Mac OS

If you want to beef up the security on your Mac with a simple settings adjustment, you can enable the built-in software firewall. This offers a layer of protection by blocking many ports for common protocols, incoming connections, and other potential attack vectors. Generally, the Mac OS X Firewall is not necessary to use for … Read More

I love tabbed windows and I use them everywhere I can, whether instant messaging in iChat to hoarding sites in Safari. Now you can get tabbed windows in Mac OS X’s Finder! TotalFinder is a really cool app that brings full tab functionality to the Mac desktop, allowing you to not only create tabs of … Read More

Do you have a large directory of movies? Not sure what each video file actually is? If you’re in thumbnail view at a large enough resolution (looks like 68×68 is the threshold for me) or you’re viewing the folder in Cover Flow view, you can play movie files directly within the Finder of Mac OS … Read More

The built in Mac speakers aren’t really adequate for playing rich loud music or media, so you’ll want to get a better set. What kind of speakers to will want depend on your needs, but I’d recommend getting a quality set for your home workstation and then if you’re a road warrior get a separate … Read More

Want to get a quick glance at a font style or a preview of the appearance of a font face before you install the font on a Mac? There are multiple ways to do this, and we’re going to show you two methods to see previews of fonts using the Finder of OS X. The … Read More

You can view .PSD Adobe Photoshop files directly in Mac OS X with no additional software, thanks to Quick Look and Preview. To get a fast preview of a PSD file, simply select the document within the Finder and hit the Spacebar to launch the PSD file rendered in Mac OS X’s very own Quick … Read More

Why is Apple so successful? Look at what, and how, they sell. * You walk into a beautiful Apple Store * You’re presented with amazingly attractive machines * The packaging is clean, minimal, and enticing * The operating system is simple to use yet amazingly powerful I came across a post simplifying this on MinimalMac … Read More

FileMerge lets you select any two files and it will compare the two, pointing out any differences between the files. If you’re a developer you already know why this is wildly useful, as it makes tracking down major and minor code changes remarkably easy. Apparently FileMerge is a survivor from the days of NeXTStep, and … Read More

Want to quickly setup a free proxy server? This article and walkthrough video brought to us by Labnol shows how to do so, and it’s about as easy as it gets, and it doesn’t involve using an SSH proxy or tunnel which makes it more user friendly for many.

Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is continuing to grow in popularity, with a recent survey showing that Apple’s Mac OS X now accounts for nearly 11% of web usage, vs 86.8% with Windows and 1.3% for mobile based browsers. What’s even more interesting though is that Apple’s share has grown 29.4% over the past … Read More

If you’re tired of having your Mac Dock full of thumbnailed versions of minimized windows, you can change the Dock’s minimize behavior with a simple Terminal command that will minimize windows into the parent applications Dock icon. You can then tell which windows are minimized by looking for the diamond next to the window name … Read More

Converting various filetypes can be a total pain, especially when you don’t know how. But converting file formats is often a necessary task, required for many reasons from preference, to increased compatibility with another Mac, to working with an iOS device or PC, to compatibility with another app, even another operating system entirely. Fortunately, OS … Read More

Would you prefer to use the keyboard to speed up navigation around your Mac? That’s what the Full Keyboard Access setting allows for. Using a Keyboard option, you can have the Tab Key able to switch between dialog buttons, fields, screen items, controls, and anything else in a dialog box within Mac OS X. This … Read More

Want to go to MacWorld Expo 2011 for free? Me too! The expo is from January 27th to the 29th of 2011 in San Francisco, California. You can sign up online for a free expo pass to the MacWorld exhibit until March 8th of this year, so if you think you can make it, register … Read More

If you haven’t backed up with Time Machine in a while, the latest backup status will change to ‘Delayed’ and the menubar icon will have an exclamation mark in it reminding you to backup soon. There can be a variety of reasons the backups become delayed, and if you’re curious why this happens we’ll go … Read More

There’s no shortage of DNS Server options out there, with Google DNS, OpenDNS, your own ISP’s, and the gazillion of others available to use. The question remains though, which of these DNS servers is going to be fastest for you? And how do you know which is fastest? That’s where NameBench comes in. NameBench is … Read More

If you have forgotten or lost your password in Mac OS X, you can reset a password by booting from a Mac OS X install disk. This works with any version of Mac OS X where you have a Mac OS X Installer CD or DVD.

The bouncing Dock icons are a nice GUI feature that let you know an app is launching on the Mac, but for some people those little bouncing icons are just really annoying. Additionally, Dock icons will bounce to notify you that an alert is active in the app, or the app needs your attention. If … Read More