This weeks featured Mac setup comes to us from YJ, a student and photographer who has a great workstation, along with some excellent advice for backing up your stuff. Let’s jump to it and learn more…
Few Mac users seem to know it, but the Finder window toolbars of Mac OS X can be customized to serve as a quick-launch panel. You can store almost anything in the Finder toolbar, whether it’s an app, a directory, automator action, network share, a website bookmark, or even a frequently accessed document. Adding items to the Finder toolbar is easy, and you don’t need to go through the traditional View menu > Customize Toolbar method. Instead, you can quickly add items using this great drag and drop trick.
Have you ever wanted to share an iPhone picture with someone, but you’re concerned about them flipping through your camera roll and finding other photos you’d rather not share? If you want to limit that you have a few options available, but because the iPhone doesn’t have a specific ability to lock onto a single picture, you’ll have to rely on a trick or two to limit the photo access instead.
The user path is the series of directories that command line programs are searched in order to run. For example, if you type ‘iostat’ into the terminal, then iostat will be run from /usr/sbin because “/usr/sbin” is part of your $PATH. Accordingly, users who frequently use the command line may need to adjust or add new paths to their terminal so that commands can execute properly.
There’s no shortage of next generation iPhone rumors out there, but as the iPhone 6 debut nears it’s becoming a bit easier to whittle down what’s likely and what’s not. With that in mind, here are six of the most likely rumors for we can all expect from the next iPhone.
Apple has released a small update to Safari for Mac OS X, versioned as Safari 6.1.6 and Safari 7.0.6. Both updates contain important security fixes and improved memory handling, and Apple recommends that all Mac users install the updates.
Typically you can download anything from the Mac App Store without incident, that’s the way things are supposed to work. Sometimes things aren’t so hunky-dory, and one of the more peculiar errors from the App Store is the incredibly vague “We could not complete your purchase – Unknown Error” message.
Using Google’s “multiple sign-in” feature is a great way to juggle between multiple Google accounts and Gmail addresses. But a common issue with using multiple Google accounts is being able to determine which is the default account, and it’s easy to get things mixed up with multiple logins. That’s what we’re looking to resolve here, by setting the proper account as the default Google account, regardless of how many other accounts are in use.
Whether you’re waiting for your favorite show to come on TV, some wet paint to dry, or that chicken parmesan to finish cooking in the oven, we all need to use a countdown for helping us wait for something throughout regular life. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPad has such a feature built right in, and thanks to our favorite digital assistant, Siri makes setting a timer in iOS about as simple as it can possibly be.
Every app in the iWork suite offers optional password protection of files created, modified, or opened within their respective application. In practice, this means that no user will be able to open or access the file and view the contents on their Mac or iOS device without entering the password first. Password protecting iWork documents offers a great way to add some additional security or privacy to important files, and using the feature is made simple in any of the iWork apps in OS X, whether Pages, Keynote, or Numbers.
Apple will release revisions to the iPad Air and iPad Mini in the coming months, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Apple has started to air two new iPad commercials on TV, following in the same “Verse” theme that was introduced some time ago with the iPad Air. Both videos emphasize how the iPad and great apps supplement the activities and work of individuals, and are embedded below for easy viewing.
Did you know you can start printing any file directly from the desktop of a Mac? While most users open a file and then print it from the application of which the file was built in, that’s not actually necessary, instead printing can be initiated from anywhere in the Finder of OS X. This often overlooked feature is incredibly convenient and it really speeds up the process of printing a document or picture, as it prevents having to open any apps. Instead, you just locate the document in the file system and start printing directly from there.
When you set up a new Mail account in Mac OS X, you typically enter the service provider, email address, and the email accounts password once, then everything just works, right? Well, generally, but sometimes things aren’t so simple, and a frustrating issue that some users encounter is Mail app repeatedly asking for their password, over and over again. This can show up either as a pop-up window requesting the password be entered again with the message “Enter Password for Account (Name)”, or in the Connection Doctor feature of the Mac Mail app where it says the account verification or login failed, and to try again.
Apple rumors are in high gear right now, with the iPhone 6 launch date just under a month away, the next generation iPad coming sometime in October, and the iWatch apparently arriving that same month too. Rather than taking things too seriously, let’s take a lighter look at the Apple obsession with these three videos poking fun at Apple rumors and fans alike.
These hilarious skits include Jimmy Kimmel ripping the iWatch and Apple brand loyalty, Conan O’Brien poking at the iPad and DIY projects, and a YouTube guy with a total junker iPhone 6 clone who convinces people it’s the real deal. Who doesn’t like some Apple fun and a good laugh? Enjoy!
This week we’re featuring the Mac workstation of James B., an Integrations Developer who has a great home office with an excellent view behind his desk. Let’s jump in and learn a bit more about this Mac setup and how it’s used:
When you point your iPhone or iPad at a web address (like osxdaily.com), iOS will perform a DNS lookup to send you to the proper location. DNS servers handle part of that lookup service, translating numerical IP addresses into the readable domain names we’re all more familiar with and associate with web sites and other internet addresses. Most internet service providers provide their own DNS servers, but let’s be honest, they’re not always the fastest, thus you can sometimes speed up your internet service or even resolve some networking issues by changing DNS settings to another set of servers. Changing the DNS settings in iOS are what we’re going to cover here, and the process is the same on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Adjusting the Preferences and Settings of Mac apps is common and often a necessity to get things just right for you, particularly if you’re using an app for the first time, or setting up a new Mac. Rather than fish around in the menu items to find the Preferences or Settings menu option, you can almost always rely on a specific keyboard shortcut to instantly launch into the Preferences for a given Mac OS X app.
