Tips & Tricks

We already know that Siri for Mac has a litany of commands and capabilities, but did you know that you can pin a Siri search result into the Mac Notifications Center panel? For example, if you ask Siri for the weather, you can pin the result, which will update on the fly, into the Notifications … Read More

Just about everyone loves knows and loves using Emoji on their iPhone, but did you know you can search Spotlight in iOS with emoji characters too? That may sound a little pointless, but it offers a fun way to search for food and restaurants, amongst other things too.

There’s a certain magic to pixel art, whether it’s the nostalgic aspect or just the intentional limitations of drawing simpler graphics. While there are many specific apps intended to create pixel art out there, both Photoshop and Pixelmator for Mac has such an ability as well. We’re going to focus on enabling the pixel brush … Read More

Don’t want to update to macOS Sierra quite yet? You’ve likely noticed when you open the Mac App Store and visit the Updates tab, if you’re on a Sierra compatible Mac you will see a very large MacOS Sierra update banner, soliciting you to update and install the latest Mac system software update. It’s impossible … Read More

The Hey Siri feature is undeniably useful, allowing you to engage with the iPhone from just about anywhere by voice commands, but sometimes you definitely don’t want Hey Siri to activate (let alone start talking out of the blue or answering questions at a White House press conference). A simple solution is available with the … Read More

The iCloud.com website allows users to access various iCloud features including the endlessly useful Find My iPhone from anywhere with a web browser, but if you have tried to visit iCloud.com from an iPhone or iPad, you’ll notice rather than the traditional sign-in to iCloud login page that is mobile friendly, you’ll be redirected to … Read More

The all new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has been announced though it is not shipping quite yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t test out the new TouchBar functionality on an existing Mac, even without the official hardware Touch Bar across the top of the keyboard. Thanks to a third party app, you can … Read More

Ever wondered what the status is of a large app download coming from the Mac App Store, but you don’t want to check the progress through the Mac App Store itself? Just refer to Launchpad in the Dock of Mac OS X instead, you don’t even need to have the App Store open to see … Read More

Now that we can block callers on the iPhone by selecting a specific number or contact, wouldn’t it be nice to go further and stop all “Unknown” callers and “No Caller ID” calls from coming to the iPhone too? Typically the “Unknown”, “No Caller ID”, and “Blocked” callers are telemarketers, robocalls, and other annoying types, … Read More

Safari for Mac allows for optional third party browser extensions to be installed, performing functions like social sharing, note taking, interface with apps like 1password, amongst others. Sometimes Safari extensions can be useful, but sometimes they are no longer needed, or they can be problematic and cause freezes or trouble with Safari or for the … Read More

Have you ever wanted to change a group of files file extensions in Mac OS? For example, lets say you wanted to change a bunch files with a .htm extension to .html, or a group of files from extension tie .JPEG to .PNG. We’ll show you how to easily batch change a group of file … Read More

Users can securely download a file from any remote server with SSH by using the scp tool at the command line. Essentially this means you can have a file stored securely on a remote server and transfer it to local storage without having to expose that file to the outside world, because scp offers the … Read More

“Where are screenshots stored on the iPhone or iPad?” is a common question for users who are new to capturing screenshots of their devices. If you take many screenshots on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch, you’ll likely find the Screenshots photo album view to be useful in iOS and iPadOS. Essentially the … Read More

Have you ever received a PDF file that you would like to convert to a Word DOC or DOCX format? Typically this is necessary when you have PDF that you want to edit the contents of a bit, maybe a resume or a thesis, but of course the PDF could be more complex. If you’re … Read More

Mac and iOS users can start iMessage conversations and send text messages from the web, email, or anywhere else a link can be clicked, by using a custom URL to launch the Messages app. Using this you can start an iMessage chat to any other iMessage user or send them an SMS through the Messages … Read More

If you need to view the IP addresses of other hardware on the same LAN (Local Area Network) as a Mac, the command line arp tool works quite well. You’ll quickly find other devices IP and accompanying MAC addresses, which can make direct network connections easier and be helpful for many other network and troubleshooting … Read More

Want to record an iPhone call? Did you know there is a very easy way to record iPhone phone calls using nothing but your iPhone and a voicemail trick? I know you’re thinking what does recording an iPhone call have to do with voicemail, but it turns out that a simple trick allows you to … Read More

Mac systems administrators may find a need to convert an existing regular user account into an administrator account on a Mac. While most Mac users would be best served by converting account status to admin through the Users & Groups preference panel, advanced users can perform the same function through the Terminal by using the … Read More