Mac OS

Mac OS X is wonderfully stable as an operating system, and although most software is written well, not all code is created equal. Crashing is just a fact of computing life and it frustrates us all, so it’s helpful to be able to pinpoint the cause of the problem. While the causes of some crashes … Read More

Bash is the default shell in Mac OS X and has been since 10.3, it’s generally considered to be the de facto shell standard in the unix world. That said, there are some people who prefer to use the tcsh shell, or perhaps you just want to break away from the norm. Changing the default … Read More

We’re all anxiously waiting for Apple to release Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which is due to be out sometime in the next few months. To whet our appetites even more, the Mac rumor website ThinkSecret has posted a series of 28 pictures of various new features, updates, screensavers, and additions to the latest build … Read More

Want to make a portable USB flash drive OS X installer from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, or 10.6 Snow Leopard? You can do that! And no, we don’t mean portable as in a laptop, but portable as in a USB flash drive that can install OS X onto Macs.

The folks at the Beatnik Pad have released new builds of Firefox 2.0.0.2. The Firefox update includes many security fixes some of which were deemed “critical”. For those of you are unfamiliar with Beatnik Pad’s Firefox’s builds, they are optimized at compile time for the G4, G5 and the x86 Mac OS X architectures. Beatnik … Read More

Whether you’re a unix novice or veteran to the terminal, if you’re using the command line you’ll often find yourself looking up exactly how to use a specific command for either its understanding the commands full functionality or just to discover the proper syntax. Many of us will just google a command if we can’t … Read More

How would you like to run Mac OS System 7 in Mac OS X? Never thought about it? Well we hadn’t really either but thanks to an app called Mini vMac you can easily run old school retro releases of Mac OS System 7 right on modern versions of Mac OS and Mac OS X!

SIP is basically an Phone over IP protocol that allows for voice calling over the internet, kind of like Skype or FaceTime or similar voice and VOIP efforts. The Mac has some SIP clients, so if you need one you’ll find a variety of options. One such SIP client for Mac is SJphone, which is … Read More

After several hundred times of logging into your Mac you may be tired of looking at the same old login screen. Maybe you’d like to have a customized login screen for your school or employer’s workstations. Forget the $10 programs that automate the process, we’ll show you how to customize the login screen entirely on … Read More

iAlertU is a free alarm system for Intel Mac laptops and works like this: you activate the alarm via your remote or a menu, and if your Mac is moved or disturbed the screen starts flashing and a blaring an alarm sound. How does it do this? It uses your Mac’s built in SMS sensor … Read More

If there are only two general usability tips that every Mac laptop owner must know about, these very well could be it. First, how to simulate a right click with your trackpad, and second, scrolling through documents much like is done with a scrollwheel. I have long assumed these were common knowledge, but I’ve heard … Read More

Apple spends a lot of time fine tuning our favorite products, resulting in stellar looking hardware and software, particularly visible in Mac OS X. It’s not hard to impress your friends and colleagues with the appearance, fluidity, and many great features we all enjoy. But if you’re in the mood to brag and be flashy, … Read More

In our “Ten OS X Command Line utilities you might not know about” article, we briefly mentioned FinkCommander, a GUI frontend to the ‘fink’ command line utility. It is the easiest way we know of to explore the wonderful world of free Unix software on the Mac. We think it is such a useful app … Read More

The popular Mac programming website CocoaDevCentral has put together two great online tutorials for learning Cocoa (Apple’s object-oriented programming environment). These tutorials are geared towards total programming newbies, and are a fun way to get your feet wet with Mac software development. On the software side, all you’ll need is Mac OS X 10.4 (or … Read More

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