Tips & Tricks

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.

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New optimized Mac-Firefox builds available

Feb 26, 2007 - 4 Comments

The folks at the Beatnik Pad have released new builds of Firefox 2.0.0.2. The Firefox update includes many security fixes some of which were deemed “critical”. For those of you are unfamiliar with Beatnik Pad’s Firefox’s builds, they are optimized at compile time for the G4, G5 and the x86 Mac OS X architectures. Beatnik … Read More

How to Customize the Mac OS X Login Screen in Snow Leopard, Tiger, etc

Feb 22, 2007 - 91 Comments

After several hundred times of logging into your Mac you may be tired of looking at the same old login screen. Maybe you’d like to have a customized login screen for your school or employer’s workstations. Forget the $10 programs that automate the process, we’ll show you how to customize the login screen entirely on … Read More

Two Must Know Usability Tips for Mac Laptop Users

Feb 20, 2007 - 18 Comments
MacBook Air

If there are only two general usability tips that every Mac laptop owner must know about, these very well could be it. First, how to simulate a right click with your trackpad, and second, scrolling through documents much like is done with a scrollwheel. I have long assumed these were common knowledge, but I’ve heard … Read More

Send SMS Text Messages to Cell Phones from AIM on iChat

Feb 16, 2007 - 10 Comments

The title says it all, you can send and receive SMS text messages through AIM, Messages, or iChat by following these simple instructions. If you are so inclined, there is even a simple bash script allowing you to interface with iChat through the command line for such purposes. This is a great tip, and apparently … Read More

Changing your Mac’s Computer Name

Feb 15, 2007 - 79 Comments
Change the computer name of a Mac

Want to change the name of your Mac computer? You can change the identified computer name of a Mac easily from the Mac OS system settings. This not only changes the Macs computer name, but it also changes what the name of the Mac is as identified by other users on a network, and by … Read More

Spotlight won’t work? Fix a broken Spotlight menu with these troubleshooting tips

Feb 15, 2007 - 122 Comments

Spotlight is probably the greatest feature to hit the Mac OS in years, once you get used to using it, going to a PC without it feels hopelessly inadequate. I use Spotlight for everything from launching applications, retrieving pictures, searching for old emails, literally just about everything. If you aren’t using Spotlight, you’re missing out. … Read More

How to Download Flash Videos from the Web with curl

Feb 14, 2007 - 5 Comments

If you’ve ever wondered how to extract flash videos (or any others) from a website, here’s a good way to do it using Safari and the command line download tool ‘curl’. Here’s the description from Chris Martin: “So say you come across a video online that is so great you would really like to save … Read More

Access a Geek GUI in Mac OS X Open & Save Dialog Boxes

Feb 14, 2007 - 9 Comments
Finder

Do you like geeking around with paths and jumping about the file system with the Go To trick in Mac OS X, but you come from a background in unix? You’re in luck, because OSXDaily reader Shane submitted this great tip relating to an alternate method of accessing Go To Folder in dialog windows you … Read More

How to Resize Photos Directly in Mail App of Mac OS X

Feb 10, 2007 - 7 Comments
resize email in Mac Mail app

Want to email a picture to someone from a Mac, but the photo is too large? Did you know you can quickly resize photos and pictures directly in the Mail app for Mac OS X? That’s right, you can resize attached pictures right in the Mail application without having to leave to resize through another … Read More

Private Browsing is a Little Known Safari Feature in Mac OS X

Feb 9, 2007 - 3 Comments
Turn on Private Browsing in Safari on a Mac

Here’s a very useful feature that is widely overlooked by Mac Safari users, the ability to enable Private Browsing. What does that mean exactly? Basically it allows you to browse the web without a trace; nothing is added to the history, autofill, downloads window, and no information about what you are viewing or reading on … Read More

Basic Command Line Utilities, Tips, & Commands

Feb 7, 2007 - 9 Comments
Terminal in macOS

Many Mac users avoid the command line altogether, a reasonable amount probably don’t even know it exists. For the curious out there, here are some basic and essential commands and functionalities to know if you want to get started using the Mac OS X Terminal. We’ll cover simple file manipulation, maneuvering in the file system, … Read More

Put a Mac to Sleep Remotely via eMail or Text Message

Feb 6, 2007 - 4 Comments
Mail icon

How many times have you left your Mac on, and later while you’re out and about you wish you would have turned the thing off or put it to sleep? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put it to sleep remotely with a quick email or text message? You can, and it’s easier … Read More

How to Ignore Cache When Refreshing Web Pages in Safari, Firefox, Chrome

Feb 5, 2007 - 1 Comment
Chrome

There are many occasions where you may need to refresh a webpage and that web sites cache, ignoring any locally stored cache files on the Mac so that you can pull a fresh version of a website from the web browser. Being able to ignore existing cached pages when loading a website is very useful … Read More

Vertical Highlighting Using the Modified Selection Tool

Feb 2, 2007 - 2 Comments

Highlighting, cutting, and pasting is a part of virtually every computer users daily routine. We select the desired text by dragging horizontally across the screen, highlighting what we want to copy or edit. But say you want to highlight vertically, in a column of text, rather than choosing an entire line. Easily done thanks to … Read More

How to Launch GUI Applications from the Terminal

Feb 1, 2007 - 31 Comments
Terminal in macOS

We all know how to launch applications from the GUI with a double-click on the icon or clicking on the app in the Dock, and there are numerous ways to do so, and they’re all relatively speedy. If you spend a decent amount of time with the command line though, it’s nice to be able … Read More

Get System Info from the Mac OS X Login Screen

Jan 31, 2007 - 5 Comments

Whenever you log in to your Mac, you’re greeted by the familiar login screen with the Mac OS X logo, the computer name, and a list of users. You can actually get useful system information from this login screen by clicking on the computer name, which cycles through a series of statistics and info on … Read More

Play QuickTime Movies Full Screen Without QuickTime Pro on Older Mac OS X

Jan 30, 2007 - 22 Comments

If there’s one annoying thing about the QuickTime Player on earlier versions of Mac OS X it is the lack of fullscreen movie support by default. Fortunately modern versions solve that problem, but if a Mac is running a prior version of OS X and has an older version of QuickTime Player, what should you … Read More

4 Command Keystroke Tricks to Ease Navigation in Mac OS X

Jan 26, 2007 - 5 Comments

Navigating around Mac OS X is significantly easier than competitive operating systems, and that’s largely thanks to the Dock, Expose (Mission Control), Spotlight, and the improved Finder, which is the OS X file system. Of course there are also third party apps that people swear by, such as Quicksilver, but with so many great features … Read More

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