Though many preferences and settings in Mac OS are easy to find, some aren’t always located in the most obvious locations within System Preferences, and it’s also just easy to forget which panel is going to adjust what you’re looking for on the Mac. Fortunately, the Mac System Preference control panel has a universal search engine built into the application, and so the next time you can’t find a specific system setting in Mac OS X, just turn to this search feature.

Read more »

If you want to play a web based video while you work or multitask on the Mac, you’ll typically resize a small browser window and stuff it into the corner of your screen, right? Rather than do that, you can use a neat little free app called Helium, which creates a floating overlay of videos and multimedia that you can hover over anything on the OS X desktop. The floating video is actually quite similar to the great Picture-In-Picture (PIP) feature that is available for iPad with iOS 9, except of course, the PIP video in this case runs atop whatever is on your Mac and OS X desktop.

Read more »

Apple is airing a large variety of Apple Watch commercials, all sharing a similar theme of some sort of activity taking place while someone is wearing an Apple Watch to complete various tasks or actions.

Read more »

Apple has released Security Update 2015-007 for Macs running OS X Yosemite and OS X Mavericks, Safari 9.0.1 for OS X Mavericks and Yosemite, alongside a Mac EFI Security Update for some specific Macs. The security updates are recommended for Mac users to install, particularly if they’re not yet updating to OS X El Capitan.

OS X El Capitan users will find the OS X 10.11.1 update contains the same security fixes, and thus does not require a separate security update.

Read more »

Apple has released the final version of OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 to Mac users. The update includes a variety of important bug fixes, including resolutions to issues found with the original El Capitan installer, compatibility with Microsoft Office 2016, resolutions to various Mail issues, and the inclusion of over 150 new Emoji character icons, like a burrito, a taco, a middle finger gesture, and a unicorn head.

Read more »

The final build of iOS 9.1 is now available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. The update arrives as build 13b143 and includes various bug fixes and improvements to the software, along with over a hundred new Emoji character icons.

Read more »

Apple has released WatchOS 2.0.1 for Apple Watch users, the update includes several bug fixes, but perhaps most notable are improvements to battery life performance. WatchOS 2.0.1 also includes support for new Emoji icons introduced in the accompanying iOS 9.1 update for iPhone and iPad, and OS X 10.11.1 for Mac.

Read more »

The latest iPhone cameras are able to record ultra high resolution video at 4K resolution, though the high definition movie capturing ability is not enabled by default. Thus, in order to capture 4K high definition video with the iPhone you’ll need to enable the super HD recording feature first, which is done through the devices camera settings.

Read more »

Internet Explorer 11 is a Windows web browser from Microsoft, but those running OS X on a Mac can also use Internet Explorer 11 through a great free service called ModernIE from Microsoft. Being able to run Internet Explorer 11 directly on the Mac without having to access a Windows machine or boot a VM is incredibly useful for web developers and web designers in particular, but some Mac users may find it necessary to use IE 11 in order to access a particular web service or website as well.

Whatever the reason, if you want to use Internet Explorer on a Mac, we’ll show you how to do it in the easiest possible way. Yes, it’s a complete version of IE11, it’s always the latest version, and it works great.

Read more »

Generally speaking, using a websites intended mobile version is recommended when the site is accessed from an iPhone or iPod touch, since mobile websites tend to be optimized for smaller screens. Nonetheless, sometimes a user visiting a mobile site may wish to access a desktop version of the same website from their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, without having to use Handoff to pass the page off to a Mac.

You can request the desktop version of a webpage easily in Safari with new versions of iOS, though if you’re familiar with the older approach then you’ll notice the feature is accessed differently than prior versions of Safari on iPhone and iPad.

Read more »

This week we’re featuring the Mac workstation of Keith K., a software developer whose desk features a 4k display mounted on an articulating arm, let’s get right to it and learn a bit more about this setup!

Read more »

Some Mac users require installing Java in OS X El Capitan, perhaps for compatibility with a particular web site or application, or because they’re a java developer. But Apple has becoming increasingly strict with Java, and by default it is no longer installed with a OS X 10.11 clean install, and you’ll find that after updating a Mac a prior version of JRE or JDK may no longer function.

Additionally, when trying to use some particular applications or web content, you may come across a “This application requires the legacy Java SE 6 runtime which is unavailable for this version of OS X.” error message, which means if you want to run that app you’re going to need to use an older version of Java.

Whatever the case, if you need Java JRE or Java JDK in OS X 10.11 or later, here’s how you can install it.
Read more »

Though Apple has largely resolved the wi-fi issues that persisted in some Macs with prior OS X releases, some users with OS X El Capitan may encounter wireless networking issues after updating to the latest OS X release. Typically the wi-fi problems are in the form of dropping connections or strangely slow speeds, and the good news is they’re usually an easy fix.

For most Mac users who are experiencing issues with wi-fi connections in OS X El Capitan, simply ditching old preference files, followed by creating a new network location with custom DNS settings and an MTU change is enough to resolve whatever wi-fi problems they may have had. This is a multi-step process but not particularly difficult.

Read more »

Apple has introduced a new iPhone 6s commercial called “3D Touch”, appropriately named given the emphasis on the 3D Touch feature of the devices screen.

Read more »

Picture In Picture mode allows iPad users to open a floating video player or FaceTime chat that persists in a small overlay while doing other activities in iOS. For example, you could be working in Pages or drawing in Notes while watching your favorite sports team in a hovering player window with PiP, it works a bit like hovering a video or FaceTime call over some other application window on a desktop computer. This is a great multitasking feature for iPad users, and it’s easy to use.

Read more »

The Lucida Grande font is known for its crisp and obvious readability which makes it a great user interface font, and it rightfully served as the Mac OS X default system font for many years. Then along came Yosemite, where the Mac system font was changed to the generally unpopular Helvetica Neue. Apple has since improved font readability considerably by changing the default system font yet again in OS X El Capitan, this time to a new font called San Francisco. While the San Francisco font is considerably better as a display font than Helvetica Neue, it’s still not quite as readable for some Mac users and on some non-retina displays as Lucida Grande. Fortunately, with a little effort you can change the default system font on a Mac with OS X El Capitan to Lucida Grande again, and return to the classic user interface font.

This app changes the system font, used in menu bars, menus, the Finder, Dock, window title bars, and elsewhere. If you like the system font the way it is now, or don’t even care, you likely won’t benefit from this application.

Read more »

Apple has released the fourth beta version of OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan to Mac users participating in both the public beta and registered developer beta testing programs, arriving as build 15B38b.

Read more »

Mac users are likely familiar with the process of using display calibration to get the best color and picture quality for a specific monitor or screen used with a computer, and to get the most out of the calibrator tool you’ll want to run the utility in Expert Mode. While Expert Mode used to be immediately visible in the Display Calibrator Assistant, it’s now hidden by default in the newest versions of macOS and OS X. This has led some Mac users to think the Expert Mode advanced color calibration options are missing in Mac OS X now, but in fact it just requires an additional step to access.

Read more »