Mac OS

Apple has released a new beta version of macOS Sierra for public beta and developer beta testers, versioned as Mac OS 10.12 developer beta 8 and Mac OS 10.12 public beta 7.

There may come a time when you need to save or convert a Microsoft Word Doc or DOCX file to PDF format from a Mac. The advantages to saving a Word DOC as PDF are notable in that the PDF file becomes universally readable by any operating system with a PDF reader, even without the … Read More

Photos app for Mac can not only manage your photos, but also any of videos that have been copied into Photos app from an iPhone or camera as well. If you have a movie file in Photos on the Mac that you like but it’s just a bit too long, or perhaps the action scene … Read More

If you’ve ever encountered a lengthy document or webpage that you want the gist of, but don’t have the time to read or scan through, you can use the excellent Summarize Service in Mac OS X to summarize the text for you. Summarize is adjustable as well, meaning you can choose how dense or light … Read More

As many users know, using Two-Factor authentication for an Apple ID provides an additional layer of security for your Apple and iCloud login by requiring a pin code to be entered from an approved device before the Apple ID can be accessed. But the two factor auth feature is really built for modern iOS versions, … Read More

The Mail app for Mac will automatically check email accounts for new mail, and with a little customization you can even adjust how often it refreshes and checks for new emails as well. Those settings work fine for many users, but another option is to manually refresh and force a check for new email by … Read More

Apple has released the seventh beta version of macOS Sierra to users participating in the Mac developer beta testing program. The same build is also available to public beta release testers versioned as macOS Sierra public beta 6.

If you have ever recorded a video or movie and found that some of the surrounding frame is unnecessary or irrelevant, you can use an editing function to crop down the video to focus on what should be the focus of the movie. This tutorial will show you how to quickly crop a video on … Read More

Cleaning the keyboard on a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air is a necessary chore from time to time, but it can also be more challenging than expected as anyone who has done so can attest. The moment you start wiping down the Mac keyboard, it’s inevitable for keys to be pressed, and as a … Read More

Mac users can run AppleScript from the command line if desired, either by running a script file directly or by giving the osascript command direct plain text script statements. This can be useful for many purposes, but should be particularly nice for users who spend a lot of time in the command line or who … Read More

The MacBook Air is not really thought of as being expandable or upgradeable, but it turns out that with a little effort and patience, you can replace the SSD on the MacBook Air yourself. Changing the SSD on a MacBook Air can allow you to dramatically increase the storage size of the Mac and can … Read More

One of the most subtle animations found in Mac OS X and macOS is known as the “focus ring animation”, which is a sort of zooming highlight around where ever the cursor focus goes in a text book. Many users likely haven’t even noticed it, it’s that subtle. If you have no idea what the … Read More

All modern Macs running macOS or Mac OS X come with SSH pre-installed by default, but the SSH (Secure Shell) daemon is also disabled by default. Advanced Mac users may appreciate knowing the ability to enable SSH and disable SSH are both available entirely from the command line of Mac OS, allowing for a simple … Read More

The Mac Mail app keeps track of all previous recipients that have received an email message sent from an email address that is associated with the app. That means every email recipient will be shown and can be reviewed in the Mail app, including the recipients name when available, their email address, and even the … Read More

The Contacts app for Mac defaults to sorting names by last name, and to showing the first name before the last name when browsing through the address book list of contacts. With some minor adjustments, you can change how the Contacts app displays and sorts the address book contact names in Mac OS. You can … Read More

Hot Corners are a feature of Mac OS that allows a user to point the cursor into one of the far corners of the display to summon a set feature, like triggering Mission Control, Launchpad, Dashboard, Notification Center, revealing the desktop, start or disable a screen saver, or put the display to sleep. Many Mac … Read More

If you use a VPN with a Mac for either work or personal reasons, you may wish to have the Mac automatically connect to the VPN service when the Mac is booted or upon login. Or maybe you just want the VPN to automatically reconnect if the connection drops and disconnects. This is easily accomplished … Read More

If you need to find the disk ID or disk node identifier (like /dev/disk0s2) of a volume attached to a Mac for one reason or another, perhaps the easiest way to obtain this information from the command line is with the diskutil utility.