Mac OS

By default, anytime you take a screen capture in Mac OS X, the resulting screenshot file will save to the current users desktop. This makes retrieval very easy and is very appropriate for the average Mac user, but for those who take a lot of screen shots in Mac OS, they may find their desktop … Read More

If you’ve ever accidentally shut down your Mac, you’re not alone. That dreaded feeling when everything starts closing when you didn’t mean to reboot, ahh! But don’t freak out, there’s an incredibly simple way to stop the shut down process in OS X! All you need to do to stop a Mac shutdown is immediately … Read More

Using a Terminal command, you can turn any screensaver into your background wallpaper on the Mac. In the screenshot above I have the iTunes Album Art screensaver running as the Mac OS X desktop, but you can choose any screensaver you want. Here’s how to do this: Launch System Preferences Click on Desktop & Screen … Read More

There are several steps to password protect a Mac, we’ll cover the essentials so that if someone is to turn on your Mac, wake it from a screensaver, or wake from sleep, they will be required to enter a password in order to use the computer.

You can check your entire print history in Mac OS X by accessing the browser based CUPS utility. This is a very helpful tool for managing printing as well as tracking down origins of printed items, and it works on all versions of Mac with all printers.

You can add blank spacers to the Mac OS Dock as a way of customizing the appearance a bit. This is accomplished by issuing a defaults write command in the Terminal. Each spacer is about the same width as an icon would be, except nothing takes the place of the space, it simply separates other … Read More

I recently published a guide on how to disable the Apple Remote Control, and one of our readers wrote in with a good prank that demonstrates why you’d want to turn off the remote or at least pair one to your specific Mac: Want to know why you should turn off the Apple Remote? Try … Read More

Any time that you are away from your computer, it’s a good idea to lock the screen. This provides a level of privacy and security to the Mac that is very easy to use and implement and it should be considered a must-use trick, particularly for anyone working in public spaces, offices, schools, or anywhere … Read More

FaceTime is the video chat protocol available to Mac users in OS X as well as iOS for iPhone and iPad, and it works great to beam images from one camera to another device over the internet. One lesser known feature that is hidden from the general usage of the Mac FaceTime app however is … Read More

When an update is available for any Mac app that has been installed through the Mac App Store, you will notice the App Store icon in Mac OS X gets a numerical badge on it, indicating the number of software updates available. Additionally, you will notice the the App Store entry within the  Apple … Read More

The Apple Remote Control used to be bundled with all new Macs, but unless the remote is paired specifically to your Mac a single remote can control multiple Macs at the same time. This is annoying if you’re trying to control a single Mac with the remote and suddenly FrontRow is activated on all other … Read More

The Twitter for Mac client has a great feature that lets you send tweets from just about anywhere in Mac OS X, including the Finder. I’ve tested this out in the Mac OS X Finder, iTunes, Chrome, Safari, iChat, TextEdit, Terminal, and can confirm that this works all over the place. To access the ‘Tweet’ … Read More

You can turn off the internal MacBook Pro screen and still use the computer as long as it’s hooked up to an external display, and no you don’t have to use it in clamshell mode to achieve this. Here are two ways to keep your Mac laptop with the lid open but the internal display … Read More

Want to update Mac OS software from the Terminal? You can check for available updates, ignore packages, and install any or all Mac OS X Software Updates directly from the command line. To see what updates are available for a Mac, or to install a software update from the Terminal of Mac OS X, amongst … Read More

Angry Birds for Mac has just been updated to include support for older MacBooks, iMacs, and Mac Minis with the Intel GMA 950 graphics card. Users who already bought Angry Birds from the Mac App Store will find the new version in your Updates list, otherwise new users can buy the game from the App … Read More

If you want to quickly access the Mac OS X System Preferences, you can do so with an indirect keyboard shortcut trick by holding down the Option key and then hitting various function keys. This jumps directly to the System Preference panel corresponding to the function key. For example, Option+Brightness pulls up the Display preference … Read More

The Mac App Store includes a hidden Debug menu that can be enabled with a simple defaults write command. The menu includes a variety of interesting options and tweaks that are clearly intended for internal development purposes.

Along with the Mac App Store came Angry Birds, the wildly popular iPhone game that was then brought to the iPad, Android, Windows, and is now making waves in Mac OS X. If you haven’t played Angry Birds before, it’s remarkably simple in concept, you just fling various birds at objects to try and destroy … Read More