Mac OS

MacOS Monterey and MacOS Big Sur introduced a new style to the MacOS alert dialog boxes, which look more like something you’d see in iOS than MacOS. In the new design style for MacOS alert dialog windows, everything is centered with the app icon on the top and the alert messages below, whereas the older … Read More

SHA512 hashes are often used to determine data integrity, whether for matching a downloaded file to an original on a server, or for command output, or to make sure a file transfer was successful, or not tampered with. Checking a SHA512 hash is pretty easy on a Mac, thanks to bundled command line tools that … Read More

If you’re a Discord user, you may have noticed that the Discord app starts automatically when you startup the Mac. Some Mac users may prefer that Discord does not launch itself on system boot, and thus may want to stop this from happening. For the unfamiliar, Discord is a popular app for communicating, whether through … Read More

“¡I need to type an inverted exclamation point!” the Mac user said… Indeed, the upside-down exclamation point ¡ is frequently used in Spanish and some other languages and thus it makes sense why you’d need to type the character, but if you’re using an English keyboard you may be wondering how you can type the … Read More

The Live Text feature available in modern MacOS releases allows Mac users to select text from within images and photos, but some users may find this feature to be more annoying than helpful, and thus may want to turn Live Text off on their Mac. This may be particularly true for some designers and image … Read More

Ready to automate Mac app downloads and installs? If you’re setting up a new Mac, you probably know how tedious it is to manually navigate to a bunch of different developer websites, and to individually download and install all the Mac apps you may want. This is a necessary but time consuming procedure for setting … Read More

The Notes app is popular for keeping bits of data, jotting down information, maintaining lists, storing text, photos, and so much more. It’s completely reasonable to want to create a local backup of notes from the Notes app, but you may be unsure of how to accomplish that. We’ll discuss a few ways to backup … Read More

Some Mac users running MacOS Sierra and MacOS High Sierra have found they’re unable to login to an Apple ID or iCloud through System Preferences, or access iCloud.com in Safari. Additionally, Apple websites requiring usage of an Apple ID from Safari fail with a ‘Safari Can’t Open Page’ error “because Safari can’t establish a secure … Read More

Many Mac users who are either bilingual or learning another language may need to type the upside-down question mark. The inverted question mark punctuation is found in Spanish as well as some other languages, and so if you’re either typing in another language or just need access to that punctuation, you certainly aren’t alone in … Read More

Want to clean up your Chrome extensions a bit? Perhaps you have an unneeded extension or two installed in Chrome and you want to remove them. Deleting and removing extensions from Chrome browser on a Mac or PC is really easy, as you’ll soon see.

Siri now has a non-binary gender neutral voice option available to users who prefer to not have a stereotypically male or female Siri voice. While Apple somewhat recently removed all gender identifying information from Siri voices, simply referring to them as ‘Voice 1’ and so on, the introduction of the gender neutral non-binary Siri voice … Read More

Tap to Click is a popular feature for Mac trackpads that allow users to tap on the trackpad to perform a click, rather than exert physical pressure to physically click down on the trackpad. Many Mac users like to use Tap to Click, so if you find it’s suddenly not working, or not working as … Read More

Do you have multiple user accounts on your Mac? Perhaps you have separate accounts for personal and for professional use, or a Guest account for others to use? In that case, you may be interested in taking advantage of a nifty hidden feature called Fast User Switching.

Voice Isolation mode allows FaceTime on the Mac to emphasize your voice while on FaceTime calls, thereby reducing background noises and sounds. This is a nice feature if you have some background noise going on that may drown out your voice when talking or make you otherwise difficult to hear, whether that’s a loud fan … Read More

You can add secure notes to your iCloud Keychain account and login entries if you’d like to. The notes can serve any purpose, but they can be particularly handy if you want to reference something specific to that login, whether a log of prior passwords, or the purpose of the account, or whatever else. For … Read More

If you want to run Windows 11 on your M1, M2, or M3 Mac, you can now do that, and perhaps best of all, you can run Windows 11 in a virtual machine on the M-series Mac entirely for free. We’ll be covering how to install, setup, and run Windows 11 ARM on any Apple … Read More

The Mac Live Text feature offers the ability to select text directly within an image or photo, which you can then copy, define, lookup, search the web, or do with as you please. Using Live Text on the Mac is pretty simple, and like using Live Text on iPhone and iPad, you can use the … Read More

Mac users who want to get the most out of the Quick Notes feature may appreciate knowing that they can set a Hot Corner to make a new Quick Note instantly. When this is active, simply moving your cursor into the designated corner of the screen will open Quick Note.