Mac OS

Upgrading to Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 was a painless procedure until I tried to access some SMB mounts… suddenly I had no write access to my samba drives! I was presented with this error message: The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items. Thankfully there’s … Read More

Did you know that with DolphinProjects, you can run Mac OS X Leopard on a Sony PSP? Me neither, I think I’ll stick with my hackintosh. Anyway, this might not be the most useful hack in the world, but it is pretty cool. Here are some screen shots, as you can see it is remarkably … Read More

iTunes 9.1 and forward changed the way it handles song conversions. I’m not quite sure why but Apple made it so converting a song to a different format is no longer just a matter of right-clicking and converting. Instead, with iTunes you’ll have to make an adjustment in iTunes Preferences first. First, select the conversion … Read More

Adobe just can’t get a break with Flash on the Mac. Before you get too excited about the Flash Gala plugin, you might want to look at these performance results from Engadget. The new MacBook Pro with a Core i7 processor performed quite well with the beta Gala plugin, with CPU utilization going down anywhere … Read More

Do you have a collection of images and photos that you’d like to become a screen saver on the Mac? This offers a simple and nice way to customize a screen saver to include only your own images and pictures, and it’s quite easy to accomplish in macOS and Mac OS X.

ShrinkIt is a handy little app that greatly reduces the file size of Illustrator generated PDF’s. Created as an internal tool, the developers over at Panic realized that PDF files saved from Adobe Illustrator were loaded with loads of extra nonsense metadata, even patterns, preview bitmaps, swatches, creating enormous PDF file sizes when they should … Read More

If you’re a Mac user who is into gaming, you’ll probably be thrilled to know that Steam is available on the Mac OS ecosystem. But before you go jumping for joy for Steam on the Mac, you might want to make sure the Mac you have supports Steam. Here’s what we know about the basic … Read More

Ping is an essential utility for network administrators, but it’s also pretty handy to check if websites are online, how your internet connection is working, if you are experiencing lag or packet loss on a network connection, or to determine if a network resource is available. Mac users can access and use ping to target … Read More

If you are running a dual-display setup, you can easily adjust the primary display monitor in Mac OS X. When would you want to do this? For example, if you have a MacBook Pro 13″ hooked up to a larger external display, and you want the external display with it’s higher resolution to become the … Read More

NTFS Mounter is a simple utility that sits in your menubar and lets you select NTFS volumes to mount and write to. Interestingly enough, Mac OS X has been able to mount NTFS volumes with read and write support as of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, although this is not officially supported or sanctioned … Read More

Every Mac has a variety of optional boot functions that can be used to intervene during the Mac OS X system startup. These are typically in the form of a single keys held down, or a press of keystrokes and hotkeys, used to issue a command and thereby adjust the booting behavior of Mac OS … Read More

“I use Visio frequently at work in an all Windows environment, but I really don’t want to have to install Parallels or Boot Camp on my new MacBook just to run Visio. Is there some kind of alternative like Visio for Mac OS X?” This is a great question, and I think you’ll be quite … Read More

One of the coolest features of the 27″ iMac is it’s beautiful LED screen with a whopping 2560×1440 resolution, but what’s even cooler is the ability to use that gorgeous display as an external display for another Mac. So if you want to use an iMac as an external screen for another Mac, you’ll need … Read More

Do you want to keep yourself or your employees from wasting time on certain websites? Maybe you don’t want your child to see some of the virtual trashbins of the internet? By editing the /etc/hosts systems file, you can block any website, and here’s how to do it.

Booting into safe mode in Mac OS X is a troubleshooting trick that can help to diagnose many common system problems, and even some more obscure issues with Mac OS X. While safe mode is considered an advanced troubleshooting technique, it’s easy to use and easy to exit out of, meaning just about any experience … Read More

Making your Mac desktop background look attractive goes beyond just eye candy, it can help to improve your focus or give some inspiration. We’re going to show you how you can easily change the wallpaper on your Mac, and you can set the desktop background to any picture you want. Whether you’re a minimalist and … Read More

PeerGuardian is a free open source tool that allows you to easily block large numbers of IP addresses in Mac OS X. It automatically maintains an internal IP blacklist to block IP’s deemed unsafe or dubious in nature, and also allows for multiple IP lists with the ability to block entire protocols. Other features include … Read More

Updated 11/27/2018: You can easily use the MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro in what’s commonly called clamshell mode. Clamshell mode is when the laptop lid is closed but the machine is hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, effectively turning your portable Mac into a desktop. Doing this is easy, we’ll cover … Read More