You may have noticed that some iOS apps will turn dark as if they’re being launched and simultaneously rename themselves as “Cleaning…”, seemingly out of the blue and at random. This is demonstrated happening with the attached iPhone screenshot, showing the Instagram app going through the process. So the big question for many users is, what’s going on here and why does that iPhone or iPad app say it’s cleaning?

We’ll explain what the “Cleaning” message means, what it’s doing, and also what it means you, the iOS device user, should do when you see it.
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AirPlay Mirroring sends exactly what is on the iPhone or iPad screen wirelessly over to an Apple TV or a compatible AirPlay receiver app on a Mac or PC like Reflector or XBMC, including the audio stream if one is available. This mirroring feature is great for demonstrations, presentations, picture slideshows, watching video on a larger screen, gaming on a bigger display, recording an iOS device screen, and so much more.

While iOS AirPlay Mirroring is simple to use, how it works can cause some confusion and lead some users to believe it’s not working at all. Furthermore, AirPlay and Mirroring is hidden by default in iOS, and you’ll need to meet a few basic requirements before finding the feature available for usage on any iOS 9, iOS 8, or iOS 7 device. This makes it a bit different than how it works from a Mac where it’s always visible but not necessarily usable, but once you learn how to use it on your iDevice, you’ll find it’s not complicated.
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Most Mac users know that hitting Command+W will close an open window, and we’ve covered a handful of other window management keystrokes before, but what about closing the seemingly inactionable dialog windows found with Open, Save, Save As, Export, iCloud, and Print actions? For closing those type of dialog windows, you’ll want to use the “Close” button keyboard shortcuts instead, and there are actually two of them for Mac OS X.
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The weekend is here, which means it’s time to share another featured Mac desk setup! This time we’ve got the awesome Mac Pro setup of OS X programmer and freelance book writer Buick W. Let’s learn a bit more about the hardware in this setup and which iOS and OS X apps are must-haves as well.

(By the way, for those who haven’t seen a new Mac Pro yet in person, you can get an idea of just how compact the 2013 Mac Pro is by looking at it alongside the 10oz can next to it, there’s a lot of power in that little package!)
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Want to perform an Undo or Redo on iPhone? Whether it’s undo typing or undo an action elsewhere, or redo anything, you’re in for some fun as you learn how to perform the undo and redo procedure on iPhone.

Indeed all iPhone models have a rather interesting way to “Undo” or “Redo” typing in iOS and in every single app… get ready for it because it’s probably not going to be what you expect: you shake the iPhone to undo and redo typing.

Yes, seriously, physically shaking the iPhone initiates an “Undo” or a “Redo” making the action buttons for each task visible. These can undo/redo anything, whether it’s typed text, copying, pasting, deleting text, basically whatever the last action was it will figure out.

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The next time you’re using the Maps app in Mac OS X to plot a road trip, a walkabout, get driving directions, or just to map out a route, you may want to skip the printer and opt to send the directions directly over to your iPhone instead.

In order for this handy direct feature to work, be sure the iPhone and Mac are either on the same network with wi-fi syncing enabled, or have a USB connection established between the two devices. Though that shouldn’t always be a requirement, experience suggests it’s necessary for this feature to reliably function. Once you’ve got that squared away, sending the directions from Mac to iOS is extremely simple:
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If you need to record some simple sound or audio on a Mac, you can do so easily using a bundled app that comes with Mac OS X, without having to download any third party utilities. That app is QuickTime, which may come as a surprise to some users as it’s typically thought of as a movie viewing application, but believe it or not it has video, screen, and audio recording capabilities as well, making it surprisingly powerful if you look beyond the initially obvious functionalities.

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If you need to find out just how fast your wi-fi link speed is, or rather, the speed of which your Mac is connected to a particular wireless router, you can find this data through the Network Utility app that is bundled in every version of Mac OS X.

