Compressing images can be a necessary task for many Mac users, whether they’re getting ready to post an image to the web, share a photo through email or messages, or they’re simply trying to compress and reduce the file size of an image for any other purpose.

There are several ways to compress images on the Mac, thereby reducing the image file size, and we’re going to show you two of the easiest ways to get this done in MacOS. And best of all, these two approaches can be stacked together, providing significant image compression that can dramatically reduce the size of an image file. Let’s check it out.

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WeatherWidget is a process you may encounter on a Mac when looking through Activity Monitor or a system stats app, a task that many advanced Mac users find themselves doing if they notice their Mac performance is slowing down. The reason, of course, is that Activity Monitor (or similar) will show you what processes are running on a Mac, and how much system resources those processes are using.

WeatherWidget is related to the desktop weather widget that some Mac users may choose to place on their desktop, and while it typically uses minimal system resources, it can go awry. Like many processes that can go sideways, you may discover a Mac is running abnormally slow, only to discover that WeatherWidget is consuming a lot of CPU cycles on a Mac.

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WordPress is fantastic blogging software and an excellent content management system that is prolific on the web (and used by us for this site!), and Jetpack is a great set of tools offered by Automattic to further improve the WordPress experience. But the latest versions of Jetpack default to placing a “Promote with Blaze” option onto every post page in WordPress, and you’ll see it prominently displayed in the Posts overview section of WordPress admin too.

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Apple has released macOS Ventura 13.6.5 and macOS Monterey 12.7.4 to Mac users who continue to run the Ventura and Monterey operating systems, and who are not interested or able to run the freshly released MacOS Sonoma 14.4 update.

Additionally, Safari 17.4 is available as an update alongside macOS Ventura 13.6.5 and macOS Monterey 12.7.4.

Both macOS Ventura 13.6.5 and macOS Monterey 12.7.4 focus on security fixes, and do not include any new features.

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Many advanced Mac users spend a lot of time working from the command line with the Terminal application. The command line offers ways to interact with various settings in MacOS through defaults commands and other tricks, so it’s a reasonable question to wonder if you can set or change the default web browser on a Mac by using the Terminal. Sure, Mac users can change the default web browser at any time by using System Settings on modern MacOS, or System Preferences on older macOS versions, but what if you wish to change the default web browser through the command line on the Mac?

There are two different ways to set the default web browser on a Mac from the command line, and we’ll cover both.

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MacOS Sonoma 14.4 update has been released by Apple for Mac users running the Sonoma operating system.

The macOS Sonoma 14.4 update includes cutting edge new Emoji icons like a mushroom, lime, phoenix, broken chain, and shaking heads, along with new versions of existing Emoji icons that face the opposite direction. Additionally, there’s support for podcasts transcripts, and a handful of bug fixes and security updates.

Additionally, Mac users running MacOS Ventura and Monterey will find small updates available as well, and Apple has released other system software updates including iOS 17.4, ipadOS 17.4, watchOS 10.4, tvOS 17.4, and visionOS 1.1.

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If you are working out with Apple Watch, or wearing gloves of any kind with Apple Watch that may cover your wrist or rub against the device, it’s a good idea to lock the screen of your Apple Watch to prevent accidental input and touches.

While the Apple Watch touch screen is pretty good at disregarding some accidental touch or unintentional tapping or swiping, you may find that in certain conditions the screen is being activated and doing things you don’t want it to do. This can happen commonly if you’re engaged in certain workouts or activities that put you and the Apple Watch in contact with water, sweat, gloves, or even some clothing.

To prevent accidental touch activity on Apple Watch, the simplest thing to do is lock the screen while you’re engaging in the activity that is triggering unintentional device input.

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Apple has released updates to older iPhone and iPad models as iOS 16.7.6, iPadOS 16.7.6, iOS 15.8.2, & iPadOS 15.8.2. These software updates are available specifically for devices that are not running iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4.

Specifically, iOS 16.7.6, iPadOS 16.7.6, are available for iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPad Pro 9.7″ (first gen), iPad Pro 12.9″ (first gen), iPad 5th gen, and iPad 6th gen.

iOS 15.8.2 and iPadOS 15.8.2 are available for iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone SE, iPod touch 7th gen, iPad mini 4th gen, and iPad Air 2.

