Mac OS

I like Dashboard a lot, I really do, but it can be an awful memory hog even when it’s not being used. Once you hit F12, the widgets are loaded and don’t quit automatically which makes accessing them later faster, but it also wastes system resources. It’s not uncommon for each widget to take up … Read More

To all the US Mac users out there, this is just a reminder that Daylight Savings time is coming early this year, so be sure to install the update from Apple to have your clocks working properly. While some news networks are predicting a mini-Y2K and all sorts of chaos, the worst that could really … Read More

According to this report we might see a portable Apple offering with solid state drives (or at least a hybrid) in the second half of 2007. This is very exciting for many reasons. Solid state drives do not fail nearly as much as spinning drives, they use less power and they generate less heat all … Read More

Brian W. asks the following great question: “I’d like to click a link such as “mailto..someone@anywhere.com” and have it automatically open up my web browser to Yahoo mail. Is there a way to set my default email client to my Yahoo mail account? I’d prefer not to use Apple’s Mail client.” Well Brian, you’re not … Read More

Chances are if you have a new consumer Mac it has a built-in iSight camera, just waiting to be used. If you’ve ever thought about setting up a webcam but figured it would be too difficult, fear not, because it doesn’t get any easier than this. Cam2Web is a tiny free no frills app that … Read More

If you’ve ever launched Activity Monitor or the command line utility ‘top’ and been confused at some of what you see, you aren’t alone. Much of the output is self explanatory (like percentage of CPU usage), but some of it is meaningless without a little explanation, such as the specifics of the System Memory tab. … Read More

Hello all you loyal OS X Daily readers! Recently we have been receiving a large number of Mac OS X related questions in our inbox. Normally our staff would try and respond with an answer to the best of our knowledge. However, sometimes we get a question we think would be better sourced to the … Read More

This is a list of eleven startup key commands that every Intel Mac owner should make note of. From reseting your NVRAM, starting up in safe mode, booting your Mac from a CD or DVD, switching bootable volumes and drives on system start, to forcing media to eject from a superdrive, this list has you … Read More

According to this Security update, eight dangerous security flaws have been discovered and squashed inside Apple’s QuickTime product. Some of these holes in QuickTime can give a hacker full control of your computer. According to Apple, the problems lie in the way QuickTime handles MOV, MIDI, 3GP, PICT and QTIF files. Security is the number … Read More

Copy and Paste are absolute necessities for virtually all computer users, and if you find yourself working in the command line frequently, you’ll want to know how to manipulate the clipboard of Mac OS X directly from the terminal prompt. That’s what the Mac commands pbcopy and pbpaste are for, and as you may have … Read More

Despite the recent news that Mac OS X 10.5 will be released a bit later than hoped for, development of Leopard is still chugging along just fine. Thanks to the Mac rumor site ThinkSecret, we are presented with a gallery of screenshots to show us more of what to expect. New features and improvements are … Read More

Computing is all too often a serious thing, so it’s good to laugh every now and then about the subject. I stumbled upon a humorous read today regarding the troubles that new Mac users often run into. Personally I’ve been using Mac’s since the 80’s but I know there are many that are new to … Read More

A report on the Apple rumor site AppleInsider suggests that the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is further off than expected. For several months now, rumor sites have been speculating that Apple might be releasing 10.5 as early as late March, but the report from AppleInsider indicates there are too many bugs and … Read More

Here is a great feature that is widely unknown and certainly underused in Mac OS X, the ability to print nearly anything into a PDF document. Well, it’s not so much printing into a document as it is saving one, but you get the idea. I can think of a million uses for this, from … Read More

SeisMac hits high on the cool and innovation scale of Mac Apps, by turning your Mac laptop into a seismometer. OK, some of you are surely asking yourself: what the hell is a seismometer? The short answer: an earthquake detector! Actually it detects all seismic activity, not just earthquakes. SeisMac works by tapping into your … Read More

An incredibly useful feature that is built right into Mac OS X is the ability to create an archive instantly of anything, be it a single document, a folder, or multiple files. Creating archives is great for may reasons, they save space, and it’s a polite and easier way to send a group of files … Read More

MediaFork is a lot like HandBrake, which is fitting because it is based on it. It allows you to easily rip any DVD or DVD source folder to various movie files that can be played on your Mac, PC, and iPod. MediaFork was created because HandBrake development has stagnated, so it’s really taking off where … Read More

If you’re new to the Mac, you’ll probably appreciate this handy tip; Apple has released a handy printable cheat sheet for Mac users to fill out with relevant system information, which can be very useful in the event of any trouble, for support, and for other reasons too.