Mac OS

It is not unusual for companies and schools to block certain ports to prevent people from using things like P2P networks and AIM. But the AIM chat protocol is quite popular, so if you want to use it and you find it to be blocked on a network, you can probably get around it by … Read More

This looks to be a week of SSH tips, beyond secure WebMail access with SSH tunnels, MacApper.com has a nice post about using secure tunnels to surf the web and talk on instant messengers. Why is any of this SSH stuff useful or important you may ask? In short, SSH provides a very secure protocol … Read More

The Mac OS X GUI and all it’s eye candy is a pleasure to use and look at. Perhaps you’ll remember a while back from our Fun Eye Candy Effects article that by holding down the Shift key, you can slow down virtually any Aqua effect in Mac OS X, from minimizations, window sizing, to … Read More

Reader Mathew Prairen asks a common question about forcibly opening files with an application on the Mac, and it has a remarkably simple answer: “I have a few documents and files from my PC that Pages refuses to open, is there any way I can force Pages to open these files?” As a matter of … Read More

MacPorts, formerly DarwinPorts, is a free open source app that allows Mac users to easily install command line software and x11 software in Mac OS X by using the ‘ports’ command line tool for package management. MacPorts is probably best for more advanced Mac users who have some experience with the command line, because MacPorts … Read More

Almost everyone likes tweaking their Mac, and LifeHacker has posted a great list of tweaks for Mac OS X users that you’re sure to enjoy. A few of the tips have been covered by OS X Daily before, but there will likely be some that are new to you.

Since Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been delayed until October, Apple is rumored to be working on an update to Mac OS X 10.4. The update will supposedly be released under the version number 10.4.10, a somewhat unusual number for Apple, who typically release a significant update like 10.5 after a .9 update. The … Read More

Firefox is a great web browser for Mac that offers a lot of benefits, and one way to really improve your Firefox experience is to learn and master some keyboard shortcuts for Firefox on Mac OS. Whether you use Firefox as your default Mac web browser, or as just one of a variety of other … Read More

If your computer is hooked up to a network, you might want to think twice about security because it’s easier than you’d think to snoop private information and emails, particularly over wireless networks. One of the better ways to protect yourself is to use a secured connection like SSH, which will encrypt all the data … Read More

Here’s a simple Dock hack that is really useful for those of us who have many applications open at once. When activated, icons of applications that are hidden (either by right clicking the icon in the Dock, or by option-clicking away from the application) will appear transparent within the Dock like the screenshot shows with … Read More

Virtual memory serves a crucial task in modern operating systems, essentially how it works is that when you run out of real memory (RAM), the slower hard disk will take over as a temporary memory source. The downside is that the hard disk is slower, so running things in virtual memory is not ideal, one … Read More

We all want our Mac performing at it’s best, and this list is quite long addressing all sorts of things. Many of the tips are common sense but there’s still some decent advice and it’s worth checking out. Not everyone is happy with the 52 tips though, MacUser has released a lengthy rebuttal addressing each … Read More

If you have an extra iPod laying around that isn’t getting much musical usage, perhaps you’d like to try using it as a boot disk. Yes seriously, though obviously by doing so you will lose the iPod ability to play music, and gain a bootable Mac volume instead.

I am frequently developing web pages and often times I find it frustrating when I can not restart my browser because I’m in the middle of a download. So when I need to download a large file and I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not Safari, Chrome, or Firefox continues to … Read More

If you make a living on Ebay or if you are the casual bargain shopper, GarageSale deserves a look. At first glance GarageSale looks like any other Mac OS X application but after a few minutes of use you will begin to feel how powerful this little tool can be. Most every function available on … Read More

Frozen apps happen to the best of us for reasons we don’t always understand, and a Mac application can just suddenly become unresponsive and we see the spinning beachball of death (sometimes called SBOD for short). For those new to the Mac platform, getting around the spinning wait cursor might be confusing, so here’s two … Read More

Want to encrypt a file quickly? You can do so with OpenSSL at the command line. A few months ago a question was posed to our readers about encrypting or password protecting a text file [How can I password protect a file?]. We got several good responses but one in particular has really stuck with … Read More

Have a handful of games that require game discs to be inserted in order to play? This was common with a lot of Mac Blizzard games, like Warcraft 3 for example. Obviously Carrying around a stack of CD’s and DVD’s just so you can play games can be very annoying, adding unwanted bulk to your … Read More