Just about all Mac users know that you can add items to the Dock of Mac OS X by dragging and dropping things into it, but another option, which may even be faster for some users, is to use a keyboard shortcut. With a quick keystroke, you can instantly add any item from the file system of a Mac – be it a file, folder, or application – into the Dock of Mac OS X.

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Some Mac users have noted that MacBook Air and MacBook Pro battery life has taken a downturn with their Macs running OS X El Capitan and OS X Yosemite. While this doesn’t impact all users, and much of the perception of diminished battery is likely due to usage and various features, there are some easy settings changes that users can make to potentially increase how long their portable Macs battery lasts with the latest versions of OS X.

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The invitation for the upcoming Apple Spring Forward event features an aesthetically pleasing image as the background, which happens to make a great wallpaper for your Mac and iOS devices too.

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Apple will host a media event on March 9, 2015 at 10AM PST. The event is to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California, but Apple is planning on livestreaming the occasion as well.

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If you’ve ever come across a file that you can’t open on your Mac, or perhaps that doesn’t open as you may expect it to in a particular OS X app, maybe rendering poorly or like a bunch of gibberish after forcing it, this quick trick can help find a more appropriate application to open a given file type. This even works to help identify file types that you aren’t sure of, making it a multi-use tip that is great to know for all Mac users.

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Safari iCloud Tabs are a great feature that allow you to visit and access any actively opened web page in Safari on one device on another iPhone, iPad, or Mac. This is really handy if you found something interesting on your iPhone but you’d rather read it on your iPad or Mac, or vice versa, and in some ways it works kind of like Handoff for Safari, except there’s even less effort involved to use it. iCloud tabs in Safari sync automatically with any Mac, iPhone, or iPad using the same iCloud account, this tutorial will show you how to use this great feature to easily share your web browsing across devices.

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Customizing the login screen appearance on a Mac is a nice way to add some personal (or corporate) flair to the OS X login experience. How exactly to change the login screen wallpaper has differed continuously in the many versions of Mac OS throughout the years, but with OS X Yosemite, the process of setting a custom wallpaper is perhaps the easiest it has been in quite some time.

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A new beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 has been released by Apple. The second beta build arrives as 14D87h and continues to emphasize the new Photos app for Mac.

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Apple has released the second beta for iOS 8.3. The new build is 12F5037c and is available now for compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. Separately, a new Apple TV beta version is also available.

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Apple is running a new iPad commercial focused on film making, the ad is narrated by clips from director Martin Scorsese’s commencement speech at NYU from 2014.

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This weeks featured Mac setup is the really nice and clean minimalist desk setup of Joseph C.. Let’s jump to it and learn a bit more about this workstation and the apps that keep it going… don’t miss the great bonus fields wallpaper too!

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On some rare occasions when trying to copy files, Mac users may encounter “error code 36”, which completely halts the copy or move process in the Mac OS X Finder. The full error is usually read as “The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “FileName” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)”. The filename is sometimes .DS_Store, but it can happen with just about any file on a Mac too.

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Have you ever had the experience where an iPhone is suddenly not ringing on incoming calls, or making any sounds when a new message arrives? The mute button isn’t turned on, so what on earth is going on, right? This is surprisingly common experience for those who are more novice iPhone users, and after troubleshooting this a dozen or so times with relatives and friends (usually with young kids), it’s probably worth discussing here, if not for you personally than perhaps for the other people in your life.

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One of the more interesting features that arrived with the larger screen iPhone Plus models is the ability to view the devices Home Screen, where app icons are shown, in a rotated sideways horizontal format. This places the Dock onto the side, and kind of resembles a tiny iPad. To rotate the iPhone Home Screen, you simply need to turn the iPhone into a horizontal position, and as long as Orientation Lock is not on, it will rotate. Usually.

Sometimes the Home Screen on iPhone Plus does not rotate while other app screens do rotate, however, but the reason for this is quite simple; it’s the iPhones Display Zoom settings.

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Apple is offering to repair certain malfunctioning MacBook Pro models sold between February 2011 and December 2013. The impacted MacBook Pro models exhibit unusual graphics behavior, including distorted screen images, outright screen failures, and even sometimes unexpected system reboots.

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Apple is intending to begin production on their rumored electric car project “as early as 2020”, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

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Though most advanced Mac users will find it easiest to enable root with Directory Utility from the GUI of Mac OS X, another option is to turn to the command line. No, we’re not talking about using sudo or su, we’re talking about enabling the actual root user account, which can be appropriate for some complex situations.

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Users who sync their iPhones, iPads, and iPods to a Windows machine will find that a new update to iTunes is available to improve the experience. The update is versioned as iTunes 12.1.1. Mac users will continue to find that iTunes 12.1 remains the newest version available for OS X.

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