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.

Read more »

Ever needed to reboot an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that doesn’t have a functioning power button or a Home button? It’s tricky if not impossible, right? Even with the Assistive Touch on-screen buttons and variety of workarounds for a failed power button, rebooting an iOS device without working hardware buttons is a challenge, but it turns out that a few indirect tricks can work to get restart any iOS device, even if none of the physical buttons are working.

We’ll cover two quick and easy methods to reboot any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch – without having to use the hardware buttons at all. These methods rely on toggling software settings that initiate a soft reboot to the device, which means even if your physical buttons are completely malfunctioning, you can still restart a device if it’s necessary to.

Read more »

From time to time, Apple will offer free out-of-warranty repair services for devices and hardware that are determined to be dysfunctional or defective. For example, many users experienced the failure of their iPhone 5 lock / power button, and Apple later determined that some of the devices manufactured were susceptive to power button failure, thus beginning the iPhone 5 Sleep / Wake Button replacement program. I sent my own iPhone 5 in for service to take advantage of that free repair, and I’m very glad I did.

Read more »

The Microsoft Word document format is widely used in many corporate and educational environments, particularly where the Windows platform is dominant. For Mac users who work with the Pages app for word processing, a simple option to improve cross-platform document readability and compatibility is to save (or export) a Pages file as a Word .doc or .docx file. Fortunately, the Pages app makes saving as Word files very easy, and there are several compatibility choices available during the export process.

Read more »

Tab Navigation is a feature of OS X that allows Mac users to navigate around active windows and dialog boxes with the Tab key, rather than the cursor. It functions very similarly to how using the tab key in most web browsers and Windows will skip between onscreen elements, and it’s a handy feature for advanced users and newcomers to the Mac alike.

Read more »

Apple will launch the iPhone 6 at an event scheduled for Tuesday, September 9, according to the consistently reliable and well sourced Re/Code (formerly WSJ’s All Things Digital), Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.

Read more »

Though many Mac users don’t use iCloud for their primary document storage, those users who do know that the iCloud document browser found within an Open or Save dialog box window can become cluttered with files rather quickly. A simple solution is to make folders for the iCloud documents, which is easy to do but not the most obvious thing in the world.

Unlike creating a standard folder in OS X with a keyboard shortcut or Finder action, doing so in iCloud is a bit different, behaving more like making a folder in Launchpad or even iOS.
Read more »

OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 5 has been released to developers who are in the Mac Developer Program. The latest build is “recommended for all users” and focuses on bug fixes and improvements to the developer build of OS X. The build number is 14A314h.

Read more »

Apple has released iOS 8 beta 5 for compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. The latest build focuses primarily on bug fixes and improvements to iOS 8, and marches the beta release ever closer to the final public version, which is expected sometime this fall.

Read more »

If you’ve ever wanted to watch a high resolution movie like an MKV, MPEG, or AVI file that’s currently on a computer, but on an iPhone or iPad, you know that the default iOS Video app isn’t always going to cut it. Sure Videos.app stores iTunes movie downloads and can play a fair amount of video formats copied over to it, but there are many movie formats not supported by Videos, or that just don’t play that well in the client. Fortunately, there’s VLC, a free video playing staple from the desktop world that is available for iOS. VLC plays just about every movie file format imaginable, plus it has it’s own filesystem of sorts for iOS that lets you easily copy over video files to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, without having to use iTunes.

Read more »

This weeks featured Mac setup is the desk of Uri S., a geologist – note the rock hammer! – with a nice and clean nearly minimalist workstation. Let’s jump in and learn a bit more…

Read more »

Apple has started to air a new iPhone 5S commercial titled “Dreams”, as part of the “You’re More Powerful Than You Think” ad campaign.

The commercial follows a variety of vocations from scientists to artists using an iPhone with different apps, including Vaavud Wind Meter, Camera with an Olloclip, Response Deck SBC, ForeFligth Mobile, iTranslate Voice, Veterinary AliveECG, SAM-1, and Photos (the default photo app in iOS). The advertisement is soundtracked to a song called “When I Grow Up”, by artist Jennifer O’Connor.

Read more »

An Apple ID is central to just about every Apple service you use on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. From sending and receiving iMessages and FaceTime calls, to shopping with the App Store and iTunes Store, and making backups to iCloud, this is all tied to an Apple ID. For the best experience with iOS devices, you’ll want to be sure each of your own hardware is using the same Apple ID. With that said, there are times when you may want to change an Apple ID associated with a specific iOS device.

Read more »

The mouse and trackpad are pretty essential to desktop Mac users, so if the input devices start acting up with mystery clicks, clicks not registering, erratic motions, and other weird behavior, you have good reason to be frustrated.

This article will troubleshoot unusual mouse and trackpad behavior that may be happening on a Mac. Things like random clicks, or ignored clicks, or strange cursor movements, and other unexpected mouse and trackpad activity can likely be remedied with the solutions provided here. First we’ll review some potential hardware issues, and then cover a software solution that can often remedy a problematic pointing device.

Read more »

Most apps in Mac OS X can be uninstalled easily by dragging them into the Trash from the /Applications/ folder, and many others come with accompanying uninstall applications that will clean house and completely remove the apps too. Additionally, there are third party utilities for Mac OS that can make total removal of apps as simple as drag and drop.

Another solution, which is best reserved for and intended for use by advanced Mac users only who are comfortable with the command line and have a deeper knowledge of Mac OS X, is the thorough manual removal of an app and all associated components, and that’s what we’ll cover here.

Read more »

Some Mac users who partitioned their Macs to dual boot between the beta OS X Yosemite builds and stable OS X Mavericks releases have discovered a disconcerting issue; their Mavericks partition seems to have vanished and been replaced by an “OS X Installer” partition, forcing them to be stuck in OS X Yosemite. The obvious concern is that data loss occurred, but assuming you didn’t accidentally format the Mavericks drive, it has not, instead, the volume is just temporarily missing, having been taken over by the Yosemite Installer.

Read more »

Have you ever been somewhere with something written in a foreign language and wondered what the heck it said in your own language? Or, have you ever looked at a sign, book, or printed text somewhere, and wished you could instantly translate that something into the language of your choice? With your iPhone and the free Word Lens app, you can, and it kind of works like magic. Yes I know that sounds like hyperbole, but Word Lens is genuinely impressive, and no amount of screen shots or video does the app justice, you really have to see it in action yourself.

Word Lens is incredibly simple to use and it works on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with a camera, here’s what you’ll want to do to see how it works:

Read more »

Adding a new screen saver to Mac OS X that you’ve obtained from a third party source isn’t as easy as it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly complicated. Though Gatekeeper has made things slightly more challenging to improve security, you’ll find that installing any screensaver to the Mac is still pretty simple.

Read more »