Mac OS

If you’re a sucker for system stats and monitoring widgets, then CoreDuoTemp is for you. This little app stays quietly put in your menu bar displaying some useful stats including CPU usage, the current operating speed of your processor, and the current temperature of your Intel CPU. Of course this means you have to have … Read More

Ok, I admit, I’m easily distracted while on my Mac. I’ll intend to do something productive, but then my favorite webpage will refresh or an instant message will pop up and I’ll get sidetracked reading an article or chatting. It happens to the best of us. If you are worried about desktop distractions, you can … Read More

The title says it all, you can send and receive SMS text messages through AIM, Messages, or iChat by following these simple instructions. If you are so inclined, there is even a simple bash script allowing you to interface with iChat through the command line for such purposes. This is a great tip, and apparently … Read More

Want to change the name of your Mac computer? You can change the identified computer name of a Mac easily from the Mac OS system settings. This not only changes the Macs computer name, but it also changes what the name of the Mac is as identified by other users on a network, and by … Read More

Spotlight is probably the greatest feature to hit the Mac OS in years, once you get used to using it, going to a PC without it feels hopelessly inadequate. I use Spotlight for everything from launching applications, retrieving pictures, searching for old emails, literally just about everything. If you aren’t using Spotlight, you’re missing out. … Read More

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is confirming older reports from MacRumors that the upcoming version of iChat (to be bundled with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) will include voicemail features. The MacRumors report from December of 2006 says that users will be allowed to create a video greeting to serve as an answering machine message of … Read More

If you’ve ever wondered how to extract flash videos (or any others) from a website, here’s a good way to do it using Safari and the command line download tool ‘curl’. Here’s the description from Chris Martin: “So say you come across a video online that is so great you would really like to save … Read More

Do you like geeking around with paths and jumping about the file system with the Go To trick in Mac OS X, but you come from a background in unix? You’re in luck, because OSXDaily reader Shane submitted this great tip relating to an alternate method of accessing Go To Folder in dialog windows you … Read More

Here is a great little app that works exactly as advertised, creating icons instantly with just a matter of dragging and dropping an image file on the program. Whether you want to create icons for personal usage, desktop customization, or you’re a developer and you need an icon for the latest shiny cocoa software you … Read More

UNO is a nice interface enhancer for the Mac. Mac OS X looks great, no arguments there, but if you ever get tired of the various themes of Brushed Metal, iTunes, and Aqua, then you might consider unifying the appearance with UNO. Installation is simple, and you’ll be given three choices for various aspects of … Read More

If you have a Mac with broadband, and you want to remotely administer your Mac or someone else’s, you should be using Apple’s Remote Desktop. Remote Desktop is basically just VNC with a fancier and more user friendly name, and it works great for its intended purpose. Setting up a VNC server enables you to … Read More

Want to email a picture to someone from a Mac, but the photo is too large? Did you know you can quickly resize photos and pictures directly in the Mail app for Mac OS X? That’s right, you can resize attached pictures right in the Mail application without having to leave to resize through another … Read More

Here’s a very useful feature that is widely overlooked by Mac Safari users, the ability to enable Private Browsing. What does that mean exactly? Basically it allows you to browse the web without a trace; nothing is added to the history, autofill, downloads window, and no information about what you are viewing or reading on … Read More

We all know that navigating around the Mac Finder is quick and easy, but you can speed things up by memorizing a few keystrokes that’ll be sure to come in handy. With that in mind, here are six quick keyboard shortcuts to make navigating around the Finder a tad bit speedier.

iChat is a great instant messaging client, but Chax makes iChat even better with a slew of feature improvements that add to the functionality. My personal favorite is the ability to use tabbed chat, I frequently have several instant message windows going at once, and on a relatively small MacBook screen it sure is nice … Read More

Many Mac users avoid the command line altogether, a reasonable amount probably don’t even know it exists. For the curious out there, here are some basic and essential commands and functionalities to know if you want to get started using the Mac OS X Terminal. We’ll cover simple file manipulation, maneuvering in the file system, … Read More

How many times have you left your Mac on, and later while you’re out and about you wish you would have turned the thing off or put it to sleep? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put it to sleep remotely with a quick email or text message? You can, and it’s easier … Read More

There are many occasions where you may need to refresh a webpage and that web sites cache, ignoring any locally stored cache files on the Mac so that you can pull a fresh version of a website from the web browser. Being able to ignore existing cached pages when loading a website is very useful … Read More