Apple has changed the Emoji characters in iOS and OS X to include many new diverse emoji variations. In the process of diversifying our Emoji keyboards, Apple also turned most of the default people emoji icons into curious looking yellow characters, which look a bit like LEGO characters meet The Simpsons. But once you understand how to access the diverse Emoji skin tone variations, you can change the yellow people emoji to default to your choice of the diverse emoji variations.

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Some Mac users may occasionally run into issues with Finder, discovering that Finder will misbehave wildly, sometimes becoming very slow and unresponsive, crashing, or using inordinately high CPU. Given that Finder is a critical component of the Mac and nearly all Mac OS users rely on it for file system navigation, Finder trouble can be pretty frustrating, but fortunately the issues seen with Finder in MacOS and Mac OS X are generally very easy to resolve. This guide will aim to help troubleshoot common Finder problems on the Mac.

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Mac users who are running OS X Mavericks and OS X Mountain Lion will find an important security update available to them. Labeled as Security Update 2015-004 1.0, the software update includes many fixes to a wide variety of potential security issues for OS X, and is therefore recommended for all Mac users running OS X 10.9.5 or OS X 10.8.5 to install.

Users who are running OS X Yosemite will find the same security fixes bundled within the OS X 10.10.3 software update, thus there is no separate security update patch available for Yosemite.

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Apple has released an update for iTunes, versioned as iTunes 12.1.2. The small update is available now for Mac OS X and Windows, includes various improvements to the media management application that is basically essential for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. This update is particularly important for Mac, as it enables syncing photos between iTunes and the new Photos app in OS X.

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Apple has released iOS 8.3 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The software update includes 300 new Emoji icons, a variety of small new features, some minor user interface changes to keyboards, a variety of new languages for Siri, and a handful of performance fixes and optimizations, including resolutions to various wi-fi issues and Bluetooth connectivity. Full release notes for iOS 8.3 are listed below.

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Apple has released the final version of OS X 10.10.3 to all Mac users running Yosemite. The public version of OS X 10.10.3 includes the Photos app to replace iPhoto, and contains a handful of bug and performance fixes as well, including improvements to Wi-Fi stability and performance, over 300 newly designed Emoji icons, Spotlight Look Up suggestions, a resolution to some Bluetooth connectivity issues, and improvements to Safari and Screen Sharing. Full release notes are included below.

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Can’t remember where a file you recently opened was stored on the Mac, or where an MacOS X app you recently used was kept or originated from? Maybe you don’t know where something you recently used went to? No big deal, a simple keystroke modifier trick allows you to jump directly to the containing location of any app or file found in the “Recent Items” list of Mac OS X.

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If you use VirtualBox to run guest operating systems within a virtual machine on the Mac, like Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux, you may find yourself needing to resize the virtual disk size where the OS resides. This is often the case when you inadequately estimate how much space is required for properly installing in a virtual machine with dynamically allocated storage.

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The Mac received a great many changes with OS X Yosemite along with a notable visual redesign, but some of those changes and various transparent effects may be taking a toll on some users Mac performance with errant WindowServer behavior. This is typically demonstrated with the WindowServer process spiking into heavy CPU use for seemingly no reason, often with an accompanying inordinate usage of memory, leading to very sluggish and choppy behavior during general usage of Mac OS X and MacOS on some computers.

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Stacks offer a method of displaying folders or collections of multiple items in the Dock of the Mac. When clicked, the “Stack” will pop open and show the contents sprawling out of the Dock.

Dock Stacks always display on the right-side of the Mac OS X Dock and they default to contain things like the Applications folder, Downloads folder, but many users add a Documents folder or even a Recent Items Dock menu stack.

The default for most stack items is set to Automatic, which means it will change as the folder (or stack) item changes to accommodate the contents. But you can also just choose to set the style of the Dock Stack yourself with a simple right-click on the stack item you wish to change in MacOS or Mac OS X.

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Newer iPhones have the ability to track fitness activity and motion and displaying that data in Health app and other applications. Fitness tracking is done by using a low-power motion coprocessor that determines steps, altitude gain and lost, and distance traveled, and many users like this feature as it represents an easy way to keep an eye on their activity levels, and perhaps work towards that goal of an active 10,000+ steps per day.

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There’s something about good wallpaper that makes using a Mac, iPhone, iPad, ok, even a Windows PC or Android device, just even better. We’re bringing you four gorgeous high resolution wallpapers that are basically hidden in plain sight from two sources, a recent Wired article about Apple Watch, and Apple.com product pages. All it took to uncover these amazing wallpaper shots was a little digging around with the web inspector tool, and we’re going to share the source links with you.

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Those interested in purchasing an Apple Watch early will be able to pre-order the device just after midnight at 12:01 AM PST (3:01 AM EST) on April 10, according to the Apple website. The pre-ordered devices will be shipped to an address or available for pickup at an Apple Store on April 24.

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Whether testing performance of an application, Mac OS X animations, or just out of general curiosity, you can measure the refresh rate in Frames Per Second of onscreen actions and animations on the Mac by using a free developer tool from Apple called Quartz Debug.

Part of the Graphics Tools package of Xcode, Quartz Debug can also be downloaded separately if you have a developer login, and a simple action will enable the live FPS monitor, providing frame rate data in real-time.

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Apple has released a seventh beta version of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, just a few days after releasing the sixth beta.

The rapid beta testing release schedule either suggests the final public version of OS X 10.10.3 is approaching quickly, or perhaps that an important fix is included in the seventh beta version, though the former is probably more likely.

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It’s April Fools, so why not have a little fun and play a prank or two on some iPhone (or iPad) users? We’ve got two super simple tricks that are completely harmless yet amusing enough to be worth while. Have fun out there.

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If you ever need to set custom DNS or change the DNS settings on iOS devices for using an alternate domain name server or a faster one, you’ll probably want the DNS changes to take effect immediately, which requires the flushing of DNS caches on the iPhone or iPad. There are actually several ways to perform a DNS flush on an iOS device, we’ll cover the two fastest methods below, the first is preferential because it has the least amount of impact overall to other activity on the device as it does not require a reboot.

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With Messages app on the Mac now able to send and receive SMS texts messages alongside iMessages from the iPhone, amongst other configured chat protocols, it’s easy to stay in touch, but it’s also easy get overwhelmed or annoyed by the sound of incoming messages while you’re trying to do other work on the computer. While you can mute Notification Center alert sounds, or toggle Do Not Disturb mode on for a universal relief from all alerts on the Mac, a more appropriate solution is to disable the sounds that Messages for Mac OS makes.

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