read More

You can run multiple instances of any application in Mac OS X with a little command line magic. Using the ‘open’ command to launch GUI apps from the Terminal, we can run a new instance of any app, even if it is already running.

TenFourFox is an essential web browser for any Mac OS X user that is still using a PowerPC machine. It’s a fork of Mozilla that is practically identical to Firefox 4, the only difference is that it includes support for PowerPC chips, meaning you’ll get all the CSS3 and HTML5 support that Firefox 4 comes … Read More

For those using larger displays you may wish the Mac OS X Dock icon magnification was greater on the Mac, but it turns out this can be achieved easily with a defaults write command. With a little effort, you can super magnify the size of Dock icons on Mac.

Want to always show line numbers in TextWrangler documents on Mac OS X? Of course you do! This is a great feature and it’s super easy to enable displaying of line numbers in TextWrangler for Mac:

If you like to keep an eye on system resources and you want to branch out from the GUI Activity Monitor, check out htop for Mac. htop is basically a significantly improved version of top, which lets you monitor system resources, CPU core load, memory use, load averages, and view and manage individual running processes. … Read More

Do you have some source code, text, or a command string that you want to securely transfer from one Mac to another? Combining the command line clipboard tools pbcopy and pbpaste with SSH we can do exactly that, and it doesn’t matter where the other Mac is located: be it LAN, WAN, or anywhere. Here … Read More

Want to add your own folders or items the Mac OS X sidebar to customize it a bit more, perhaps by adding shortcuts to your most recent work, or a regularly used folder, directory, or drive? A great way to do this is by adding your own specific folders to the Finder sidebars. There are … Read More

The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will be distributed primarily as a download through the Mac App Store. This information comes from AppleInsider, who says the following: The Mac App Store… will become the de facto method for obtaining the Lion upgrade, people familiar with the matter have revealed. Users will be … Read More

This is a neat Mac trick I accidentally discovered: not only can you launch apps from the toolbar of a Finder window after placing them there, but you can drag folders into any Mac OS X Finder window toolbar as well, and it will stick there allowing for easy access. The do this yourself, you … Read More

Want to help test Chrome development releases and be on the absolute cutting edge of web browser development? Try out the newly released Google Chrome Canary for Mac OS X, which Google says is aimed at the “bravest” of Chrome users. Chrome Canary installs as a separate app to the stable Chrome builds, so you … Read More

If you have recently upgraded your Mac RAM, or if you are experiencing strange system crashes, it’s a good idea to test your memory modules integrity using a free tool called memtest. Essentially, memtest is a utility designed to stress test RAM for errors. Without getting overly technical in the explanation, memtest works by writing … Read More

Uninstalling apps from Mac OS X is set to get even easier in Lion, thanks to usability cues taken from iOS. Using Launchpad, you’ll be able to just click and hold on an icon to cause the familiar icon jiggle and “X” to appear, click the X and the app will delete. One quirk though, … Read More

A new malware threat has been identified for Mac users, the app is called MACDefender and it disguises itself as antivirus software for Mac OS X. The malware attempts to install itself through hijacked websites, and the threat level is considered low, nonetheless all Mac users should be aware of the potential threat and take … Read More

You can quickly change the appearance of any Terminal window by using the Inspector tool in the Terminal app for Mac, which can be summoned at any time for any specific Terminal window or tab. Inspector is very easy to use, so here is how to change the appearance quickly using it:

You can take time delayed screenshots in Mac OS X easily by using the Grab utility or the Terminal app, included with every Mac OS X version. We’ll cover taking timed screen shots in Grab first because it’s more user friendly and doesn’t involve the command line which is a bit more technical, and then … Read More

Apple looks to be developing a new bookmarking feature in Mac OS X Lion that allows users to select web content for reading later. The feature is called Reading List and appears to behave much like Instapaper and ReadItLater, but is currently disabled in Lion Developer Builds of Safari. MacRumors found the following description that … Read More

A nondescript update to Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2 has been released to developers via Software Update. The description is only that it is “recommended for all users running Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2” and likely focuses on bug fixes and feature refinements. The update brings Lion to build 11A444d, weighs … Read More