Mac OS

Mac OS, Mac OS X, or macOS, is the operating system that resides on Apple’s desktop and portable computer lineup. Built upon a Unix core, it is easy to use yet highly advanced, extremely stable, and an excellent OS for productivity and creation. Browse through our articles or use the search feature to look for something specific that is pertinent to the Mac operating system.

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iTunes Match Beta Available for Developers to Stream & Download Music via iCloud

Aug 30, 2011 - 2 Comments
iTunes Match Beta

The first beta version of iTunes Match has been released for developers to subscribe to. The service stores an entire music library within iCloud and allows you to stream or download your music from anywhere, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, a Mac, or even Windows PC. This is done without uploading files, instead iTunes Match … Read More

Mac OS X 10.6.9 May Bring iCloud Support to Snow Leopard

Aug 29, 2011 - 2 Comments
Mac OS X 10.6.9 and iCloud

An upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.6.9 may bring iCloud support to Mac users who haven’t made the jump to Lion and remain on Snow Leopard, at least that’s what a screen shot provided to MacRumors suggests. Sent in by a developer, the screenshot of the .Mac/MobileMe preference pane includes the text: “iCloud requires … Read More

Get Apple Hardware Test Boot Mode Back on Some OS X Lion Macs

Aug 29, 2011 - 8 Comments
Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion has changed how several helpful troubleshooting tools function, one being the reset password tool, and another is how Apple Hardware Test (AHT) mode works. Gone is AHT’s independent boot mode in favor of an internet based version that is dependent on Lion’s Internet Recovery instead. If you always have access to … Read More

Easily Manage OS X Lion’s Resume Feature for Every Application with Resuminator

Aug 26, 2011 - 9 Comments
Resuminator manages OS X Lion App Resume feature

Mac OS X Lion’s App Resume feature is both loved and hated. Most people seem to love the feature for most of their apps, but don’t want it enabled for others. Up until now, you’ve had to issue either app-specific defaults write commands or lock saved states folders, or just disable Resume completely. These are … Read More

No More Grey – Bring Back Color iTunes Icons to OS X Lion

Aug 26, 2011 - 58 Comments
Color iTunes Icons

Mac OS X and iTunes has been slowly going the way of minimalism with subdued grey interface elements and icons, some people like the change and others don’t. We just showed you how to get color icons back in the OS X Lion Finder sidebars, and in the comments, Prescott Perez-Fox posted a resource file … Read More

Paint with Fire using Motion FX

Aug 26, 2011 - 3 Comments
Motion FX for Mac OS X Lion

Motion FX is a very cool real-time video effects tool that uses your Macs built-in camera to detect movement and render a slew of special effects ranging from fire to smoke and any variation of colors or distortion in between. Using the apps Motion Detect or Effect Paint mode, you can literally paint with fire … Read More

Block Third Party & Advertiser Cookies in Safari for Mac

Aug 26, 2011 - 13 Comments
Block Advertiser and Third Party Cookies in Safari

Safari in OS X allows you to have greater control over cookie settings as stored in the Mac web browser. There are now options to block all cookies, allow all cookies, or to selectively block third party and advertiser tracking cookies. Each of these choices are easily set or changed within Safaris’ preferences, and if … Read More

Disable “Reopen Windows When Logging Back In” in Mac OS X Completely

Aug 25, 2011 - 96 Comments
Disable Reopen Windows when Logging In

You may have noticed that when you log out or reboot Mac OS X, you get a dialog window with a checkbox next to “Reopen windows when logging back in” that restores all of your currently open applications and windows. If you don’t like it and you’re tired of unchecking the box to no longer … Read More

Get Color Sidebar Icons Back in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Finder Windows

Aug 25, 2011 - 127 Comments
Color Sidebar icons in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

OS X Lion brought greyscale icons to the Mac OS X Finder window sidebar, but if you’d rather have some color back in your desktop window sidebars, you can get this done easily through a third party plugin. If you’ve been following some of our other Lion tips, you may already have SIMBL installed, otherwise … Read More

