Tips & Tricks

The login screen of OS X defaults to showing the account pictures and user names of all accounts on the given Mac. This is undoubtedly convenient for most users as it makes logging into accounts much faster, but for situations where a Mac requires higher security, users may wish to hide user account names from … Read More

The Pages app is the Mac word processor similar to Microsoft Word on the Windows side of things, and by default any Pages document is saved as a Pages format file with with a “.pages” file extension. Typically that’s invisible to Mac users, but if you send a Pages file to someone on a Windows … Read More

If you regularly make backups of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to the computer with iTunes, you may rarely run into an error when iTunes reports it’s unable to backup the iOS device. This is usually accompanied by a very vague error message like “iTunes could not back up the iPhone “(name)” because the … Read More

Mac users who spend a lot of time at the command line have yet another reason to use iTerm 2 as their default terminal client; clipboard history. Added in the most recent version of iTerm, a running history of OS X clipboard activity can be natively stored, recalled, and summoned directly in iTerm2, accessible through … Read More

Call Waiting is the feature that allows you to hear another incoming call when you’re already on active phone call, often referred to as a ‘beep’. On the iPhone, you can then look at your screen and the incoming callers number or contact details will be shown. Call Waiting is obviously very useful for many … Read More

If you share a computer, or when someone else just needs to use your web browser for a while, you probably know the dread of worrying about a million saved web logins, history, saved searches, and whatever other customizations and personal data you have in the browser. Common solutions are often to use a guest … Read More

The first time you set up a Mac or new user account, you’re asked to pick a profile picture for that account. Most of us set this image once and don’t think much about it, but that profile picture follows us around in OS X and is visible at each boot login menu, in the … Read More

I don’t know about anyone else, but I always have a very different volume level for my headphones than for my speakers, and if you’re anything like me than this tip is great news. You can actually set headphone-specific volume levels on your Mac, so you won’t have to be constantly toying with the volume … Read More

Have you ever had someone pass you their headphones to hear a song, and had your ears blasted by an outrageously loud volume level? Well, by default, anyone can crank the volume up on music played from an iOS device to 100%. That may sound like no big deal, but there are situations where listening … Read More

There are a variety of ways to share files between different user accounts on the Mac, but OS X offers one incredibly simple way in particular; the Shared folder. Most Mac users may not even see the folder let alone know it exists, but it’s easy to access, and makes sharing a file or many … Read More

Have you ever wanted to initiate the screen saver of your Mac by hitting a keystroke combination? You’re not alone, and that’s what we’re going to show you how to do here. While Mac OS X does not include this feature by default, we’ll demonstrate how to create an Automator system service that will accomplish … Read More

If you listen to iTunes Radio throughout the day on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, sooner or later one of those songs you heard is going to get stuck in your head. When that happens, or when you’re just simply curious about the music you’ve been listening to and want to hear a particular … Read More

Stickies is an app that creates floating notes that can sit on your Mac desktop, it’s been around on the Mac for ages and tends to sit quietly forgotten in the Applications folder of Mac OS X. Often the lack of Stickies usage is either due to not knowing the app exists, or just not … Read More

You may already know that you can add stock ticker symbols to the Notification Center on the iPhone, but if you don’t feel like tapping around, another option is to retrieve information on markets and equities through Siri. That also means you can get detailed stock market data on prices, highs and lows, dividends, and … Read More

If you’ve ever sent an email that you immediately realized wasn’t complete, contained errors, or, even worse, was to the wrong person, you know that feeling of dread. For Gmail users, an optional setting offers a layer of forgiveness to those situations, providing for the ability to recall a sent email if acted upon quickly. … Read More

Most iPhone users spend a lot of time typing in Messages, the text messaging app native to iOS that sends iMessages between yourself and others. While the basic functionality is pretty straightforward, what’s perhaps a little less obvious is how to enter onto a new line when typing an iMessage without actually sending the message, … Read More

Heading out to watch a fireworks show (it is the 4th of July you know) and plan to use your iPhone as your primary camera? Be sure to use these five tricks for taking the best possible fireworks pictures with your iPhone… it’s not quite a DSLR, but with some proper technique you can still … Read More

The device Usage statistics shown in iOS Settings > General > Usage offer a quick look at how much capacity is available, actively being used by apps, and their respective data and caches. Similarly, usage data is also available to track app cellular data usage. Sometimes these usage statistics will appear blank though, showing a … Read More