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Apple has released iOS 17.4 update for iPhone, and ipadOS 17.4 update for iPad.

The iOS/iPadOS 17.4 updates feature new Emoji icons including a phoenix and mushroom, a podcasts transcription feature, a handful of bug fixes and security updates, along with some minor additions and changes. European users also gain some specific new capabilities that allow them to add apps from outside the App Store, but users outside the EU zone will not have those options.

Separately, macOS Sonoma 14.4, watchOS 14.4, tvOS 14.4, and visionOS 1.1 are not yet available, but are expected to launch in the near future.

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Apple has released an RC build for macOS Sonoma 14.4 for Mac users who are engaging in the beta testing program for macOS. The RC build for Sonoma 14.4 arrives alongside RC builds for watchOS 10.4, tvOS 17.4, and visionOS 1.1, roughly a week after the RC builds for iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 became available.

There is speculation that iOS 17.4 might debut as early as tomorrow, or at least sometime this week, and presumably Sonoma 14.4 and the other OS updates will arrive concurrently.

macOS Sonoma 14.4 is set to include new Emoji icons like a shaking head and mushroom, a Podcasts transcription feature, along with a few bug fixes and security updates.

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Budgeting is a critical part of life and financial management, allowing you to easily allocate your income and manage expenses. While anyone can overcomplicate the budget process, it doesn’t have to be that way, and thanks to Apple software that is freely available for iPhone, Mac, and iPad, you can easily setup a budget in no time at all.

Some people may enjoy setting up a budget, while others may creating a budget to be overwhelming or stressful, but it doesn’t matter which camp you fall into, because the Numbers app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, offers a free built-in budget spreadsheet that is super easy to use. That’s exactly what we’re going to show you how to configure here, let’s get to it and build your budget spreadsheet.

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Apple has released fresh updates to the MacBook Air lineup of computers, bringing the powerful M3 chip to the popular Mac laptop, along with some other nice new features.

According to Apple’s press release announcing the products, the new M3 MacBook Air is up to 60% faster than the M1 model, and up to a whopping 13x faster than Intel MacBook Air models, making this a fantastic upgrade for Mac users venturing into the world of Apple Silicon hardware. You’ll also see up to 2x faster wi-fi speeds, thanks to Wi-Fi 6E support.

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Arc is an interesting new take on the web browser, aiming to be more like a little mini operating system than just another browser app. It has some fascinating features and a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get the swing of things, you may find you really appreciate the reimagined browser experience.

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Sports fans will be pleased to know that Apple has released an Apple Sports app for iPhone, which offers real-time score information, live stats, and betting odds.

Apple Sports intends to be fast, direct, and features a simple user interface that is not overengineered. Given some of the other sports apps out there with very busy interfaces and sluggish performance, Apple Sports could be a welcome addition to many iPhone users home screens. And if you were wondering, the app is not available for iPad or Mac, yet anyway, Apple Sports is iPhone exclusive.

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The latest versions of Safari for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, support a handy feature that allows you to quickly identify who sent you a particular link or webpage that you have open in the browser.

This ‘sent from’ link feature is useful if you engage in a lot of exchanging of URLs between friends, coworkers, family, or colleagues, and you end up with a lot of tabs open.

By including a “from (sender)” badge at the top of Safari, users can immediately identify where a particular link came from.

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Apple has canceled their ambitious decade-long car project, codenamed Project Titan, according to a report from Bloomberg.

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Apple has issued Release Candidate builds for iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4, along with beta 5 of macOS Sonoma 14.4 and tvOS 17.4. Separately, a new beta of VisionOS 1.1 is available for Apple Vision Pro beta testers.

Beta updates and RC builds are available to any users who are actively participating in the Apple beta system software programs.

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iPad may display a warning message on the screen if it gets too hot, becoming unusable until the iPad cools down again. This happens if the iPad is overheating, and there are various reasons this can happen.

The specific message on screen is “Temperature – iPad needs to cool down before you can use it.” And this is accompanied by a red thermometer icon in the middle of an otherwise darkened screen. You may have seen this on iPhone too, but obviously we’re focused on the iPad overheating here.

We’re going to review some of the most common reasons an iPad may overheat, and what measures you can take to potentially resolve the problem.

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