Tips & Tricks

The next time you’re browsing the web and come across a link that points to Twitter, you can immediately jump to the Twitter app if you want to. This is a new ability included in iOS 6 onward. To access the feature, pull down from the top of Safari when a Twitter link is opened, … Read More

The history command is a useful way to find specific commands that have been used in the past, and it can also be used to discover what your personal most used commands are with the following command string: history | awk ‘{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] ” ” i}}’ | sort -rn | head -15 The … Read More

Jailbreakers will be pleased to discover that iOS 6.0.1 can already be jailbroken by using existing versions of Redsn0w. Currently, only the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4th gen, and iPhone 3GS are supported, and you’ll have to point Redsn0w at the older 6.0 IPSW, but otherwise the process is pretty much the same as any … Read More

The simplest way to move everything from an old Mac to a new Mac is to use the built-in Migration Assistant tool. Migration Assistant can be used at any time, but ideally, it will be used on first boot of the new Mac, that way when it’s finished everything on the new machine will be … Read More

If you want to buy a used Mac to save a bit of money, the best place to do so is directly from Apple’s Online Refurbished Store. We’ve bought used Macs from just about everywhere under the sun before, from friends, coworkers, Craigslist, and eBay, but nothing beats the official Certified offerings from Apple. Why? … Read More

Siri works from the Locked Screen in iOS, letting you get things like the weather, make quick phone calls, and a variety of other incredibly useful tasks, but for the privacy and security buffs out there, this may be considered undesirable.

You no longer need to create music playlists in iTunes and then sync them to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, because the entire process can be done easily directly in iOS itself. The next time you leave home without creating a playlist, just make one quickly on the go by doing the following: Launch Music … Read More

The Help menu that’s always visible in Mac OS X and within Mac apps is far more powerful than just serving as a knowledge base for questions about the app in use; it can also function as a full-fledged action launcher for any menu items. This is useful for when you’re either still learning keyboard … Read More

Searching the file system for a specific document or file is easy and very fast. Though most users are best served using Spotlight from the menubar, there are times when either Spotlight isn’t working, you need more paramaters, you’re working in the Terminal, operating with a remote machine, or perhaps just would like to use … Read More

Though we have long been able to add automatically dialed extensions to contacts on the iPhone, the newest versions of iOS handle extensions much more intelligently, allowing you to create a “Dial Extension” button to any specific contact. That extension dialer can be activated manually, making the navigation of telephony menus infinitely easier.

Mac OS X has a myriad of multi-touch gestures that have been expanded upon in modern versions of Mac OS X, and one of the better gestures is the two-fingered swipe left or right to go either back or forward in a wide variety of apps. This gesture is borrowed from the iOS world and … Read More

You can easily upload a video directly to YouTube right from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. This feature has actually been around for a long time, but as YouTube gets more and more popular, it’ll certainly get more useful to have direct uploads like this. The process of uploading movies from iOS directly to … Read More

The volume level of Siri can be independently adjusted from the rest of the system volume of an iPhone or iPad, allowing you to directly control how loud Siri is without impacting other system audio. Though the feature is not immediately obvious, it is really easy to use:

For those of us who have a bunch of apps contained within iOS folders, it’s fairly easy to misplace apps that aren’t used often. To quickly find out what folder contains an app, just swipe to the right of the iOS home screen to bring up Spotlight search, then type the name of the app … Read More

The next time you need to quickly find a nearby hotspot with wireless internet access, grab your iPhone (or iPad) and just ask Siri. Try phrasing questions like the following: “Where are the closest Wi-Fi hotspots” – finds locations with wireless internet nearest to current location “Where are wi-fi hotspots in City Name, State” – … Read More

You can set unique names for how your Macs computer name appears locally, from file sharing and networking, and even Bonjour services, with the help of the scutil command. This allows you to have a custom hostname for Terminal and SSH, another friendlier name for what’s visible to others on local networks, and yet another … Read More

Do Not Disturb is one of the best features that came with modern versions of iOS, particularly for iPhone users. If you haven’t heard of it, basically it lets you put your iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) into Do Not Disturb mode, which effectively mutes the device for all incoming calls, messages, and alerts, … Read More

As some of you undoubtedly noticed, OS X Mountain Lion removed the Displays menu bar item, which let you quickly change screen resolutions from a pull down menu available system wide in OS X. If you miss that function, you’ll be pleased to discover a freely available app is on the Mac App Store to … Read More