Tips & Tricks

If you have ever switched from an iPhone to an Android or Windows phone, either temporarily, out of necessity, or for testing purposes, you may have noticed that a new phone will sometimes not receive inbound messages that have been sent from other iPhone users. Well, you probably didn’t notice it because you didn’t get … Read More

Mac users who have multiple user accounts on a single machine may sometimes wish to hide a specific user account from appearing on the login screens of OS X. This is fairly common for systems administrators who want to hide an admin account that can be used for direct or remote troubleshooting, but it can … Read More

Mac users who are running the newest version of iTunes in OS X Yosemite can choose to enable an optional iTunes widget in Notification Center. Despite being the primary change to iTunes 12.1, the widget is not enabled or shown by default on any of the Macs I’ve updated, which is likely to be the … Read More

Adware is generally something most Mac users won’t have to worry about, but that doesn’t mean that OS X is entirely immune to the potential nuisance, and nobody likes it when their browser has been hijacked by that type of junk. If you’re at all concerned about adware impacting your Mac and web browsing, you … Read More

Users who require higher than usual security measures often set a firmware password on a Mac, which requires that a password be entered before the typical OS X boot sequence begins. While these low level passwords are quite secure, but that higher security also means a forgotten firmware password can be a significant problem. Nonetheless, … Read More

Many Mac users rely on the Messages app to converse back and forth with other Mac and iPhone owners, but unlike saving a picture or image from a message in the iOS side of things, Mac OS X Messages app does not offer a share sheet download option or menu for saving specific photos and … Read More

Mac users who have older hardware laying around which are unable to run modern versions of Mac OS X may be relieved to discover that Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) are available to download directly from Apple. These versions of Mac OS X are over half a decade … Read More

Mac Safari users in the latest versions of OS X have discovered that when the URL bar is clicked in Safari, a panel of bookmark icons and Favorites appears. This is a lot like how Safari iOS works, and these icons can be clicked to visit sites quickly, or moved, removed, and rearranged as desired. … Read More

Local networking usually works flawlessly on Macs, which is why some of the most aggravating issues that a select group of users may experience with Mac OS with OS X Yosemite (and sometimes with later releases) pertain to network connections. Some of these may relate to broader connection and wi-fi functionality problems, and others which … Read More

Losing an iPhone is a terrible feeling, so if you ever happen to be in the position of finding a random iPhone somewhere, maybe in a coffee shop or on the street, you should always do the right thing and try to return it to the proper owner. Of course that’s sometimes easier said than … Read More

When you click into the URL bar of Safari in MacOS and Mac OS X, a panel menu of website bookmark icons appears directly under the address bar. This can offer a quick way to access web bookmarks in Safari from a Mac, but it’s fairly likely you’ll discover a few bookmarks in the icon … Read More

Have you ever needed to mark an email as unread after opening it on your iOS device? Of course you have, whether to serve as a reminder to yourself later, or to undo an accidental mark as read. Typically on the iPhone and iPad iOS Mail apps, most people use the Flag menu method to … Read More

The Google Chrome web browser has updated with a multiple-user profile menu visible in the window titlebar, a feature that makes juggling multiple Google and Gmail accounts extremely easy. It’s also helpful for computers with multiple people using them without multiple accounts too, since anyone can switch logins through the menu. Of course, the user … Read More

Now that Siri can identify songs that are playing, similar to the Shazam app service, you’ll probably appreciate knowing that you can easily go back and see a list of songs that Siri has found and detected. This is great since it basically keeps a running tab of what music you asked your iPhone to … Read More

The Xbox One is a great gaming console with an excellent controller, and if you have a Mac with a few games you’d like to use a controller for, you can use a third party tool to gain Xbox One controller support for gaming in OS X.

By default, all calls on the iPhone will play audio through the standard earpiece at the top of the phone, and if someone wishes to use speakerphone they enable it manually by tapping on the “Speaker” button during an active call. While that may be the desired effect for most users, in various situations some … Read More

Two unusual error messages that can occur during the attempted installation of Mac OS X El Capitan or Mac OS X Yosemite are the “This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading” error, or a “This copy of the Install … Read More

Some Mac users have discovered the Safari web browser has become significantly less stable after updating to some versions of Mac OS X system software including OS X El Capitan, OS X Yosemite, and MacOS Sierra. This can range from periodic crashes of Safari that never happened before, to Safari freezing up entirely, to Safari … Read More