Mac OS

It’s no secret, I hate Flash. It’s the plastic pink flamingos of the web but worse, it’s crass, it’s loud, it’s obnoxious, it will crash your web browser, and on a Mac it is a literal drag on the machine, sucking up the CPU and memory as if there’s no tomorrow. Adobe really laid a … Read More

Spaces is a really nice feature of Mac OS X that lets you place different windows and applications within their own workspace. Dragging a window to a new Space is just a matter of holding onto the window and pulling it towards the end of the screen. You may have noticed that there’s a delay … Read More

The application Finder.app can’t be opened. -10810 I ran into the unpleasant 10810 error code recently and couldn’t find any workaround without a reboot. From what I’ve gathered by searching around on the web, Error 10810 occurs when the Launch Services framework has some sort of meltdown, causing the Mac OS X Kernel to run … Read More

It’s easy to accidentally change directories to something you weren’t intending to (say, accidentally hitting cd and returning home, thus losing your place in a complicated directory structure seep in the file system somewhere), but thankfully there’s a command that will immediately take you back to the previous directory, regardless of what it was. The … Read More

If you need to prevent the Dock icons from changing or being modified on a Mac, you can use defaults command strings to lock down the OS X Dock and prevent any adjustments or changes to how it appears on screen.

If you’re a Ghostbusters fan you’ll get a kick out of this creative use of the Genie minimization effect in Mac OS X, which was used to re-create scenes from the movie.

I often forget to empty my Trash, which can grow and grow and grow over time, but this picture shows a bloated trash can being taken it to a whole new level. 489GB!

You can set Mac OS X to always securely empty the Trash and add a significant layer of security when removing files from the Mac. This is done just by adjusting a preference setting within the Finder, and it’s very easy to configure, here’s what you will want to do to use this option:

.DS_Store files store folder level metadata information (such as icon placement and background pictures) for Mac OS X to understand, this is fine and dandy and you’re likely to never even notice if you’re a bunch of Macs working together. Unfortunately, these .DS_Store files can be really pesky in a multi-platform network environment, they can … Read More

I use the OS X Quick Look feature constantly for everything from quickly viewing pictures, movies, text files, and of course, source code. Source can be a pain to view in QuickLook because there’s no syntax highlighting by default though, but this excellent Mac plugin changes that.

A colleague of mine is a recent Mac switcher and he was complaining to me that virtual desktops are not included in Mac OS X, the irony is that they are, they just have the name Spaces (coming from a heavy Linux background, I guess the naming convention just threw him off). Virtual Desktops are … Read More

Typing the square root symbol in Mac OS X is just a matter of hitting ALT+V √ – ALT+V Note that these are Qwerty English specific instructions, other keyboard layouts and languages will likely vary.

Many Mac users are fond of the Mac startup sound that chimes on system boot, but there are definitely times when booting that you’d rather just be quiet, say a library or coffee shop. Thus, we’re going to show you how to mute that boot up sound on any Mac, MacBook model (Pro, Air), iMac, … Read More

There are times when a user will need to to manually set an IP address in Mac OS X to one which will be compatible with a joined network, either wi-fi or ethernet. Here will cover how to change a Mac IP address to a manual setting, and also how to pick an IP address … Read More

You can change the Mac OS X login screen background picture using a few different methods. We have covered this tip before but it was based around a few Terminal commands that might not be easy to follow for the average Mac user without command line experience. With that in mind, here are ways to … Read More

You can convert many different image file formats in Mac OS X for free using the included Preview application, there’s no need to download additional tools or do anything overly complex. As of any somewhat modern version of Mac OS X, the Mac Preview app supports the following file types and will convert between any … Read More

Mac OS X Server is infinitely better equipped, more stable, and just generally more pleasant than any of Windows offerings (yes I am biased, but it’s true), if you’re needing a server I highly recommend checking out Apple’s offering. Instead of shelling out the $499 for a copy though, you can get a free evaluation … Read More

If you’re ever wondering how long your Mac has been turned on and running for, you can discover exactly how long the computer has been on since last boot with two different methods available in OS X. Let’s learn a bit more about discovering how long a Mac has been left turned on for, and … Read More