Tips & Tricks

The Mac includes a fantastic command line tool called textutil which allows for quick text file format conversions, translating almost any text or word document type into another. We’ve discussed textutil for a variety of uses, but typically it has been for one-off conversions of a specific file into a new file type. This time … Read More

How many times have you been reading an article on the web when you tapped on a link that sent you somewhere you weren’t expecting? Maybe it was to an article that wasn’t anticipated, or maybe it was to another website entirely. Sometimes we just want to know where we’ll be going before going there, … Read More

If you follow the general tech world through just about any medium, be it Twitter, Pinterest, or blogs, you may have seen a pretty bold battery charging claim gaining popularity lately, usually something along the lines of: “charge your iPhone twice as fast just by switching it into AirPlane Mode!” The theory behind that claim … Read More

Batteries on the MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air are made to offer many hours of work on a single charge. Unfortunately, sometimes apps get in the way of our wonderful Mac battery life, often without a user even noticing until suddenly their battery life has been drained dramatically. The good news is it doesn’t … Read More

It’s fairly common for computer users to delay updating to major operating system releases, and though Mac owners tend to be a bit better at upgrading than Windows users, many are still running old versions of OS X. For some users there are good reasons for this, maybe lingering on outdated OS X versions like … Read More

Some Mac users may encounter an apparently random disappearance of Bluetooth functionality, often after rebooting or updating Mac OS X. The first obvious indicator is that no Bluetooth hardware works, be it a keyboard, mouse, headset, or otherwise, and when attempting to visit the Bluetooth menu of Mac OS X a “Bluetooth: Not Available” error … Read More

Every modern iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch has access to a feature called Automatic Downloads, which can be used a bit differently than intended as a means to remotely install apps onto iOS devices from a computer. All you need is iTunes on OS X or Windows logged into the same Apple ID as what’s … Read More

Ever wanted to create an iPhone or Android ringtone from an existing audio file, but wanted to complete the process entirely from the command line? You’re in luck, because Mac OS X has a little audio conversion tool that can turn any existing audio track into an Android or iPhone compatible ringtone in seconds. We’ll … Read More

Scrubbing audio is probably the fastest way to skip through and navigate within a playing audio track, and iOS allows you to scrub active tracks directly from the Control Center. There’s not much to it and scrubbing is done through a fairly simple gesture, but because the tap touch target is quite small it can … Read More

iOS is usually smart enough to join the last functioning wireless network used within range, but if you’re in an area with many wi-fi networks available sometimes you’ll find an iPhone or iPad is persistently joining and re-joining a network that you don’t want it to, even if you consistently toggle over to join a … Read More

The powerful curl command line tool can be used to download files from just about any remote server. Longtime command line users know this can be useful for a wide variety of situations, but to keep things simple, many will find that downloading a file with curl can often be a quicker alternative to using … Read More

Mac users who prefer to have a more traditional Unix toolkit accessible to them through the Terminal may wish to install the optional Command Line Tools subsection of the Xcode IDE. From MacOS Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, OS X El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks onward, this is now easily possible directly and … Read More

iPhone and iPad users have the option to enable a “Do Not Track” setting on their iOS devices for Safari, a feature that is aimed at limiting targeting and tracking of web browsing behavior by various web services. When turned on, this causes Safari to make a DNT request to each page it visits for … Read More

If you’ve ever joined a public wi-fi network and noticed the Finder sidebar is suddenly filled with other unfamiliar computers and network shares, and then curiously clicked on one of them, you’ve probably discovered that most of these computers have a user ‘Public Folder’ accessible to you and everyone else. This folder is included with … Read More

The iOS Photos app includes native image editing features that allow you to add the same filters from the live camera to pictures you have already taken. Additionally, you can apply those photo filters to any image stored on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, so long as it’s accessible from the Photos app, whether … Read More

If you need to rename a group of files on a Mac by appending some text to each files name, a great free option is to use a simple Automator action and save it as an application. This is similar to the other Automator utilities we have built and covered here before, but this time … Read More

The optional iOS Restrictions settings provides a way to limit access to adult themed websites from Safari on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but for some purposes those default restrictions may not go far enough. For those looking to gain additional control over web access, users will find that individual websites can be added … Read More

The bundled Mail app for Mac has taken an odd turn by gaining a collection of odd bugs and incompatibilities with a variety of email providers. Apple has released several updates aiming to resolve the difficulties (particularly with Gmail), but many users continue to report issues with the once reliable Mail app on their Macs, … Read More