Want to quickly import images into Photos app on the Mac? It’s quite easy to bring new or old pictures into the Mac OS X Photos app, and while there are actually many different ways to accomplish the importation, we’ll cover a few particularly fast methods.

Whether you want to add pictures to Photos app from a folder on your Mac, somewhere else in the file system, or an external drive, we’ve got you covered.

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If you’ve updated your iPhone or iPad to the latest version of iOS (iOS 8.4.1 or iOS 9, with Apple Music), you’ll find that Siri now has the ability to play various sound effects. Whether it’s the sound of fireworks, running water, a camp fire, dogs barking, or, uh, some more lewd sound effects too, Siri will play them all.

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Apple has released iOS 8.4.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The update is primarily a bug fix release with improvements aimed at Apple Music, resolving various issues with iCloud Music Library and playlists. Additionally, some notable security updates are included in the iOS 8.4.1 release, making it a recommended update for users.

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Apple has released OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite to Mac users, the update aims to “improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac” and is therefore recommended for all users to install on their hardware running OS X Yosemite. Release notes accompanying the update are brief, but the update includes several important security fixes which make the 10.10.5 update particularly important to install.

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iTunes 12.2.2 update has been released, which includes multiple bug fixes aimed at improving the Apple Music streaming service, as well as the applications general stability and performance.

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The Photos app in iOS includes a variety of excellent built-in editing features which many iPhone and iPad users are not aware of. One particularly great Photos feature is the ability to easily adjust color and light levels of any picture on the device within the photo library.

The Color and Light adjustment tools allows fairly precise control over photographic elements like saturation, contrast, cast, exposure, highlights, shadows, brightness, black point, intensity, neutrals, tone, and grain. The end result can be a picture that looks professional and beautifully adjusted, but completed in just a few seconds and entirely on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, with the built in Photos app – without having to import or edit the image into another app.

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With the next iPhone assumed to launch soon, it’s a good time to review the rumors about the device so that you know what to expect when it debuts. From the rumored specs, to new features, to some of the possible wildcards, let’s take a look at what the new iPhone models are likely to bring.

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Typically if you’re looking to determine the file type and encoding of an item, you can simply look at the file in the Mac Finder, check the file name extension, Get Info about the file, or even open it to quickly find out what the file is. Of course, that’s limited to the user friendly file system of Mac OS X, and there are occasions where it may be necessary to detect how a file is encoded or what a file type is from the command line, often with less obvious clues (or no clues at all) than a visible file extension.

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The Mac Finder offers a variety of methods of merging two folders contents together into a single directory. One option allows users to join different directory contents together that contain files with the same names, using the ‘keep both’ function in Mac OS X Finder.

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While Macs usually work flawlessly, sometimes peculiar issues pop up. One such unusual case is when the USB ports on a Mac suddenly stop working, seemingly out of the blue. While there may be several reasons (or no reason) for USB ports ceasing to function with no cause, the good news is that it’s typically a very easy fix.

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Apple has started running a new commercial in the “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone” advertising campaign, called ‘Photos & Videos’. As you may have guessed from the name, the new commercial emphasizes the devices impressive photographic abilities and it’s ease and popularity as a digital camera.

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Apple will unveil the next iPhone at an event “likely” scheduled for September 9, according to a new report from Buzzfeed. Additionally, the report claims Apple may launch an iPad Pro with a 12.9″ display, and a new Apple TV product at the iPhone event.

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The latest beta releases of iOS 9 include a set of fifteen new fancy wallpapers, featuring stunning imagery of landscapes shot from the sky, a trio of planets, feathers and other natural textures, and what looks like holi paint splatters. But you don’t have to wait until the final release of iOS 9 to enjoy these yourself, you can download the entire collection of wallpapers sized for the iPhone now.

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A symbolic link created at the command line allows a linked object in the file system to point to an original object in a different location. In this way, symbolic links behave much like an alias does in the Mac OS X GUI, except that the linking and reference between files or folders is done at a lower level, and thus can be pointed directly to by various applications or user purposes. This can be useful in many situations for advanced Mac users, from providing easier access to a particular location, to offloading an application folder to another hard drive, and much more.

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Apple has released new beta versions of iOS 9, arriving as iOS 9 beta 5 for registered developers, and iOS 9 Public Beta 3 for users in the public beta program. Additionally, WatchOS 2 beta 5 is available for Apple Watch developers.

The revised iOS 9 beta build is versioned as 12A4325c for both the developer and public beta versions, and is available now for supported iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch hardware.

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Apple Watch is generally very stable and rarely needs to be rebooted or restarted, but sometimes it can become stuck, frozen, unresponsive, or a feature of Apple Watch may stop working as intended. Typically if those situations arise, you can get Apple Watch back to working order again by issuing a forced restart of the device.

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Apple has released the third beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 to users participating in the developer beta program. The new build arrives as 14F25a and presumably includes bug fixes and security enhancements.

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Apple has released the fourth public beta version of OS X 10.11 El Capitan to users participating in the Public Beta program.

The build arrives as 15A244d, matching the Developer Beta 6 which was released yesterday, and appears to include the same bug fixes and changes.

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