Apple has expanded the availability of beta OS X system software to all Mac users, allowing potentially anyone to run the latest pre-release beta builds of the operating system for trials and feedback. Dubbed the OS X Beta Seed Program, this is the first time since the initial release of OS X that Apple has allowed non developers access to the beta OS builds.

While it may be appealing to many, the beta program is not recommended for primary use Macs or for novice users, as beta software is often buggy and incomplete, offering an experience that is not yet as refined as a public release. Accordingly, average Mac users with a single machine probably shouldn’t bother with the OS X Beta Seed program, making this best reserved for curious Mac users who have a spare machine they can run the beta builds on.

Mac users who are interested in this program will need to log into the Beta Seed website with an Apple ID, read and accept a lengthy Terms and Conditions agreement, back up their Macs with Time Machine, and then install an Apple utility to access the beta software downloads:
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Apple has released a series of security updates for OS X, with support for OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, and Lion Server. The update is simply labeled as Security Update 2014-002 and includes Safari 7.0.3, and is now widely available through the App Store or by downloading the updater dmg directly from Apple.

The update is recommended for all Mac users to install. Accompanying notes are very brief, stating simply that the update “improves the security of OS X.”, but the full security notes can be found below for those interested.

Typically the easiest way to download and install the update is through the Mac App Store, accessible through the  Apple menu and “Software Update” feature. Users can also choose to download the appropriate update from Apple with the links below:
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Apple has released iOS 7.1.1, a bug fix update aimed at resolving several issues with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The update is said to fix keyboard responsiveness – presumably addressing the keyboard lag issue that has annoyed some users – improves fingerprint recognition for devices with Touch ID, and also resolves a problem when using Bluetooth keyboards with VoiceOver enabled. Other minor bug fixes and improvements may be included as well.

The iOS 7.1.1 build number is 11D201, and the update is compatible with all devices running iOS 7+, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Mini, and iPod touch 5th gen.

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The Photos app of on the iPhone and iPad is lacking a direct resize tool for now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t resize pictures from iOS. While there are a variety of third party apps out there to complete the task, another simple option is to just rely on the photo reducing tools that come along with the sharing feature.

Resizing pictures this way works with up to five photos at a time and is done through emailing a photo, whether it’s sent to someone else or, if you simply want to resize the picture for your own use, by sending it to yourself. Admittedly, this is kind of a weird way to go about things, but it works in a pinch and natively in iOS without having to download any third party apps which for the most part are surprisingly junky.
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Most users who want to see another day, week, or month in the Calendar app of OS X rely on using the mouse cursor to click the forward and backwards buttons, but that’s actually slower than relying on the lesser known continuous scrolling feature that’s built into the Mac Calendar app, which behaves much like the iOS Calendar.

To use the Mac Calendar continuous scrolling feature, you’ll want to have a trackpad with multitouch gesture support, like that found on Mac laptops, the Magic Trackpad, or a Magic Mouse. Then you just need to use two-fingered swipe gestures like you would use elsewhere in OS X to scroll through other windows, apps, and pages. The main difference, however, is the direction of the swipes depends on the view you’re in:

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The Maps app in Mac OS X makes it simple to share locations with others, even if the location isn’t defined and just in the middle of nowhere. This is a great trick for many reasons, whether to share a nice spot you found in the city, share with your partner where you left the car at the airport, to send a friend to a great little taco cart, share the secret free parking spots off of Market Street, the location of a great viewpoint with amazing sunsets, a Geocache location, or whatever and where ever else.
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Many of us Mac users forget to update our installed apps to the latest versions, missing out on everything from newly added features, bug fixes, to important security improvements. Sure there are plenty of reasons for forgetting to update applications, whether because we’re too busy to remember, don’t know how to update, or simply don’t get around to launching the App Store on a regular basis, but let’s be honest, this isn’t really a good habit.

Fortunately, Apple has thought of an excellent solution, and if you’re in this cohort of forgetful app updaters, consider relying on the Automatic App Update feature built into modern versions of Mac OS instead.

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This weeks featured Mac workstation is the awesome setup of Jody R., a VP of Projects. There’s a lot of great hardware in this office, with four Macs, a couple of iOS devices, and a ton of displays… let’s dive right in and learn a bit more!

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Some Mac users may wish to disable IPv6 networking support on their machines. This may be desirable to avoid certain networking conflicts, or to increase security for users in higher threat environments, since IPv6 has been found by researchers to be potentially vulnerable to man-in-the-middle and other network attacks.

Though most users don’t use IPv6 directly, disabling IPv6 is not without consequences, and thus should only be done by users who know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Some of the core Mac OS X system services, like the discovery service Bonjour, use IPv6. Accordingly, disabling IPv6 may render AirDrop sharing unusable, certain print services will become unavailable, and some other convenient Mac features may turn inoperable as well. This makes it impractical to disable for many.

Mac OS X offers a few ways to turn off IPv6, and we’ll cover a simple method using the command line, as well as demonstrating how to turn IPv6 back on if you decide you need to. Users can also check to see if IPv6 is actively used through System Preferences, which Mac OS X defaults to putting into an automatic state.

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Many users know that Siri can interact with the standard iOS music app, but did you know that Siri can also play and manage iTunes Radio stations for you? That’s right, among the huge variety of Siri abilities, the virtual assistance can also command your iTunes Radio music stations.

