Mac OS

Booting a Mac with Verbose Mode can be a helpful troubleshooting trick for some obscure situations where users are trying to determine what is going wrong with a Mac during the system boot process. Just as it sounds, verbose mode is verbose, meaning it lists everything going on behind the scenes, and you’ll watch as … Read More

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview 2. The new build comes as 11A419 and presumably contains mostly bug fixes and feature refinements to an otherwise stable developer preview. Download Mac OS X Lion Preview 2 Registered developers can access the download either through Software Update in Mac OS X Lion, through … Read More

Want to use a rotated display on a MacBook? You can do exactly that, and the same way that you rotate screen orientation on a display connected to a Mac can be done with the built-in display of a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air (pictured).

Are you bored with the Mt Fuji and Space wallpapers from Lion? Try out this 8-bit rendition of the default Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aurora wallpaper. OK so it’s probably not quite 8-bit in terms of colors, but the pixelation brings back that retro feeling. Combine it with PixelSafari and you’ll be wishing you … Read More

Apple has announced the dates of WWDC 2011 as June 6 to June 10, which is just a day later than the rumored iPhone 5 release date. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, says “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” with a note … Read More

You probably know that Mac OS X Lion will add TRIM support for SSD’s, but what can you do right now if you’re on 10.6? If you’re brave, you can use this unsupported hack that enables TRIM for most SSD devices under Mac OS X 10.6.7. The app is called TRIM Enabler and it works … Read More

It wasn’t long ago that Mac OS X 10.7 Developer Preview was released, but now TechCrunch is reporting that Apple may be releasing a GM candidate of Mac OS X Lion in the near future. The details are somewhat sketchy, citing just what they’re “hearing” from an unspecified source: …Apple is gearing up to deploy … Read More

Mac OS X turns 10 today and after seeing the above image on Twitter I got to thinking that this may be the last we see of the traditional Mac OS X installer disc. With better methods of installation in place, what’s the point of Apple printing more DVD’s, better known as plastic coasters? Choose … Read More

Have iPad envy? Do you prefer the ease of the iOS interface? Maybe you just like the way iOS looks and want your Mac to resemble that user interface. By combining a few tips, we can make the Mac OS X desktop look a lot like iPad’s iOS: 1) Add Spacers to the Mac OS … Read More

Believe it or not, Mac OS X is celebrating it’s birthday and turns 10 years old today. First released to the public on March 24, 2001, Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah was a huge conceptual leap forward for the Mac platform. Unfortunately the first OS X iteration was painfully slow and largely unusable due to … Read More

Apple announced in a press release today that Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, and one of the lead creators and developers of Mac OS X, is leaving the company. Here’s Serlet on his departure: “I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both … Read More

Mac users can often reclaim significant disk space by clearing out their Downloads folder. Just how significant depends on the user, what they download, and if they tend to that directory often, but… See that screenshot? That’s my Macs Downloads folder measuring in at a whopping 26.18GB and begging for deletion. I’m a pretty savvy … Read More

Prepare for a new addiction: Angry Birds Rio is available to download for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The sequel to Angry Birds brings 60 new levels and is bound to be just as highly addictive and fun, so now is a good time to start setting aside some mandatory procrastination gaming time. Download Angry Birds … Read More

Generally speaking, if you kill the Mac OS X Finder it will automatically restart itself as it should. We say “generally” because from time to time things don’t go exactly as planned, and on rare occasions the Finder won’t reopen itself after being killed, restarted, or manually quit. When the Finder doesn’t auto relaunch itself … Read More

LetterBox is a very popular plugin for Mac OS X Mail.app that gives you a nice widescreen interface. Unfortunately it seems like every other Mac OS X system update screws up LetterBox compatibility, and 10.6.7 is no different. Thankfully the LetterBox developer is quick to react, and a fixed version for Mac OS X 10.6.7 … Read More

A Macs startup drive can be changed during system boot by holding down the OPTION key, start holding down Option the moment you hear the boot chime sound and while the screen is still black, this will bring up the boot drive manager. From this startup boot disk menu, you can use the mouse or … Read More

Mac OS X 10.6.7 is now available for all to download! If you aren’t automatically notified, launch Software Update to download and install the latest Snow Leopard update that includes bug fixes, security updates, and performance updates. If you don’t want to use Software Update, you can also download the 10.6.7 updater .dmg files directly … Read More

For security reasons, it’s always a good idea to lock your Mac screen when you step away from the keyboard. On the other hand, there are times where you’ll be away from your Mac but you don’t want to have to re-enter your password to login, or you just don’t want your screensaver activating or … Read More