One of the bigger complaints stemming from the iOS redesign is that the stark white interface with thin fonts can be difficult to read. Setting text to Bold makes an enormous difference, but some of the color choices in iOS still lack enough contrast to make things easy on the eyes, particularly for those with less than perfect vision, or even if you just use the iPhone / iPad in bright sunlight often. Fortunately, iOS now includes a “Darken Colors” toggle, and while it doesn’t have as wide-reaching an effect as many would hope for, it does tone down the fluorescent blue text on buttons and UI elements throughout the iOS interface. It also darkens much of the super light grey text into a darker shade of grey. The overall effect is increased contrast on text in critical places, helping visibility and legibility. The change is fairly subtle, as shown in the animated gif.

Read more »

OS X provides a great way to quickly find what app is using battery power from a drop-down menu on portable Macs, but you’re usually left with a single option to address the battery hog, and that is quitting the app. But it’s not always necessary to quit out of the entire app in question, and sometimes a more advanced option of targeting a specific process can be useful instead.
Read more »

Chrome users may have noticed that the popular Emoji characters found on iPhone and the Mac render just fine in Apple’s Safari web browser of MacOS X, but not in Google’s Chrome browser.

Instead, us default Chrome users on the desktop will see a square rendered 😃 rather than the intended emoji character, largely being left out of the emoticon fun.

That can be quickly changed by installing a free third party extension called Chromoji, which makes those same snazzy emoji characters visible within the Chrome desktop browser of MacOS X, Windows, and even Linux.
Read more »

This weeks featured setup is the minimalist desk configuration of photographer and vlogger Arttu K., who uses LED backlighting to achieve a really nice mood effect behind the iMac setup. Let’s learn a bit more!

Read more »

Voicemail messages have been modernized quite a bit by the iPhone’s visual voicemail service, but it’s still fairly common to wind up with many stale voicemails that aren’t listened to. You don’t have to delete the messages, or even listen to them to mark them as read (listened? heard?) though, thanks to a simple yet handy little trick in the iPhone’s Phone app.
Read more »

A fair amount of Mac users have ditched the “All My Files” default Finder window option by setting new windows to open to the ~/ Home directory again, which was long the default in Mac OS X anyway. This is usually because All My Files is viewed as an overwhelming amalgamation of every single thing on your Mac dumped into a single folder, which, in fairness, that’s exactly what it is.

But All My files doesn’t have to be mess to look through, and a simple sorting toggle can transform the folder from a disaster to a productivity aid, offering quick access to all the most recently used and opened files on the Mac.

Let’s review a few quick adjustments which can make All My Files view a bit more useful to Mac users.
Read more »

iPhone and iPad users can now directly control whether their iOS wallpaper moves around dramatically, thanks to a setting called “Perspective Zoom” that was added in iOS 7.1. The toggle is separate from the general reduce motion setting, and is selected when choosing a wallpaper, offering a separate control for some of the more exaggerated movements that are seen in parallax effects of iOS.

In order to use wallpapers Perspective Zoom, you’ll need iOS 7.1 (or later…) and be sure that general motion effects are enabled. Thus if you opted to use the fading transitions, you’d have to turn motion reduction off to get the effects back, an easy task:
Read more »

When you think of sending out text messages you probably think of the iPhone or an Android, and the command line doesn’t cross your mind, but thanks to the ever-useful curl command, you can send out a SMS text message to any phone number right from the Terminal.

Yes, curl, the same command line tool for transferring data to and from URL’s, downloading files, getting HTTP header details, and so much more, can send text messages. This is done through a POST request sent to the TextBelt service, a free outgoing SMS API. Sure there are limits, but they’re fairly generous at 75 texts per day (per IP), and you can’t send a number more than 3 texts in three minutes to prevent abuse. Aside from that, keep in mind that you’ll be charged for incoming texts at the regular SMS / texting rate from your cell provider – this does not use the iMessage service – so don’t overuse this if you don’t have an unlimited traditional texting plan.
Read more »

The Mac can now make outbound voice calls to other Apple users that have an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or another Mac, using nothing but the native FaceTime Audio service. Built into Mac OS X, FaceTime Audio can be used to call any other FaceTime user, free, anywhere in the world, and it provides excellent audio quality for the voice conversation.