Reset a Mac OS X Mavericks or Mountain Lion Password

Aug 24, 2011 - 66 Comments
Reset a Mac password from System Preferences

One of several changes to newer versions of OS X is how resetting passwords is handled, previous versions of Mac OS X would have a password reset tool easily accessible from the Utilities menu but that isn’t available anymore, and for some added security you now must access a password reset tool through the command … Read More

Get Personal Folders Back in Mac OS X Desktop Window Sidebar

Aug 24, 2011 - 11 Comments
Get Personal Folders Back in the Desktop Window Sidebar in Mac OS X Lion

The desktop in latter versions of Mac OS X has simplified the Finder window sidebars by showing just a few choices, with the emphasis on the ‘All My Files’ directory rather than individually pointing to your Pictures and Documents folders. If you prefer to see more options from the Finder and Desktop window sidebars, you … Read More

Change the AirDrop “Pop” Sound Effect

Aug 23, 2011 - 3 Comments
AirDrop in OS X Lion

AirDrop is a great local peer-to-peer file sharing feature in Mac OS X Lion that is surprisingly useful. That said, the ‘pop’ or drop sound effect that you hear when someone AirDrops you a file has always annoyed me because it’s the same sound effect you hear when you get a new iChat message. Like … Read More

Open Mac OS X Finder from LaunchPad

Aug 23, 2011 - 16 Comments
Drag Finder to the LaunchPad to open Mac OS X Windows from LaunchPad

Want to open the Finder and your standard desktop Mac OS X windows from LaunchPad? You can, but you have to drag the Finder application into LaunchPad. Here’s how to do this: From the Mac OS X desktop, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up “Go To Folder” and enter the following path: /System/Library/CoreServices/ Within /CoreServices/ locate … Read More

Run HP WebOS in an Emulator under Mac OS X with VirtualBox

Aug 22, 2011 - 11 Comments
HP WebOS

If you missed out on the $99 HP TouchPad deals that seem to have the entire tech web in a frenzy, don’t forget that you can experience WebOS for free right now on Mac OS X, just by using the SDK’s emulator. You’ll need to download VirtualBox and then the WebOS SDK which comes as … Read More

Launch and Use Any Mac OS X App When Booted from OS X Lion Recovery HD Drive

Aug 22, 2011 - 7 Comments
Launch Terminal from the Recovery Disk in Mac OS X Lion

Whether you made a Lion recovery drive with Apple’s Lion Recovery Disk Assistant Tool and you’re booting from that or you’re just relying on the Recovery HD partition, this technique works.

Set Language Priority in Mac OS X Auto Correct to Prevent Inaccurate Corrections Like “Colour” to “Color”

Aug 21, 2011 - 31 Comments
Fix spelling autocorrects language priority in Mac OS X Lion

Is autocorrect in Mac OS X driving you nuts? We’ve received a fair amount of complaints regarding Mac OS X spelling autocorrect feature erroneously correcting things like British English words to American English words, and changing the spelling of some words like “colour” to “color” and so on. The reason for this is a language … Read More

Access and Use Emoji in Mac OS X

Aug 20, 2011 - 34 Comments
use Emoji in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Emoji are extremely popular picture characters and emoticons that are an integral part of Japanese tech culture and communication, and now that they are included in modern versions of OS X, the Emoji character set is available to everyone on a Mac regardless of your localization settings. Emoji are quickly taking the world by storm … Read More

Lion Tweaks Makes Customizing Mac OS X Lion Features as Easy as a Click

Aug 19, 2011 - 10 Comments
Lion Tweaks

Tired of tweaking OS X Lion on your own with all the defaults write commands? Don’t want to manually change iCals leather look back to aluminum? What about older tips like turning the Dock into 2D? Lion Tweaks to the rescue! This little free app is an extremely easy GUI front-end to a ton of … Read More

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