This is really the fastest way to determine the link speed of any interface, whether Wi-Fi, ethernet, or otherwise, despite the always handy Network Utility app having been relocated to the depths of a system folder.
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If you have multiple email accounts setup with Mail app on your iPhone or iPad, you’ve probably noticed that each email account name defaults to the provider, like “iCloud”, “Gmail”, “Outlook”, and “Yahoo”. Those names aren’t the most explanatory, and it can become even more confusing when you have two mail accounts from the same service provider setup with Mail app, where you may end up with “Gmail” and “Gmail” or “Outlook” and “Outlook”, one of which may be the default address while the other is a miscellaneous inbox, with no obvious differentiator between the two. This is what it may look like in the Settings and Mail app Mailboxes view, a bit confusing until you go deeper:

Instead of putting up with those nondescript and sometimes confusingly repetitive email account names, you can rename the account to something much more meaningful, like the email address, or the function of that account. This is handled through the iOS Mail app settings, and it simply changes the user side and view of things, it has no impact on how the email sends or presents to the outside world.
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Apple will launch an iPhone 6 with a 4.7″ display sometime this fall, according to a new report from
Reuters. Additionally, a separate iPhone 6 model with a larger 5.5″ display may be delayed due to production issues.
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It’s April Fools Day, that means the internet is full of useless stuff and just about everything should be doubted. But rather than feed you BS, we’ll show you how you can contribute to some general tomfoolery by pranking your friends, family, and coworkers with some fun and harmless little Mac pranks. Ready to goof off? Give these a go:
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Time Machine is by far the simplest way to keep regular and reliable backups of a Mac, and usually the automatic backups start and finish without any incident. On some rare occasions though, Time Machine may get stuck* on the “Preparing Backup” stage for an inordinately long amount of time, causing a backup to never start, let alone finish. It’s these failed backup attempts that we’re looking to remedy here.

We should point out that if you haven’t backed up a Mac in a while, say a few months, it’s normal for the “Preparing Backup” stage of Time Machine to take a while to gather data before beginning, particularly if you have a large drive to backup. What’s not normal is for the Preparing Backup stage to take 12-24 hours, getting stuck in that stage overnight or all day long, for example (unless perhaps you have some truly absurd amount of disk space, then it may take that long and be normal).

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Typically when an external display is connected to a Mac, it will automatically be detected and start working instantly, with the Mac either extending the desktop or mirroring the screen over to the newly attached display output. Sometimes that doesn’t happen however, and when a secondary screen is not detected automatically by the Mac, you’ll want to trigger the “Detect Display” function in Mac OS.

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In appreciation of Cosmos Day (also known as the Sunday that airs the Cosmos TV show), we’re bringing you six space-themed Cosmos inspired wallpapers to send your desktop and mobile backgrounds into another world. Each of these was crafted in the good old photoshop alternative of Pixelmator using NASA imagery as a starting point.

Each image is a high resolution 2500×2500 and fairly large to preserve maximum quality, weighing in around 2.5MB each on average, so you’ll be able to use it on most resolution displays, whether you’re putting these on a 24″ display, iPhone, a retina iPad, or a retina MacBook Pro. Go ahead, bring some Cosmos to your wallpaper*.

Click on any thumbnail image below to open the larger full size version:

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This weeks featured Mac setup is the desk of systems engineer Dave B., let’s get right to it and learn a bit more!
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Longtime users of the Google Chrome web browser may be puzzled to discover the appearance of a mysterious Chrome Notifications menu bar icon, appearing as a little bell icon along with the other Mac menu bar items. Unlike removing some of the other OS X menu bar icons though, you can’t simply drag it out of the menu bar to remove the icon, and even more strangely, you can’t disable the possibly superfluous menu bar icon from it’s own drop down menu.
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If you’re a fan of using gestures for navigation, you’ll be pleased to know that you can navigate browser history in Safari for iOS (versions 7+) by simply swiping back and forth. This basically functions as an alternative to the traditional Back and Forward buttons in Safari, allowing for quick swipes to go forward or backwards a page as needed while you’re browsing.
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Microsoft has brought the popular Office suite to the iPad, including full featured versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Each app is offered as a free download through the App Store for iOS, but there are some functionality differences between the free and paid subscription plans. To put it simply, the free plans of the Office apps can only view, copy, and share contents, while the paid plans are necessary to gain complete editing and new document creation across the Office suite.
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