Using FaceTime Audio in Mac OS requires MacOS or OS X 10.9.2 or later to be installed on the Mac, both on the caller and recipients end. If calling an iOS device, the iPhone or iPad will need to be running iOS 7.0 or newer to receive the call.
Read more »

Some iPad Air owners have been impacted by a persistent crashing issue, where either the entire device crashes and reboots, or, more commonly, where the Safari browser crashes and randomly quits. The Safari crashing issue is often repeatable by pointing Safari at several Javascript heavy web pages with numerous tabs open, or by opening a PDF within a browser window with many tabs open. Upon investigating the iPad Air crash logs, the issue is almost always shown as a low memory error, signifying that available system resources are insufficient for the Safari actions.

Read more »

Have you ever wished you could tag files on the Mac with a simple keystroke? You’re almost certainly not alone. Tagging files and folders in Mac OS X can be a handy way to help manage and organize the contents of the Finder, even if only used on a limited basis for specific projects. To get the most out of file tags though, you’ll want to get quick access to the feature. One way to do that is with the drag and drop tagging method, but an even quicker way for Mac users who are primarily keyboard focused is to use a keyboard shortcut for the purpose. Mac OS X doesn’t come with a file tagging keystroke by default, but with a few steps you can create your own keyboard shortcut which brings about the tag option anywhere in the Finder.

This article will show you how to create a custom keyboard shortcut for tagging files in Mac OS, the resulting keystroke approach offers perhaps one of the fastest ways to tag files and folders on the Mac.
Read more »

Apple has released iOS 7.1 for all compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices, the first major system software update to iOS 7 since the launch last year. The update includes many bug fixes, feature enhancements, speed improvements, as well as a variety of updated user interface elements. Updating to iOS 7.1 is recommended for all users who are currently running any prior version of iOS 7 on their devices.

iOS 7.1 also includes some new features, with CarPlay support, an event overview for Month display in Calendar app, country specific holidays, improvements to Siri, additions to Accessibility including button shapes and further reduced motion effects, and much more. Full release notes are included at the bottom of this article for those interested in specific details.
Read more »

Once a wi-fi network has been joined in Mac OS, the Mac will default to joining that network if it’s within range and available again. This is undeniably convenient for joining our home, work, and regular wireless networks, but it can be a nuisance when the Mac rejoins a network that you no longer want to connect to. While setting the wi-fi network priority is one option, another option is to have the Mac “forget” the network, preventing it from automatically rejoining again. This is particularly helpful if you live or work within an area that has open networks available that you do not accidentally want to join.

Forgetting a wi-fi network in Mac OS X is very easy, though the option is a bit more hidden than some users may expect. Fortunately, like the iOS counterpart, learn to drop a wireless network once on the Mac and you won’t have to wonder how to do it again in the future.
Read more »

This weeks featured Mac setup is the desk of Stephen G., a web programmer with a genuinely awesome quad display configuration. If you’re wondering how this great setup gets used, or if you’re just curious how on earth to drive three additional screens off of a MacBook Pro in a similarly sweet four-panel layout like this, read on to learn much more…

Read more »

The Macs default boot login screen is fairly boring by default, and though it can be spruced up with custom wallpaper, another option is to set a screen saver to run at the login window of OS X. This requires using a defaults command string entered at the command line, which then makes the screen saver visible at the boot login window of OS X, as well as the general login screen if all users have logged out of the Mac.
Read more »

Most smartphone owners are pretty set on their preference towards the iPhone or Android, but that doesn’t mean you can’t cross-pollinate a bit… at least with your device wallpaper. With the general bright-color trend, many of the Android wallpapers look absolutely fantastic on the iPhone and iPad too, and some of the KitKat wallpapers are even large enough to work on the desktop.

We’ll focus on my three personal favorites here; the infamously bright pink mountains from KitKat, and the multicolor craziness from the new S5. You can also opt to grab the full pack of 12 wallpapers too, which include seven from Android 4.4 Kitkat, and three wallpapers from the newly released Samsung Galaxy S5.

Click any of the thumbnails below to open the full sized wallpaper:
Read more »

Ever launched the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad to discover an “Unsent Message” indicator at the bottom of the screen? An email usually goes unsent if you lose internet access while trying to send the message, a fairly common occurrence for those who live in areas with poor cellular reception or that have flaky internet access in general. While iOS will usually successfully send the message on it’s own once a signal has been found again, it doesn’t always work, which is why you may need to trigger a resend yourself to move it along as intended.
Read more »

Most command line users rely heavily on Terminal keyboard navigation to move about within text files and get around within the Terminal, but Mac OS X has a super simple trick up its sleeve that lets you instantly position the mouse cursor anywhere in the Terminal.

This means no more tabbing around or repeatedly tapping on the arrow keys, you can just point and click to focus the cursor in the Terminal, just like it was the GUI, and it works the same whether the cursor destination is at the beginning/end of a line or smack dab in the center of a text block.
Read more »