Mac OS

Login Items are applications and helpers that launch immediately when a user logs in to Mac OS X. These apps and utilities are easily adjusted and managed in system preferences on a user level, but you can also temporarily disable them on a per-boot and per-login basis if need be. To stop the automatic login … Read More

Mac OS X Lion introduced the file locking feature, which causes any files to automatically lock themselves after a period of time to prevent accidental edits from occurring. You’ve probably seen the resulting message lock before, informing you a file has been locked because recent changes haven’t been made. The time it takes for that … Read More

Modern versions of OS X allow you to share files securely with another individual without creating a new user account for them. Instead, authentication gets handled by the individuals Apple ID, and a separate password is set to allow that Apple ID to share files and folders on your Mac. This can be preferable to … Read More

Does your Mac feel like it takes forever to boot up when you turn it on? Does your Mac seemingly take forever to reboot? If your Mac is feeling sluggish when booting or starting up Mac OS X it’s probably a result of a few things. This walkthrough will address how to speed up reboot … Read More

Mac OS X has fairly good memory management but it’s not perfect, and sometimes RAM can be held unnecessarily in the “inactive” state despite the contents no longer being needed. If you’ve been participating in memory heavy activities or you just need to free up some available RAM you can actually force Mac OS X … Read More

The Diablo 3 Open Beta was a lot of fun and certainly got everyone excited for the May 15 public release, but now that the Diablo III Beta client can’t be used any more it’s time to uninstall the app from your Mac. This will free up at least 5GB of disk space. Follow the … Read More

You can format a hard drive or USB flash disk specifically so that it will be compatible with both Mac OS X and Windows PC computers. Though this excellent cross-platform compatible ability is unknown to many users, it’s not a complex process, and if you frequently use both a Mac and Windows PC you will … Read More

The pinch to zoom gesture is one of those features borrowed from iOS that has since come to the Mac OS X platform. It’s a natural fit for iOS and even in some places within Mac OS X, but it’s also much easier to accidentally activate on the Mac when doing something simple like browsing … Read More

For those dual booting between OS X Mountain Lion and OS X Lion, or any other two versions of OS X for that matter, there comes a time when you inevitably want to remove one of the operating systems. For this walkthrough we’ll assume the boot partition you want to delete is one of the … Read More

Most Macs have multi-touch capabilities these days, allowing for gestures to perform common tasks that would otherwise require keyboard shortcuts or additional clicking about. To use the gestures, you’ll obviously need a Mac with multitouch capabilities, that means either a newish laptop with a trackpad, Magic Trackpad, or Magic Mouse. Some gestures require modern versions … Read More

Running out of disk space is no fun and Mac users with smaller drives need to be particularly aware of available disk space. The Mac OS X Finder Search feature can be used to find large files but if you’re really serious about managing disk space and tracking down unnecessary large files and folders, you … Read More

Apple has released OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 to those registered with the Mac Developer program. The new build comes as 12A178q and includes many bug fixes, though it still includes a fairly lengthy list of known issues and bugs. This is the third beta release of OS X Mountain Lion, which currently … Read More

Everyone gets emails filled with links, but what do you do when an incoming message includes a potentially dubious URL that you aren’t quite so sure about? Rather than crossing your fingers and blindly clicking the link to open in the default web browser, try this tip out to get a preview of the URL … Read More

The Apple ][ is celebrating it’s 35th birthday. Originally demoed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at a computer fair on April 16 and 17, 1977, the Apple II was the machine that put Apple on the map and then went on to catapult the personal computer revolution. What better way to celebrate one of … Read More

Whether you’re feeling the pinch as hard drive space runs low or you’re just wondering where all your disk space went, it’s easy to find large files in Mac OS X by using the built-in search tools. You don’t need to use any third party tools here, instead you’ll rely on search operators and the … Read More

Macs have pretty amazing battery life to begin with, but following a few simple tips will help you to get the absolute best battery performance out of a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro. The primary goal here is to reduce overall power consumption on the Mac laptop and we’ll cover a few different techniques … Read More

Looking for some nice mellow wallpapers to add to your Mac, iPhone, or iPad? The DizzyUp collection features three beautifully subtle wallpapers in a wide variety of common screen resolutions and has also been updated to support the 3rd gen iPad retina 2048×2048 display. The wood paneling is my personal favorite of the group, but … Read More

Tired of all the OS X default screen savers? Breathe a ton of new retro life into your screen saver collection with the XScreenSaver pack for Mac. The free bundle includes over 200 old school screen saver classics, including an Apple II emulator, Flying Toasters, The Matrix, Blue Screen of Death, Missile Command, Phosphor BBS … Read More