This is particularly helpful with Siri’s largely handsfree experience, and if you’re walking, jogging, biking, or driving, simply issuing commands to start to play, pause, and adjust iTunes Radio stations is often much easier (and safer) than fumbling around with the digital touch controls on the iPhone or iPad.

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On the Mac, you may know that a right-click on just about anything can bring up a “Search the web” feature. When chosen, the selected term or phrase, whether from an app or from another web browser, gets quickly searched for using your default browser. This is great if you’re reading something and you want more information about a mentioned subject or topic, but the iPhone and iPad don’t have this ability… or so many thought!

It turns out there is a way to perform a “Search the web” function within iOS on just about anything, it’s just a bit indirect and somewhat hidden in a place where many users just wouldn’t look. Beliee it or not, the term search feature is accessible from the popular tap-to-define bundled dictionary, native to iOS. If you’re confused, don’t be, it’s super easy to use.

Grab your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and give this a try yourself:
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The Finder offers the primary means of navigating the file system of Mac OS X, and though most users will rely entirely on clicking, dragging, and dropping, there are no shortage of keyboard shortcuts to make things even better. If you’re not going to learn them all (and let’s face it, just about nobody does), then at least take the time to learn these three super simple keyboard shortcuts that will make your Mac life much easier when working within the file system.

Sure, advanced users may find these simple Finder keystroke tips to be basic, but and if you already know these tips, that’s fantastic, send the list along to someone who could use it instead! Otherwise, head to your Mac Finder and try them out yourself, and memorize them!

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Earlier versions of iOS used to make it very obvious when a Settings toggle was enabled or disabled by showing “ON” and “OFF” text within the button switch itself. While new versions of iOS have removed those word based cues in favor of color indicators (green for on, white for off), there remains an option to make the settings toggle switches a bit more obvious by using binary indicators of a 1 or 0 added atop the color change.

This setting can be helpful for accessibility reasons on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but it’s also nice to have turned on if you use color inversion as a ‘night mode’ for reading, and even if you’re like me and just prefer obvious visual cues for settings and appreciate the hint of geekiness added by the binary switch indicators.
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iMessage is the fantastic free messaging service from Apple that lets iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac users send each other endless free text messages, pictures, and videos. Because iMessage skips the standard SMS/text protocol from cellular carriers and relies on data transmission instead, it can often help you reduce your phone bill by cutting out the text message plan fee, or at least reducing it to a lower cost.

All the benefits to using iMessage hardly matters if you need to turn off the iMessaging service for another reason, so long as you are clear as to why you are disabling it in the first place. No, we don’t mean temporarily sending an SMS text on a one-off basis, though that can be a workaround for some situations. The fact is there may be times where turning off iMessage in it’s entirety is necessary, whether due to cell reception problems, sporadically inadequate cell service, not having a data plan with the iPhone, hitting a data cap, or even switching from an iPhone to an Android or Windows device, be it temporary or permanent. With the latter situation of switching, disabling iMessage while on the iPhone is essential, otherwise inbound messages can sometimes be caught up in a mystery no-mans land, never delivering the intended recipient.

We’ll go a bit more in-depth about some of the common reasons why you’d want to turn off the universally loved service below, but first let’s show how to disable iMessage on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in iOS.
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Frequent Locations is an intelligent feature on the iPhone that allows the device to track where you go and learn what places are frequently visited. Once the iPhone has determined some locations that are most common, say your home or work, the iPhone will then report to you some personalized data about that location, like how long it will take you to get home, or how long your anticipated commute to work will be.

Most users will see this represented within Notification Center, accessible via a swipe down from the top of the iPhone, and the associated Frequent Location text will usually say something like “Right now, it would take you xx minutes to drive to (work / home / school)”. If you’ve never noticed this yourself, here’s where to look on your device to see it:

While this feature is undeniably convenient, there are several possible issues with Frequent Locations. Most obvious is that Frequent Locations requires the usage of GPS to determine location data, meaning it can lead to unnecessary battery drain on iOS 7+ devices, particularly among users who don’t bother to pay attention to the service let alone use it. Additionally, some users just may not like the idea of iOS and their iPhone keeping track of places you’ve been to and frequently go to, so some users may just want to turn Frequent Locations off for privacy purposes.
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The MacBook Pro with Retina Display takes an ultra-high resolution display and scales onscreen elements down to effectively double the pixel count, providing for ultra crisp images and text on the screen. While the default resolution settings are undeniably gorgeous, you can also choose to manually adjust the screen resolution to either show more space on screen, effectively adding to your available screen real estate and desktop workspace, or choose a smaller resolution that will offer larger crisper text.

Each Retina MacBook Pro model offers these display settings, though the display panel size ultimately determines how many options you’ll get, with the larger 15″ screen having an additional selection available than the 13″ model.

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Spilling water or another liquid onto a one to two thousand dollar plus MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is a horrible feeling, but before you completely panic, you can take a few proactive steps which may help to preserve the Mac or your data. There is never a guarantee that the Mac will be saved from permanent water damage, but sometimes you can recover a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro from spills and liquid encounters by taking some very quick actions, or perhaps just mitigate the water damage to the keyboard rather than the entire computer.
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This weeks featured Mac workstation is that of InfoSec professional Eric W., who uses a great Mac and iOS setup to secure networks and conquer system vulnerabilities for clients. Eric’s got a great Apple setup, uses a ton of interesting apps, and also offers some excellent tips and general advice too (don’t miss the complex password tip, it’s excellent)… read on to learn more!
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