Tips & Tricks

Mac OS X 10.7 Developer Preview can be installed and ran alongside Mac OS X 10.6 on the same drive, all you need to do is partition your existing boot disk and I’m going to show you exactly how to do this in a step-by-step guide (alternatively, you can run it in VMware too). Why … Read More

Some older iPad models have a physical button to use as an orientation lock or mute switch. It might seem mundane, but one of the most appreciated features of iOS for iPad users is the ability to enable the iPad orientation lock switch instead of having it function as a mute switch in iOS on … Read More

Anytime you flip between Spaces in Mac OS X there’s a fancy animation, this is nice and all but it makes switching Spaces slower than it needs to be. You can disable the animation which speeds up Spaces transition a bit. Disable Spaces Animation Launch Terminal and type: defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES Then … Read More

Update 9/14/2011: Installing Mac OS X Lion within a virtual machine is made significantly easier with VMWare Fusion 4. All you need to do is: Go to the File menu and select “New” Locate the “Install Mac OS X Lion.app” (here’s how to redownload Lion from the App Store) in your /Applications/ folder and drag … Read More

You can click and drag any URL in Twitter for Mac to another application, this is particularly helpful if you want to open a URL in a different browser rather than the default web browser set system-wide in OS X.

Want to turn an iPhone 4 into a pay go phone? David chimed in on our past prepaid iPhone article to describe how he got his iPhone 4 setup with a pay-go plan by transferring sim cards with AT&T. This method works to get pay-go calling and data use! How to setup an iPhone 4 … Read More

If you have a Mac with an SSD or otherwise limited disk space (like the MacBook Air 11″ with a 64GB drive), you might consider moving your iPhone backup folder to another drive to save some of that precious SSD space. Before proceeding you might want to determine if this is necessary for you. Do … Read More

If you’re a heavy tab user, pay attention. With Chrome 9 or later, you can activate a really cool hidden feature called “Tab Overview” that works great with Mac multi-touch devices. The name Tab Overview doesn’t really describe much of anything, but the behavior of Tab Overview is basically like Mac OS X’s Expose but … Read More

You can instantly print any Finder items full path and name into the Terminal by dragging and dropping an item from a Finder window and into a Terminal window. Once the Finder item has been dropped into the terminal, the entire path to the item is automatically typed out instantaneously, maintaining both proper capitalization as … Read More

Need to reveal hidden files and folders while opening or saving a file on the Mac? You can show them immediately with nothing but a quick keystroke. To instantly show hidden files and directories in the Mac OS X “Open” and “Save” dialog boxes, all you need to do is hit Command+Shift+Period together and those … Read More

Using the command line in OS X, you can enable a hidden feature in Time Machine that allows you to backup your Mac to a non-native volume, including Networked Attached Storage devices, network volumes, or even a Windows PC. This is generally best for advanced Mac users, as it must be enabled through a defaults … Read More

Did you know that you can quickly quit out of an application from the Dock of Mac OS X? And did you know that you can also force quit out of an app in Mac OS X by using the Dock icon too? Perhaps not well known, but the Dock of Mac OS can function … Read More

If you use your Mac at night or in the dark, you need to do your eyes and brain a favor by downloading Flux. The idea behind Flux is simple; when the sun is down you shouldn’t be staring at the immensely bright computer screen, whose intensity is made to emit as much light as … Read More

Want to hide the Mac menu bar? You can do that and set a few more options to automatically hide and show the menu bar with a free utility called MenuEclipse, the end result is pretty similar to the way you can automatically hide and show the Dock. In the screenshot above, I have the … Read More

The Mac defaults to using Safari as the default web browser, but what if you prefer to use Google’s Chrome web browser instead? There’s a few ways to change the default browser, but perhaps the easiest if you’re looking to use Chrome is through the Chrome browser itself. With that in mind, here is how … Read More

The next time you get an email with a date mentioned in the body, you can use this neat trick to quickly add that date to your Calendar on iPhone or iPad. This is easy and it shortens the steps required to add events to a Calendar in iOS. The secret? It’s simple, you can … Read More

As most modern OS’s go, Mac OS X is generally pretty intelligent with how it prioritizes processes. That said, if you want to give any running task an extra kick in the pants, you can use a free tool called Process Renicer.

You can instantly change file permissions in Mac OS X without getting your hands dirty in the command line by using the Finder instead. All you need to do is access the “Get Info” panel for the file, folder, or application in question. These instructions demonstrate locating the file permissions manager, and how to adjust … Read More