Tips & Tricks

Snow Leopard changed the way the Dock behaves when a Dock item has been clicked on and held down, since 10.6 it launches Expose for that specific application. You may recall how Leopard handled the click-and-hold though, which was to launch the contextual menu (the same one you get when you right-click in 10.6). Using … Read More

Converting a PNG file to JPG, or converting JPEG to PNG, is really easy in Mac OS X. You can use the built-in Preview utility to perform the file format change quickly, and Preview is a great choice since it’s bundled with all versions of MacOS and Mac OS X, meaning it does not matter … Read More

Want a block of text to float over your Mac desktop so that you can reference it easily? That’s a perfect usage for the Stickies app in OS X, and using a little known trick you can instantly create a new Stickies note from within Safari. The secret to this trick is quite simple: you’ll … Read More

If you know some specific attributes of a file, application, or item you are looking for on a Mac, you can use Spotlight Search Operators to dramatically narrow down your returned results in the Mac OS search feature. For example, if the file type of a document you are looking for is a PDF, you … Read More

You can easily open OS X Finder windows containing any search results from the Spotlight menu. After you have entered a search query into Spotlight, highlight the item you want by navigating to it in the search results, and as the desired item to be opened in the Finder is selected, hit Command+R to reveal … Read More

Did you know the Mac has a little file inspector tool that can be used in the Finder for quickly getting information about files, folders, and anything else selected in a Finder window? The File Inspector is basically a dynamic “Get Info” window on the Mac, as it adjusts depending on what you select in … Read More

When you go to change the file extension in Mac OS X you will get a dialog box notifying you that by changing a file type it may open in another application. Chances are if you are changing the file extension deliberately, you did this intentionally and the warning is not necessary, but it’s shown … Read More

Have you ever gotten emails from someone that you really don’t want to get? Be it just plain spam or annoying messages from people you’d rather not hear from, you can reduce this unwanted email by using the Bounce feature of Apple’s Mail app. Bounce tells the message sender that your email address isn’t valid, … Read More

You can restore the original location of a file that has been sent to the Trash very easily. This quite literally sends a file that is within the Trash back to where it was originally stored on the Mac OS X file system. Using the “Restore to Previous Location” feature is really easy, you’ll need … Read More

If you’ve ever accidentally deleted pictures from your digital cameras memory card, you’re not alone. That feeling of dread when you forever lose photographic evidence of memories and experiences in digital form can sometimes be resolved though – so don’t freak out quite yet! Using an excellent free tool called Exif UnTrasher, Mac OS X … Read More

You can easily sync your Mac Contact list or Address Book contacts with your Google Contacts. This is quite easy to set up, we’ll show you how to do so in all versions of OS X.

Have you ever noticed the Bluetooth menu bar icon on a Mac start flashing or blinking? The blinking Bluetooth icon on the Mac means one thing; the connected Bluetooth device has a low battery.

You can access and type foreign currency symbols in Mac OS X in much the same way that other special characters are typed out. That means you’ll use a keystroke combined with the “Option” key to type the respective character. A few common currency symbols are available on default keyboard layouts, including the $ dollar, … Read More

If you want to change the wallpaper that sits in the background of your Mac’s login screen in OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard, from the Finder hit Command+Shift+G to open the ‘Go to Folder’ screen. Type /System/Library/CoreServices/ and click ‘Go’:

Like many of us, I’m often busy and out of the home, leaving my Mac on a desk. I regularly use my home machine as a local fileserver though and other people in the household are dependent on it being up and running. Now here’s the situation I’m presented with: I leave town earlier than … Read More

You can easily batch resize groups of images within Mac OS X by using the included Preview app, that is, taking a group of pictures set at one or various resolutions, and collectively resize them all together in a group to a new resolution, outputting either as the same file or as a new file … Read More

Finder, the Mac OS X file system browser, is ultimately just a nice looking GUI application, and it can be interacted with fluidly from the command line. This means you can jump to directories and open literally any Mac Finder window directly from the terminal by using a simple command string based upon the ‘open’ … Read More

You can reset a lost Administrator (the original account you created) password in Mac OS X by utilizing a Mac OS X installation DVD, here’s how: