Tips & Tricks

iCal has a hidden debug menu with 24 additional options and features that can be accessed with the help of a defaults write command. Quit out of iCal and then launch the Terminal Enter the following command: defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 1 Open iCal again to find the “Debug” menu Many of the options are … Read More

The Command+Tab application switcher gets a lot use by many Mac OS X power users, and by default it will include the Finder in the apps to be able to switch to and from. If you’d rather limit the App Switcher to only swap between open applications and not include the Finder though, you’ll have … Read More

If you’ve ever taken a screen shot in Mac OS X you’ll notice the cursor is nowhere to be found, even if you’re taking a screenshot of something like a menu in use. Instead, if you want to snap the mouse cursor or pointer as well in the screen shot, you’ll use a slightly different … Read More

Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, … Read More

Launchpad shows a fading transition anytime it is opened or closed, making for a nice effect over whatever is in the background. It’s pleasant looking, but if you don’t like it you can disable the fading with a few defaults write commands. You can also choose to disable only half of the transition, either for … Read More

With traditional clamshell mode for a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Macbook, an external display, mouse, and keyboard must be attached in order to maintain the running closed-lid clamshell state. Thanks to a third party kernel extension called NoSleep we can now remove those hardware limitations and run a Mac laptop with the lid closed … Read More

Clicking an email link in a web browser defaults to launching Mail.app, which is great if you use Mail but not so great if you use webmail services like Gmail. This is fairly easy to resolve, though you’ll have to configure it separately on a per-browser basis, with different methods for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and … Read More

An alternative to checking a SHA1 hash with shasum is to use openssl. Yes, the same openssl utility used to encrypt files can be used to verify the validity of files. The syntax is quite similar to the shasum command, but you do need to specify ‘sha1’ as the specific algorithm like so:

Restoring an iPhone or iPad to it’s default factory settings is easy whether you are restoring as a troubleshooting step or just preparing to transfer ownership of the hardware. You can reset the iPhone on the the device itself, but if the device is unresponsive, stuck on a boot loop, or otherwise needs to be … Read More

Spectacle is a free utility for Mac OS X that helps you quickly and easily organize and resize windows, without using the mouse. Apps like this make it much easier to view multiple documents alongside one another and can help to boost productivity, particularly after you remember the keystrokes to throw windows around the screen. … Read More

If you have tried to repair the boot volume before in Mac OS X before, you’ll undoubtedly have found the “Repair Disk” option is grey and unavailable within the Disk Utility tool. While this is still the case while booted in most versions of Mac OS X, you can repair the Mac OS X boot … Read More

Javascript is prominent throughout the web, allowing many of the various sites and features we all know and love when browsing the web to function as intended. With that said, sometimes users need to enable or disable Javascript. Need to re-enable or disable Javascript in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox? Fortunately, most modern web browsers make … Read More

By combining the Hide All windows shortcut with the minimize keyboard shortcut in Mac OS X, you can use a third ‘Minimize and Hide All’ shortcut that both hides and minimizes all windows open on a Mac. This hide and minimize all trick is accomplished by hitting the Command+Option+H+M keys together.

The iPhone is connected to a computer with it’s USB cable, you launch iTunes and… the iPhone isn’t shown in iTunes. What gives? Fixing this problem is probably a lot easier than you think, and after fielding a call about this I found the simplest explanation was the solution as to why someones iPhone wasn’t … Read More

We recently showed you how to delete Safari, Mail, and other default apps installed with Mac OS X, and procedurally iTunes is not much different. Unlike uninstalling applications from third parties, if you attempt to drag the iTunes app into the Trash can, you’ll see a dialog box warning that ‘“iTunes.app” can’t be modified or … Read More

It’s easy to be distracted by other open applications and windows while using a computer, and sometimes even the best of us need a bit of help to focus. Lion’s full screen mode can be helpful, but when that’s not enough or when you need access to other windows and apps, then Isolator is your … Read More

The OS X 10.7.3 update brought with it a variety of subtle changes, including a minor adjustment to how the Launchpad background image style is switched. In previous Mac OS X versions, Command+B would switch between the background effect styles, but this is now achieved with Control+Option+Command+B. Try it yourself by opening Launchpad and then … Read More

SHA hashing is frequently used with distribution control systems to determine revisions and to check data integrity by detecting file corruption or tampering. For common usage, a SHA checksum provides a string that can be used to verify a file been transferred as intended. If SHA checksums match, the files integrity has been maintained. This … Read More