Tips & Tricks

One of the underused and certainly under appreciated features of Mac OS X are Smart Folders. If you aren’t familiar with Smart Folders, they essentially let you create a virtual folder that uses search operators from Spotlight to let that virtual folder contain any and all files that match the search requirements. Sound confusing? It’s … Read More

If you have an SSD on your Mac, listen up. You can replicate TRIM SSD functionality in Mac OS X by using this great tip from one of our readers, here’s Curt explaining: “I just got a MacBook Air and like many others I was surprised to learn Mac OS X doesn’t support TRIM. I … Read More

So you’ve come across a .7z file and you’re on a Mac, what is it and how do you use it? First off, a .7z file is an archive format that stands for 7-zip, you can think of it like any other archive file. By default, Mac OS X does not know how to handle … Read More

You can zoom in and out into any image within Quick Look, the instant image viewer built into the OS X Finder, simply by holding down the “Option” key and then using either a scroll wheel on a mouse, or a two finger up or down swipe gesture on a multi-touch track pad. Scrolling up … Read More

The Dock is one of those staple features of Mac OS X, containing all running apps and also serving as a quick launch bar for opening applications and managing multitasking. The Dock is popular and intuitive enough for it to be a core user interface element beyond the Mac, included as a major component in … Read More

If you have ever forgotten a wireless router password, whether it’s your own network or another, you certainly aren’t alone. Typically you just have to enter the password once, save it to your keychain, and you can forget about it, right? Well that’s only true until you actually do need the password again, whether it’s … Read More

Anytime you update your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, via a Mac or PC and using Finder or iTunes, you will get a new IPSW file that is downloaded to an iOS or iPadOS updates folder. Knowing where these IPSW firmware files are located can be helpful when troubleshooting, and when accessing an IPSW for … Read More

You don’t need to use iTunes to play music on your Mac, particularly if you just want to play an audio document. Mac OS X comes with an included command line audio player that you can use to play most audio files with. In this example we’re going to use an MP3 file as the … Read More

If you need to place an iPad into DFU mode, you can do so with the instructions detailed on this page. These instructions will work to put any iPad model with a Home button into DFU mode. DFU stands for Device Firmware Update, entering DFU Mode is how you adjust the firmware on your iPad … Read More

You can fine tune how Mac OS X handles archives with a secret preference pane. There’s quite a few features tucked away in the Archives preference pane, including the ability to delete the archive after it’s expanded, reveal the expanded items in the Finder, and of course the same features for compressing files too. These … Read More

AirPrint is definitely one of the more convenient features of iOS and thanks to a new tool you can turn any printer connected to your Mac or Windows PC into an AirPrint compatible printer. The utility is called AirPrint Hacktivator and it’s very easy to use. Read on to learn how you can make any … Read More

Did you know that multimedia file icons can serve double purpose as media playback? Yes indeed, you can actually play any mp3 or audio file directly in the Mac OS X Finder by using this little known icon playback trick.

This is a handy Finder tip for those who like to use the Column View of the OS X file manager: you can zoom into the Mac OS X Finder Column View Preview panes. Here’s how this works using either a key modifier or multitouch trackpad:

Your Mac includes a pretty good video player called QuickTime Player, but by default QuickTime won’t play some of the more unique codecs like DivX. You can enable full DivX support by downloading a free QuickTime Player plugin called Perian. Using QuickTime as a Free DiVX Player on the Mac Here’s how to get QuickTime … Read More

Along with the release of the newer iOS updates and new versions of redsn0w, came the return of the so called “tethered jailbreak” which has caused some confusion as to it’s definition. I’ll explain what a tethered jailbreak is versus an untethered jailbreak, and why one is better than the other. If you want the … Read More

Bored with how your iPhone and iPad folders are looking? Well you can really stylize things by using wingdings and emoji icons to customize iOS folder labels. This gives each folder a much more interesting appearance, complete with little icons alongside the name. The first thing you’ll want to do is be sure you have … Read More

IPSW stands rather simply for iOS Software, and IPSW files are basically just individual firmware downloads for specific iOS devices. These files can be used to update iOS devices manually with the help of iTunes or Finder. If you’ve recently downloaded an iOS IPSW file, you might be curious how to use it to update … Read More

This is a really cool trick that is not well known; many documents are a bit interactive in the Finder of Mac OS X, without ever having to open the file in another application, or even having to use Quick Look. In this case, a PDF file that is multiple pages long can be flipped … Read More