Most Mac users know what type of Mac they have, whether it’s a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, or whatever, and many know the model year of their computer too, but typically much less known is the model identifier number for a given Mac. Model identifiers are generally in the format of ModelNameModelNumber,Revision, for example, “MacBookAir6,2”. While knowing a model identifier is rarely necessary for general knowledge of your computer, it can be needed sometimes when troubleshooting specific problems, purchasing specific hardware upgrades, or just for properly referencing a specified model of a given Mac.

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We’re sharing the fun vintage inspired Mac setup of Ryan N., who has everything from Macs of days gone by to other assorted components of yesteryear like a rotary phone and a rusty old Route 66 sign. Let’s jump in to learn a bit more about this great workstation:

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Looking for a date this Valentines Day of the artificial intelligence variety? Maybe hoping for that “Her” experience? Well your iPhone may provide you some form of company, but don’t turn to Siri, for much more than a laugh at least. Unless you want to get rejected, of course. Yup, among the many amusing things you can inquire about, you can also ask Siri to be your Valentine, but she (or he, you can choose the Siri gender) is really not interested in us lowly humans.

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Apple is reportedly working on building an electric car, according to a wild new report from The Wall Street journal. And it may even be a self-driving vehicle, according to a separate report from Reuters.

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The latest versions of iOS support an optional display mode that turns everything shown on the screen of an iPhone or iPad to black and white. Called Grayscale mode, the setting is mostly intended as an accessibility option, but it has other uses beyond that as well.

This tutorial will show you how to turn your iPhone or iPad display into grayscale mode, stripping away all color from the screen. This effectively lets you run your iOS device in black and white. We’ll also show you how to turn off grayscale mode if you no longer want the iOS screen to be black and white, to return your iPhone or iPad display to full color.

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Rarely, when you plug an iPhone or iPad into a particular Lightning charger cable you’ll see a pop-up or lock screen message on the device that says something to the effect of “This cable is not certified and may not work reliably”. This usually prevents the lightning cable from charging the device as well. Though most users will never see this error, if you do see that message, there’s almost always a reason why.

We’ll cover the three most common reasons you’ll see the “not certified” message on an iOS device, and also what you can do about it.

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A simple trick that can help manage iPhone battery life is to set the battery percentage remaining to be visible. This battery percentage indicator is off by default in iOS, and while that adds an element of simplicity to the status bar, the lonely battery icon isn’t particularly informative – to me, anyway. We’re going to change this so the percentage of battery charge is always visible both on the lock screen and home screen of iOS, right alongside the battery icon. This will give you a much better idea of how much of a charge is remaining on the iPhone, and also how charged up the phone is before you head out the door.

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Have you ever needed to flatten a directory structure, moving all file contents from a directories child folders into a single folder? While you can do this manually by moving around files and folders from the file system of Mac OS X or Linux, a faster option is to turn to the command line. Maybe at one point you created a nested hierarchy of directories that you now need to undo by moving all files out of those nested folders and back into a single directory, or maybe you’re looking to simplify a directory structure, whatever the reason, this trick works quite well.

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Now that the Continuity feature allows the Mac to receive incoming calls from your associated iPhone, in addition to standard FaceTime video and audio chat, you may want to take a moment to customize the ringtone that sounds when a call is coming to a particular Mac. This is particularly helpful with multiple-Mac environments with different users, or even with multiple Macs and iOS devices using the same ID that may ring at the same time, since it will differentiate each machine.

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Apple has released the first beta of iOS 8.3 to those registered with the iOS Developer program, arriving as build 12F5027d. This is somewhat unusual given that iOS 8.2 is also currently still in beta release as version 8.2b5, but it may suggest a different focus for each point version of the operating system.

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iOS 9 will primarily aim for system performance and stability improvements, according to a new report from the well-sourced 9to5mac. Furthermore, iOS 9 will have a ‘”huge” focus’ on fixing bugs and bringing under the hood improvements to the mobile experience, while the new iOS version will have less of an emphasis on bringing new features to compatible iPhones and iPads.

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Apple has started to run a new iPad ad focused on creating noise with the device, called ‘Make Music with iPad’. The commercial follows an artist known as “Elliphant” and shows how a song is composed using various apps on the iPad to write lyrics and make a beat.

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Knowing what network an iPhone uses can be important for trying to repurpose an old device, buying a used iPhone, or simply to determine if a particular iPhone will work on a network of choice. While the iPhones top status bar will show the carrier name of an active cellular network, if the device isn’t activated or doesn’t have a SIM card, it won’t display anything other than “No Service” in the status bar. That doesn’t mean you can’t find out what network the device is locked to or last used though.

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This week we’re featuring the great Apple setup of Theatrical Producer Toby S., who humorously shares some of the challenges faced by expats while working and living abroad in a nation filled with counterfeit gadgets and fake everything. But the Macs are all real, so let’s dive right in an learn a bit more in this amusing overview:

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The Mac Notification Center gained widgets in OS X Yosemite, which are revealed when the Notification Center is opened and the “Today” view is chosen. This looks and functions a bit like Widgets in iOS, and these widgets range from World Clock, Calculator, Weather, Reminders, Calendar, Stocks, Social, and an to an iTunes widget, but they can include third party widgets that came bundled with other Mac apps too. To get the most out of Widgets in Notification Center, you’ll probably want to customize which widgets are shown or hidden to better suit your needs and preferences.

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The Instant iPhone Wi-Fi Hotspot feature in Mac OS X is incredibly useful if your Mac is on the go or you need an alternate internet connection, but even if you’re not aiming to use the cellular internet sharing capability of iPhone there are some other handy uses for the feature, like checking two of your iPhone vital stats without having to pull the device out of a pocket or purse.

As long as Instant Hotspot has been set up and the compatible Mac and compatible iPhone are nearby one another, you can remotely check on the battery life and cellular signal strength of that iPhone right from the Mac with a quick glance, even if the iPhone and Mac are in different rooms.

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If you’re not happy with the usage of Helvetica Neue as a system font in OS X Yosemite, why not go completely ridiculous and replace the Mac system font with Comic Sans? Yes Comic Sans, somewhere high on the list of worst fonts ever, can now be the universal system font on Mac OS X. Even if you don’t find it particularly amusing, at the very least it should give you a newfound appreciation for Helvetica Neue.

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Apple has released the first pre-release seed version of OS X 10.10.3 to developers. This particular beta version of Mac system software arrives as build 14D72i and seems to focus primarily on a new Photos app, which aims to replace iPhoto in OS X.

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