Tips and tricks for all things Apple! Whether you want to learn tips for a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or much more, you will find many tricks, tips, tutorials, and excellent walkthroughs for Apple devices and software here.
Do you need to convert a text file to RTF, plain text TXT, HTML, DOC, or another familiar document format? The excellent textutil command line utility can make quick work of text file conversion and manipulation on the Mac, and there is no need to download any additional software or tools as it’s built right … Read More
Update: JailbreakMe 3 is out! It’s the easiest jailbreak ever and works to jailbreak iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.3. It is recommended to use JailbreakMe.com directly.
Pixel art of the 8-bit flashback NES variety is all the rage right now, be it in games like The Incident and Sword & Sworcery or just for avatars on the web. If you’re wondering how some of that beautiful pixel art is created and how you to do it yourself, here are some tips … Read More
If you just want a basic command line mp3 player, you could use afplay, but if that’s not enough for you, install ViTunes. The little VIM plugin gives you full access to iTunes directly from the command line text editor VIM, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just a boring old music player, it … Read More
Modern Mac OS releases from Mac OS X 10.7 & OS X 10.8 onward default to hiding the users Library directory, this is probably to keep people from accidentally deleting or damaging files that are necessary for OS X Lion & Mountain Lion to function properly. That is fine for novice users, but for some … Read More
DoublePane is a simple window manager for Mac OS X that is impressively useful. It works by resizing a selected window to fit precisely on one half of the screen – on the left or right – which then allows you to place another resized window directly next to it on the opposing half. This … Read More
If you have a MacBook Air, you also have that nice little USB restore key. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to use that as a normal USB drive if you wanted to? You can do it, but first you have to ‘unlock’ the USB restore key. Here’s where I think this is most … Read More
Using the same trick to create a new image file based on clipboard contents, you can extract high resolution icons from any Mac OS X application. Preview is smart enough to extract just the icon and not try to copy the app file itself (like Windows would). Select any app in Mac OS X Finder … Read More
If you want to remove the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion “Recovery HD” partition, you’ll need to do a little bit of work because it’s a hidden partition. Hidden means it’s not just a matter of using your dual boot to go into 10.6 and then deleting it with Disk Utility. Quick side note for … Read More
Do you need your computers IP address often? If so, IPMenulet is likely the quickest way to have the number handy all the time, it’s a free and simple menu item that displays your current external IP address in the Mac OS X menu bar, there’s no other frills or features.
If you have a lengthy amount of text to read or review that you don’t have time to actually read, another alternative is to convert that text into an audio track. This is kind of like making an audiobook out of any text block, and it can be as long or as short as you … Read More
Interested in learning how to use the all-new Final Cut Pro X? Don’t miss this free video learning tutorial set from IzzyVideo. There are no signups or strings attached (other than owning Final Cut Pro X of course), just set aside some time and start learning.
With Mac Preview you can quickly create a new image file from your clipboard contents. On it’s own that might not be too enthralling, but this feature extends beyond Preview, meaning any image that you have copied from anywhere using Command+C will work as the source image to create a new image file. This includes … Read More
Using Mac OS X Text to Speech tools, we can convert any .RTF or .TXT file into a spoken audio file which can then be transferred to your iPod or iPhone for later listening. Update: There is an easier way to do a text to audio file conversion using the OS X Services menu, the … Read More
Swiffy is a new experimental tool from Google that easily converts SWF Flash files to HTML5, making Flash-only content accessible to hardware like the iPhone and iPad in just a few seconds. This should be a really useful utility for designers and it’s well worth a bookmark if you work with HTML5 and Flash content … Read More
You can display and monitor virtually all essential system activity directly from your Mac OS X menu bar using a great utility called iStat Menu:
If you have a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro, you can check the battery cycle count. This lets you see how many charge and drain cycles have been used on the battery, and gives you an idea of overall battery health. This functionality exists in all versions of macOS and Mac OS X, and … Read More
You can plug any USB hard drive into a Time Capsule and expand the available disk space of the Time Capsule that way. This is then accessible as usual as a Network Attached Storage device for your Mac backups or whatever, and you can then even directly backup wirelessly to that external drive connected to … Read More
