It’s well known that all Mac users should set up Time Machine to automate backups of their computer, and while most Mac users let OS X go about backing up to Time Machine at it’s own pace, which sometimes borderlines on glacial, some users may wish to speed the backup process up a bit. With the help of the command line you can do just that and dramatically speed up the Time Machine backup process, but there are some major caveats to this trick because it applies beyond Time Machine, making it appropriate for advanced Mac users only, and used on a limited basis.

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Mac users with Retina displays may have noticed that gaming performance is sometimes reduced on these machines. The reason is quite simple; if you’re running the game at native resolution, then the Mac has to drive the game at full resolution of the display at 2880 x 1440 or greater. A common solution to this is to go into a games individual Display settings and manually adjust them so the games resolution is lower, but another approach to this is available for Retina Macs like the iMac and MacBook Pro.

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Mac users may encounter DOCX files from time to time, often sent from a Windows user as an email attachment or otherwise, as the .docx file types are standard document files created in newer versions of Microsoft Office. But what if you don’t have Office on the Mac? That’s ok too, even if you don’t have Office installed in Mac OS X, you can still open, read, and edit docx files on modern versions of Mac OS X, most often without any added software.

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Most major cellular carrier networks support a feature known as Wi-Fi Calling, and now you can enable wi-fi calling on the iPhone as well.

For the unfamiliar, Wi-Fi calling essentially uses an available wireless network for phone calls to improve the connection quality, rather than relying entirely on the cellular network. The result is generally cleaner and crisper sounding call quality, similar to the difference audibly observed through other Voice Over IP services like Skype and FaceTime Audio.
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Apple has released a hoard of new Apple Watch commercials, with eight different ads running to demonstrate various features of the device. Additionally, Apple has released a couple of new Apple TV ads as well.

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All Mac users should have regular automatic backups setup with Time Machine, it’s easy to use and ensures that your personal data and entire Mac is recoverable in the event something goes wrong with the computer. Some people go even further and setup redundant Time Machine backups with multiple disks for added data protection. But sometimes you may decide a particular disk drive is no longer needed by Time Machine, and thus you’d like to remove that particular drive from the backup process without disabling all other Time Machine backups. This can be easily done, and all it does is stop backing up to the particular drive in question, it does not turn off Time Machine to other volumes, and it does not delete any of the backups on the removed drive.

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Many Mac users will download package files of combo updates or other software in order to install them on multiple computers, thereby avoiding updating with the Mac App Store. This is particularly common with Mac systems administrators, where it makes more sense to download a single package update or installer once and distribute it over a network or perhaps install manually through a USB drive. There is nothing wrong with this approach at all, and in fact it’s much more efficient for multi-Mac management, but one potential hiccup arrives when a package installer or update file has an expired certificate, which will prevent the package from installing entirely, a situation that becomes obvious when you get an “(application installer) was signed with a certificate that has expired” error message.

To avoid this situation, you can check package signatures yourself to see if they are valid, if they have expired, or even if they have no signature at all.

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The Apple Watch has the same “Hey Siri” voice based activation feature available to it that iOS does, but it works a bit different and doesn’t activate exactly the same. In fact, there are two ways to activate Hey Siri on the Apple Watch, neither of which is quite like the iPhone based summoning method.

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It’s easy to fall behind on email and let unread messages build up over time, but the iOS Mail app offers an excellent solution to this problem by allowing users to enable a hidden optional “Unread” only email message inbox on their device.

Just as it sounds, the Unread message mailbox will display only the unread email messages that are within the Mail app of an iPhone or iPad, letting users greatly improve their email workflow and productivity. This can be in invaluable solution for those of us who are routinely overburdened with tons of emails, as it puts the requiring action unread message right in front of you, ready to be marked as read, responded to, forwarded, trashed, or triaged in another manner.

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Mail app in iOS allows users to easily add any type of file attachment to an email, as long as the attachment in question is coming from an associated iCloud Drive. This means you can add files from Pages, Microsoft Office documents, PDF, PSD, text and rtf files, or just about anything else, directly to an email on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The selected file(s) will behave just like a regular email attachment sent from a desktop email client too. Let’s walk through the steps for how to add attachments to emails in iOS.

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Want to play Playstation 4 games on your computer? Now you can thanks to PS4 Remote Play, available for Mac OS X (and Windows PC). The Remote Play app basically allows you to control the Playstation remotely from a computer, streaming a PS4 game from the Playstation 4 itself to the Mac or PC over a wi-fi or ethernet connection, allowing you to play whatever game is in the PS4, except on the computer.

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Creating animated GIFs out of a movie file or or video usually requires a bit of effort, but now you can convert a movie into an animated GIF on a Mac with drag and drop simplicity, thanks to the aptly named Drop to GIF.

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Looping a video allows the movie to play repeatedly, and QuickTime makes video looping extremely simple for any video file on a Mac. This is a great movie playback feature for many purposes, but many users will find it particularly helpful for demonstration videos, tutorials, kiosks, or shorter video clips that are best enjoyed on repeat, like funny memes or cat videos.

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Night Shift in iOS causes the device display to readjust to a warmer color spectrum, thereby reducing the displays output of blue light. This makes the screen of an iPhone or iPad not only more pleasant to look at in the evening and dark hours, but it also is easier on the eyes and potentially offers some health benefits as well.

Using Night Shift is extremely easy and you can quickly toggle the feature on and off anytime in iOS and iPadOS, or you can set it on an automatic timer as well to turn itself on with sunset and sunrise.

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Some users may wish to see the complete email header attached to email messages in the Mail app for Mac OS X. These long headers can reveal many details about the sender of an email message, including the origin mail servers and IP addresses, original arrival time, email alias details, and much more, making them a potentially valuable resource for some situations, particularly for users wishing to authenticate the validity of an email or mail message. Additionally, email header information can be very helpful for troubleshooting complicated email server issues.

The Mail app in Mac OS X makes it easy to display the complete email headers for mail messages, we’ll show you how to show the full header, return to the default header, and a rapid access keystroke to toggle the display of full email headers off and on quickly as needed.
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Apple has released a series of beta builds for system software, including iOS 9.3.2 beta 1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, OS X 10.11.5 beta 1 for Mac, WatchOS 2.2.1 beta 1 for Apple Watch, and tvOS 9.2.1 beta 1 for Apple TV. The point release beta updates are primarily focused on bug fixes and feature enhancements.

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The latest versions of the Notes app for iOS allow users to password protect particular notes within the app, making it an excellent place to store personal information and private snippets that you’d like to keep away from prying eyes. In addition to password protection, Notes in iOS also allows users to lock and unlock notes with Touch ID as well, so if the iPhone or iPad supports that feature you’ll be able to use a quick unlock access method too.

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Mac users who rely on the Mail app in Mac OS X for handling email may eventually need to delete a specific email address from the application and their Mac. This is common when an email address has changed or is no longer in use, whether it’s a work email or personal account.

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