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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Apple is known for choosing phenomenal imagery as wallpapers, and keeping with that long-running theme, they’ve added a beautiful new wallpaper to OS X El Capitan Developer Beta 6. If you like pictures of starry nights and amazing scenery, you’ll really enjoy this one.

Of course, not everyone is eligible to run the Developer Beta builds of OS X 10.11, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until the fall and the final version of OS X El Capitan to enjoy this gorgeous image as your desktop background.

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Apple has released the sixth beta build of OS X El Capitan for eligible Mac developers to test. The new build arrives versioned as 15A244d and marches the operating system further towards the wider public release, scheduled loosely for the fall.

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Mac users who are searching for specific file type and file format matches on their computer can make the job dramatically easier by issuing proper search operators to the Find functions in Mac OS X. File type search operators can be used directly in Spotlight and also in the Finder based search function, and they can be either very specific to a particular file format (for example, a JPEG), or more general to a file type (for example, a movie).

Let’s walk through some examples of how to use these to look for and match a variety of file types and file formats in Mac OS.

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If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have 36 empty Retina iMac boxes hanging around waiting to be put to use, why not grab some packaging tape and MacGyver yourself a giant human sized hamster wheel?

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This weeks featured Mac setup comes to us from University student Kevin H., who uses his MacBook Pro. Let’s get to it and learn a bit more about the hardware and software, and how it’s put to use.

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The TaiG jailbreak group has released a Mac version of their popular jailbreaking utility, allowing OS X users to jailbreak any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 8.4.

Jailbreaking allows users to run unofficial software and tweaks on iOS devices, but is generally only recommended for advanced users who understand the potential issues that may arise with jailbroken iOS devices. Additionally, Apple may void the warranty on such hardware.

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You almost certainly know that Siri can make phone calls from the iPhone with voice commands, but with new versions of iOS you have another great option; you can make calls that are automatically set to be on speaker mode.

This Siri speakerphone call trick is particularly useful with “Hey Siri” voice activation, since you can make calls entirely hands free from iPhone, from the desk, in the car, or even from across the room if need be.

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