If you share a computer, or when someone else just needs to use your web browser for a while, you probably know the dread of worrying about a million saved web logins, history, saved searches, and whatever other customizations and personal data you have in the browser. Common solutions are often to use a guest account, a different web browser, or even Private Browsing mode, but another option is to enable a hidden Guest Browsing and profile mode in Google Chrome, which makes multiple account management much easier and specific to the Chrome web browser.

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The first time you set up a Mac or new user account, you’re asked to pick a profile picture for that account. Most of us set this image once and don’t think much about it, but that profile picture follows us around in OS X and is visible at each boot login menu, in the Fast User Switching menu, visible to other users with AirDrop, and plenty of other places in Mac OS X.

If you decide you want to change that user profile picture, perhaps to a more generic image, a mugshot, or a custom photo, you can do so at any time, and for any user account on the Mac. We’ll show you two ways to do this.

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Just about everyone loves great wallpapers to spruce up their device desktops and backgrounds, but sometimes obvious scenery is a bit distracting. Rather than settle for something totally dull, a wonderful in-between choice is to use some gorgeous color gradients as wallpaper instead, and that’s exactly what these five choices offer in a variety of colors.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I always have a very different volume level for my headphones than for my speakers, and if you’re anything like me than this tip is great news. You can actually set headphone-specific volume levels on your Mac, so you won’t have to be constantly toying with the volume levels. That means no more embarrassing moments where your headphones accidentally get pulled from your Mac in a quiet library, and you proceed to blast music for all to hear.

The solution for specifying a volume output is so easy in Mac OS, just do the following on your Mac:

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Have you ever had someone pass you their headphones to hear a song, and had your ears blasted by an outrageously loud volume level? Well, by default, anyone can crank the volume up on music played from an iOS device to 100%. That may sound like no big deal, but there are situations where listening to music that loud could potentially be problematic, leading to inattentiveness to the outside world or even theoretical hearing issues. This is particularly important for kids, who may not realize that the volume level is harmful. Thus, if you or your kids listen to a lot of music with headphones on from an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you may want to consider setting a maximum volume limit for the Music app.

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It’s time to share another great reader-submitted Mac setup… it’s the excellent workstation of an Audio Engineer and student. Let’s dive right in and learn more about the hardware and software making up this featured Mac desk:

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There are a variety of ways to share files between different user accounts on the Mac, but OS X offers one incredibly simple way in particular; the Shared folder. Most Mac users may not even see the folder let alone know it exists, but it’s easy to access, and makes sharing a file or many between users extremely simple. This also offers a simple way to move a file or folder to a different user account on the same Mac, without having to make a copy or use administrator privileges.

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Mac Safari users who have the Adobe Flash plugin installed are likely to find it disabled automatically by Apple, due to a recent security issue with the Flash plugin. That basically means if you don’t have the very newest Flash version installed already, and most people don’t yet, you’ll see the a “Flash Out Of Date” message pop up in Safari, and any Adobe Flash content won’t load.

If you use the Safari browser with the Flash plugin and want to resolve this issue, you’ll need to get the latest version of Flash directly from Adobe and install it manually. Alternatively, users can choose to keep the plugin disabled in Safari and then use a browser like Chrome which sandboxes the Flash plugin and automatically updates it when available. While Safari can disable old versions of Flash, Safari does not automatically update the plugin.

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Have you ever wanted to initiate the screen saver of your Mac by hitting a keystroke combination? You’re not alone, and that’s what we’re going to show you how to do here. While Mac OS X does not include this feature by default, we’ll demonstrate how to create an Automator system service that will accomplish the same feat, activating the screen saver by a keyboard shortcut of your choosing.

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Apple has released iTunes 11.3, adding multiple improvements to the iTunes Extra feature. iTunes Extras often include behind-the-scenes video clips, short films, galleries, director commentary, and other related supplementals to primary iTunes content.

The primary change brought with iTunes 11.3 is to include iTunes Extras with any purchased HD movies at no additional cost.

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If you listen to iTunes Radio throughout the day on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, sooner or later one of those songs you heard is going to get stuck in your head. When that happens, or when you’re just simply curious about the music you’ve been listening to and want to hear a particular song again, you just need to visit the iTunes Radio History.

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Stickies is an app that creates floating notes that can sit on your Mac desktop, it’s been around on the Mac for ages and tends to sit quietly forgotten in the Applications folder of Mac OS X. Often the lack of Stickies usage is either due to not knowing the app exists, or just not knowing how useful it can be, and that’s why this little trick is so great; you can instantly generate a note from just about anything.

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You may already know that you can add stock ticker symbols to the Notification Center on the iPhone, but if you don’t feel like tapping around, another option is to retrieve information on markets and equities through Siri. That also means you can get detailed stock market data on prices, highs and lows, dividends, and more, not only an iPhone, as is the case with the notifications option, but also on an iPad or iPod touch.

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Apple has posted a new video to the web titled “Pride”, which shows the companies participation in the annual San Francisco Pride Parade. The event, which celebrates equality and diversity with an emphasis on LBGT rights, was attended by Apple CEO Tim Cook and thousands of other Apple employees. Each Apple employee wore t-shirts specifically made for the event, with a rainbow outlined variation of the Apple logo and the text “Pride” underneath.

The text accompanying the video says the following:
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OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 3 has been released by Apple to all developers running current beta builds of OS X Yosemite, the next major version of Mac OS. The new build number of OS X 10.10 beta is versioned as 14A283o and will run on all compatible Macs.

The simplest way for Mac developers to get OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 3 is to update through the Mac App Store, accessible from the  Apple menu > Software Update. The update weighs in around 1.1GB. Registered Mac developers can also choose to download the complete installer from the Mac Dev Center and App Store.

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Apple has released the third beta release of iOS 8 to those registered with the iOS Developer Program. All eligible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices can install the beta 3 update immediately, which is versioned as build number 12a4318c.

The update is said to include numerous bug fixes and improvements, and marks another milestone towards the fall public release of iOS 8.

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If you’ve ever sent an email that you immediately realized wasn’t complete, contained errors, or, even worse, was to the wrong person, you know that feeling of dread. For Gmail users, an optional setting offers a layer of forgiveness to those situations, providing for the ability to recall a sent email if acted upon quickly. This is particularly great for those of us who use Gmail as the default email client for mail sent from web browsers.

Currently limited to web mail users only, the Gmail “Undo Send” feature is considered experimental by Google, but it works flawlessly to recall an erroneous email message.
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Ready to restyle your desktop backgrounds and device wallpapers with something new? How about using one of these fancy 6 spaced out aurora style wallpapers? Offered in high resolution in a variety of color themes, you can look at your background and pretend you’re in Iceland or Alaska staring up at the night sky, watching the aurora borealis against the stars.

Each wallpaper is a 2500×2500 pixels, meaning they’re high enough resolution to look great on just about any size display you’re using, whether it’s an iPad, iPhone, MacBook, Android, or even a Windows PC.

Click on any image below to launch the full size into a new window:

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