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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One of the most frustrating issues that has impacted some users of OS X Yosemite are persistent wireless networking difficulties. Apple has released multiple updates to OS X aimed at addressing the problem, but for some Mac users, they either offer no help, or even worse, may add new trouble for wi-fi connections. We have offered multiple solutions to troubleshooting wi-fi problems in OS X Yosemite which many users report are successful, but for those who are continuing to experience wireless difficulties in OS X 10.10.2, another possible solution is available; simply remove the Bluetooth PAN interface from the Mac.

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Jony Ive is well known for being the design guru at Apple, and in one of the more revealing looks at the man offered by The New Yorker (a great read for designers and Apple fans in general), you’ll find a description of a rather colorful, perhaps even offensive, poster on his office wall.

(Don’t read below if you don’t like the F word, and no we don’t mean “Fun“)
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Many users who send PDF documents with sensitive data back and forth will password protect the files from their Mac so that only authorized users can read and access the data contained within the document. This is fairly common with everything from contracts to accounting and financial records, and it’s equally common to sometimes require the removal of the password encryption from that same PDF document.

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The modern versions of Facebook app for iOS make various sound effects when interface elements are interacted with in the app, from liking something to leaving comments and refreshing the feed. The little popping and squishing sounds have annoyed some people apparently that use Facebook, but some of our readers have found that you can turn these Facebook app sound effects off on the iPhone and iPad with a somewhat buried settings toggle.

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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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