Tips & Tricks

Cutting and pasting files within the Mac OS X Finder is an easy way to move files and folders around on the Mac, particularly for Windows converts, but by default the cut and paste function changes permissions and ownership during the file move process. For the most part that is desirable, but if you are … Read More

Safari Bookmarks default to saving their names as the title of a webpage or website. That means if a site has a long title, the bookmark name will be equally as long. For accessing bookmarks through the Bookmarks menu that isn’t too big of a deal, but when you’re using the Safari Favorites Bar, long … Read More

Having an external monitor hooked up to a Mac can boost productivity significantly, and most users who get a secondary screen just hook it up and start using it – it works, so why mess around, right? But to get the best picture and color representation out of your external display, you’ll want to take … Read More

Aside from using apps like Photoshop, one of the best ways to make a contact sheet on the Mac is to use Automator to generate the thumbnail sheet as needed. But because Automator requires the usage of an OS X scripting utility, it’s beyond the comfort level of many users, and it also takes time … Read More

Modern versions of iOS changed how Safari looks when a web page is loaded, particularly on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. To save screen space on these devices, all of the Safari navigation buttons disappear automatically once you start scrolling through a web page, hiding your standard back and forward features and other buttons. … Read More

The newest iPhone models support the recording of slow motion video with the native Camera app. This nifty feature was first introduced as a major part of the modern iPhone cameras and is able to shoot 1080p or 720p movies at 240 or 120 frames per second. But that doesn’t mean that slow-motion is limited … Read More

If your iPhone 5 battery suddenly shuts itself off, experiences shorter battery life than expected, or needs to be charged seemingly constantly, it may be a result of a battery issue that impacts some iPhone 5 devices, and Apple will now fix the issue for free.

The Twitter for Mac client has a peculiar feature (bug?) which causes the app image cache to grow endlessly and without limitation. That means the Twitter image cache folder can easily become several gigabytes in size unbeknownst to the end user, and those cache files are also stored in virtual memory, which can cause unnecessary … Read More

How often have you had a file open in one application on your Mac, only to need it opened in another OS X app instead? Fairly often, right? When confronted with that situation, most Mac users will do one of two things; go back to the Finder file system and re-open the file in the … Read More

Fiddling around with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad while driving or riding a bike is dangerous as it takes your eyes off an important task, which is why things like texting and driving are made illegal. Many of us use our iPhones and iPods in the car though for listening to podcasts and music … Read More

Saving a file or document as a PDF is easily done from almost anywhere in Mac OS by using the print to PDF feature, which is part of the Mac Printer service, but to trigger it you have to go to the Print menu and then specifically select to ‘print’ the file as a PDF … Read More

Though most email services nowadays support the “Sent” outbox, where you can easily find all emails that you’ve sent out from an iPhone (or elsewhere with that email account), not all mail providers do. This is particularly true for POP3 accounts where the email will be downloaded once from the server then deleted from the … Read More

Few Mac users seem to know it, but the Finder window toolbars of Mac OS X can be customized to serve as a quick-launch panel. You can store almost anything in the Finder toolbar, whether it’s an app, a directory, automator action, network share, a website bookmark, or even a frequently accessed document. Adding items … Read More

Have you ever wanted to share an iPhone picture with someone, but you’re concerned about them flipping through your camera roll and finding other photos you’d rather not share? If you want to limit that you have a few options available, but because the iPhone doesn’t have a specific ability to lock onto a single … Read More

The user path is the series of directories that command line programs are searched in order to run. For example, if you type ‘iostat’ into the terminal, then iostat will be run from /usr/sbin because “/usr/sbin” is part of your $PATH. Accordingly, users who frequently use the command line may need to adjust or add … Read More

Using Google’s “multiple sign-in” feature is a great way to juggle between multiple Google accounts and Gmail addresses. But a common issue with using multiple Google accounts is being able to determine which is the default account, and it’s easy to get things mixed up with multiple logins. That’s what we’re looking to resolve here, … Read More

Whether you’re waiting for your favorite show to come on TV, some wet paint to dry, or that chicken parmesan to finish cooking in the oven, we all need to use a countdown for helping us wait for something throughout regular life. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPad has such a feature built right in, and … Read More

Every app in the iWork suite offers optional password protection of files created, modified, or opened within their respective application. In practice, this means that no user will be able to open or access the file and view the contents on their Mac or iOS device without entering the password first. Password protecting iWork documents … Read More