Tips & Tricks

By now you’re probably familiar with Quick Look, used in the Mac Finder and Open/Save Dialogs to view an instant preview of any file simply by selecting it and hitting the spacebar or a tap gesture in OS X. It works amazingly well to see what something is before you open it, but if you’ve … Read More

Ever wanted to see not only every file in a given directory, but all files within that directories buried subdirectories? If you’re looking for what is basically a recursive listing of files in a given folder, we’ll show a great trick for the Mac OS Finder that allows you to do just that, and also … Read More

You can now sync a Bluetooth keyboard with the Apple TV and use it to navigate and search on the device. This nice little bonus feature arrived along with the iOS 6.1 update, though it’s technically labeled for the Apple TV as 5.2 update, but regardless of the versioning and naming convention it’s an appreciated … Read More

You can now buy movie tickets with the help of Siri, and use nothing but your iPhone (or iPad if you want to bring it with you) when you get to the theater to stroll in and enjoy the show. This is thanks to a new Siri feature that arrived in iOS 6.1, and it’s … Read More

It’s extremely easy to make an image transparent with the help of Preview app, the built-in image editing app that comes along with all Macs with Mac OS X. Do note creating transparent PNG or GIF images this way works best on images with uniform colors in the area you want to become transparent. The … Read More

The latest versions of the iPhone can record high definition video, and as a result they’re getting a lot more widespread use as ways to capture memories in motion. But sometimes when you’re recording a movie, you also want to take a picture of what’s in focus too, and you can do exactly that on … Read More

Dialing international phone numbers can be done by prefixing a phone number with the current countries exit code (011 for USA), the country code of the number you are calling, and then the phone number you are dialing. This ends up being a fairly long string of numbers that is infinitely confusing to those who … Read More

A lot of things changed when the latest version of iTunes was released, much of which represented user interface and behavior changes that weren’t always popular. For many of us, the best solution of handling the new UI was to basically revert the changes to make iTunes look normal and familiar again, and we’re about … Read More

Many Mac users have noticed that the good old Invert Display keyboard shortcut disappeared from Mac OS some time ago. Well, it didn’t disappear completely, but Invert Display is now tucked into a submenu of Accessibility options via a keystroke on the Mac. The change to the Invert Display keyboard shortcut first happened with Mac … Read More

Dictation is a feature of iOS and Mac OS X that lets you speak as you normally would, transforming your speech magically into text. It’s impressively accurate, letting you easily crank out notes, emails, diary entries, or just about anything else with it just by talking. To really get the most out of Dictation though … Read More

If you want maximum security with your iOS device, having a strong password is essential. Though you can extend password strength by using a phrase with mixed characters, another excellent option is to use special accent characters, making a password virtually impossible to guess. The idea is fairly straight forward: take a word, sequence, or … Read More

Multitouch gestures are one of the best hidden features of iOS on the iPad, but a surprising amount of iPad users don’t seem to use them. Perhaps it’s because you just don’t know about them, or maybe you haven’t spent the time to learn what they are and why they’re useful. Take a few minutes … Read More

The “Open With” menu appears when any file in the Mac Finder is right-clicked (or control-clicked), and it is intended to provide a list of alternate apps that selected file can be opened with other than what is currently set as the default application. This Open With is great, but sometimes it can become freakishly … Read More

Assuming you have iCloud configured with OS X, you’ve always been able to access iCloud files from the Mac desktop by looking for a little-known directory in the user Library folder. Having access to that folder can make it behave like Dropbox, with file syncing between Macs being built right into the Finder, but the … Read More

If your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air feels slow to wake from sleep after it’s been sleeping for a while, there may be a fairly simple cause: standby mode. Standby mode allows a Mac to potentially have up to 30 days of ‘standby’ time, meaning it can sit in a prolonged sleep state for that … Read More

Sorting pictures into albums on your iOS devices is a good way to manage photos intended for different purposes, and some image editing apps like Snapseed and Instagram will create their own albums to help keep things arranged. It’s not uncommon for an albums purpose to evolve though, and what once may have held just … Read More

Being put on hold is never fun, and for some particularly busy companies that hold time can easily end up being 30-45 minutes of waiting and twiddling your thumbs to talk to whatever representative awaits you on the other end. If you’re lucky, they’ll put on some lame hold music or have some repetitive “we’ll … Read More

The iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch displays have precise brightness controls, and thanks to a light sensor, they’re smart enough to automatically adjust brightness depending on environmental lighting conditions. But it’s not always perfect especially if you use it at night, and if you’re in frequently changing lighting conditions that behavior can reduce battery life. … Read More