There are plenty of useful Mail plugins out there for Mac OS X, but sometimes their use wears out, or the plugin doesn’t get updated for a new version of the Mac Mail app which renders it unusable. If you’ve ever wanted to uninstall a Mail plugin in Mac OS X you’ve probably discovered that, unlike Safari, there isn’t a plugin manager available through the app preferences. Instead, you’ll need to uninstall Mail app plugins manually by deleting the file(s) in question. This isn’t the most intuitive process in the world, but it’s also not too complicated.
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Apple has released the fifth beta of iOS 7.1 to those registered with the iOS Developer Program. The new beta build arrives as 11D5145e and is compatible with all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices capable of running iOS 7.0.

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The MagSafe power adapter is brilliant, using magnets to secure a connection between a MacBook and the AC power charger, it not only breaks away quickly to help prevent mishaps, but it also quickly snaps on to provide power to the Mac. It usually works flawlessly, but on some rare occasions, the MagSafe adapter is seemingly connected just fine but no charge is being passed through to the computer. Fortunately these issues are usually easy to resolve, so proceed through steps 1 through 3 outlined below to get your MagSafe charging the Mac battery again.

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Ever installed a new app or two on a Mac and then went to find them, only to be lost in a sea of other applications that are already installed? For those of us with a ton of apps installed this happens often, but OS X offers several ways to sort through the clutter and quickly locate these newly installed apps. We’ll cover two of the quickest, using Launchpad and also the Finder.
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Apple has released a short film celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Mac. The video is titled “1.24.14”, signifying the date on which the 30th Mac anniversary fell, and emphasizes people doing various interesting things with Apple products. The video itself consists of segments filmed around the world on that date using the iPhone 5s.

The video is embedded below, and is accompanied by a website with some behind-the-scenes details of the movie:
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Many websites are using push notifications to send updates and alerts to Mac users. These alerts are signed up for through Safari, and then arrive as banners appearing briefly on the desktop, then fade away to sit in the Notification Center of Mac OS X until they’ve either been cleared out or addressed manually.

If you no longer want to receive push notifications from a website, you can adjust them on a per-site basis not only through Safari, but also through general System Preferences on the Mac.

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Want to watch the Super Bowl live stream but don’t have a TV or tuner, or you can’t get the stream in your locality? Maybe you’re just not in an area that has coverage of the big game? No sweat, you can still get your football fix with a free live stream available to iPad users from the FOX Sports app.
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This weeks featured Mac setup is used by audio producer Nathaniel T., this is a killer setup and there’s a lot of awesome hardware to cover, so let’s jump right to it and learn more…
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If you have music actively playing, or a song or iTunes Radio station is paused within the Music app, you can quickly jump to the Music app by going through the Control Center of iOS. In many cases, this lets you adjust songs or radio stations quicker than using the multitasked to switch apps. This is a fairly simple trick, and those who listen to a lot of music on their iPhones and iPads should appreciate the convenience.

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Touch-based clicking is an alternate input form that uses trackpad (or Magic Mouse) taps as a click. For most Mac users, turning on tap-to-click is best done from Mac OS X System Preferences, but advanced users who require more control, automation, or remote enabling of the feature can also enable tap-to-click through the command line by using defaults strings. Using this advanced method also offers the benefit of allowing touch-clicking at the login screens of Mac OS X, something that isn’t available by default if enabled through the GUI controls.

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Need to find a system file or several, but you aren’t entirely sure the directory path of where that system item is located on Mac OS? Maybe you’re looking for a plist file and you aren’t sure if it’s in the user Library folder, or the System Library folder? Rather than digging about in the variety of / root directories, use this excellent Finder based Spotlight search trick to include system files within your search results.
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The Control Center feature of iOS offers quick access to some of the more frequently used settings toggles on the iPad and iPhone, like wi-fi and orientation lock. This is undeniably convenient, but not every user wants these toggles to be readily available to anyone who picks up their device, and in some higher security situations these functions may be considered inappropriate to have easy access to. If security is more important than convenience, consider disabling access to Control Center from the lock screen.

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Banner notifications pop up on the side of the screen in Mac OS X and disappear on their own within a few seconds. Some users may find that banner persistence time to be either too long or too short, and that is what we’re going to focus on changing here, giving you some control over how long the banner notification lingers over the desktop.

You can change how long the notification alert banners show on screen on the Mac, as this article will show.

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Apple has released iOS 7.0.5 for select iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C models. The minor update includes bug fixes which are said to correct network provisioning for these two specific iPhone models that have been sold in China. In other words, if you don’t have an iPhone 5S or iPhone 5C that is compatible with Chinese cellular networks, you won’t see this update available.

Though the update release notes specifically mention devices sold in China, many other users throughout the world have found the iOS 7.0.5 update available for their compatible iPhone models. Initial reports suggest that users based in the USA will not find the update for their devices.

As of writing, iOS 7.0.4 remains the most recent publicly available iOS version for other iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models. iOS 7.1 remains under development and is currently limited to users registered in the iOS developer program through Apple. Users can always check for the newest version of iOS available by opening the Settings app on their devices, heading to “General” and choosing “Software Update”.
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The tap-to-click ability is enabled by default on most PC laptops, while on the Mac side of things it’s usually disabled by default. For the unfamiliar, tap-to-click means that a single tap or touch on the MacBook trackpad or Magic Trackpad is registered as a click, thereby preventing the need to actually press down the trackpad to click on a screen item.

Many users really like the touch-tap feature for it’s ease and low intensity, but it’s certainly not everyones cup of tea and others users find it annoying. Because it’s turned off by default in Mac OS X, you’ll need to adjust the setting manually, which we’ll show you how to do easily through System Preferences. The feature works on most trackpads built into relatively new MacBook Pro and Air models, including any with multitouch support.

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The menu bar of OS X has two default color choices, simple grey, or translucent, which varies a bit based upon the wallpaper used. Neither of these looks are really anything to write home about. That’s why the third party mod ObsidianMenuBar is a nice alternative, it gives your Mac a black menu bar. It’s not perfect, but it still looks absolutely fantastic, and really, this is the menu bar that OS X should have.
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The Disk Utility app bundled with Mac OS X has a command line equivalent which offers advanced users the ability to perform disk maintenance from the terminal, including disk verification and repairs. This allows for a variety of helpful troubleshooting abilities, including the possibility to remotely issue disk repairs though SSH, or through Single User Mode if the user accounts are inaccessible.
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While some writing and text apps have native word and character counters as part of their built-in feature set, not every app does. That can be changed easily though by creating a Mac OS X Service that will provide word counts and character counts from just about anywhere on a Mac that text is selectable. This means apps like TextEdit, the Quick Look preview panels, and even web browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, all will gain the word/character counting feature that is easily accessible from a right-click. This is probably the best method of gaining a word counter into Mac apps that don’t support the feature natively.

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