Mac users in higher security risk situations may wish to enable an optional firmware password on their machines,which offers an advanced level of protection. In short, a firmware password is a lower level layer of security that is set on the actual Mac logicboards firmware, rather than at the software layer like FileVault encryption or the standard login password. The result of setting an EFI password is that a Mac can not be booted from an external boot volume, single user mode, or target disk mode, and it also prevents resetting of PRAM and the ability to boot into Safe Mode, without logging in through the firmware password first. This effectively prevents a wide variety of methods that could potentially be used to compromise a Mac, and offers exceptional security for users who require such protection.

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Assistive Devices and Assistive Apps are applications and accessories which can control parts of the Mac and MacOS beyond the normal scope of app limits. While it’s primarily thought of as an Accessibility feature, it’s also commonly uses for general apps too, ranging from screen sharing functions, to apps that require microphone access, to even web browsers and many popular games. Because of it’s widespread usage
many users may need to enable assistive devices and apps, but what was once called “Assistive Devices” and controlled within the Universal Access / Accessibility control panel has since moved to a new generalized location in MacOS.
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This weeks featured desk setup belongs to Krishna Sadasivam, a sequential artist, designer, and illustrator, who uses his Apple and Mac gear to create awesome comics, digital illustrations, and cartoons. Let’s learn a bit more…
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Having recently went through the process of updating a handful of Macs to the latest versions of Mac OS X as part of a gifting tech support campaign, several Macs developed an odd flickering display problem that was only visible when an external monitor was connected to the Mac. On an 11″ MacBook Air, the screen flickers with any DVI or VGA display hooked up with the standard Min-iDisplayPort adapter, and displays only a white-black noise screen, like an ancient TV without an antenna. Meanwhile on a newer MacBook Pro, the problem exhibited as external display flickering with anything from DVI connections to HDMI, and with different brand monitors, but the screen would display properly just with a persistent randomized flicker. The video below demonstrates the MacBook Air flickering on and off with a noisy picture:
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Nearly all Mac users have a login and password required to access the Mac upon boot (and if you don’t, you should!), which provides a reasonable layer of password protection to keep out most prying eyes. Users with more advanced security needs may need to go further to protect their Mac from unauthorized access though, and because there are ways of resetting a Mac administrator password by using a variety of tricks, the simpler user login protections are not necessarily adequate for every user in higher security situations and at-risk environments.
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The wide variety of default iApps which come preinstalled on most Macs these days are all great applications, but if you don’t actually use them, they just take up disk space. Case in point are Garageband, iMovie, and iPhoto, three fantastic apps for making music, editing videos, and managing photos, but if you never use these apps then it may make sense to uninstall them, which can free up 5GB+ of disk space in the process. While 5GB may not sound like much for users with a huge 1TB internal disk drive, those running lower capacity SSD’s may find that 5GB of space better used for something else than unused apps.
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Mac OS X may come with plenty of great apps and utilities to get you started, but there are a few incredibly helpful utilities that are either missing or could be improved.

That’s what we’re focusing on here, with four of the most helpful third party utilities for Mac OS that everyone should have on their Mac, or at least review and consider. Best of all? They’re all free utilities!
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The Mac had a great year in 2013, with powerful new Macs on both the portable and desktop side, and the release of OS X Mavericks, which has been easily one of the best major updates to the Mac operating system in years. Here are thirteen of our favorite tip and tricks articles focusing on the Mac from the year past. From newbie tips to expert tricks, they may not have been the most popular but you’re sure to learn something new regardless of your knowledge level.

1. Preparing a Mac for Mavericks – a simple guide to get any Mac ready for a major OS update, be it Mavericks or anything else
2. Creating an OS X Mavericks installer drive with a USB flash key – a bootable install drive for Mavericks makes installing the update on several Macs super easy, without having to redownload the whole thing on each machine
3. How to clean install Mavericks – many users updated to Mavericks directly from older versions of OS X, but a clean install can be the preferred option for some advanced users
4. 6 of the best simple tips for OS X Mavericks – get started with some of the easiest yet most rewarding tricks on Mavericks
5. Downgrading OS X Mavericks – decided you don’t like Mavericks? You may be able to downgrade if you use Time Machine
6. 7 of the most useful command line tips for OS X – knowing how to use Terminal app can open the door for all sorts of powerful tricks
7. Customize the login screen wallpaper image in Mavericks – bored with the OS X Login window? You can customize it to your liking
8. Put the OS X Dock into the screen corner – pin the dock into the corner of the display to customize your Mac a bit
9. Schedule Do Not Disturb to be more productive – the Do Not Disturb feature arrives to Mac OS X with scheduling, allowing you to ignore all those pestering notifications for a set time
10. Find the best wi-fi channel to use – the Wireless Tool in OS X can help you quickly discover and optimize your local wifi router and network
11. Recover deleted files from a Mac – using a third party utility you can often recover files that have been removed from a Mac… but you must act quick for the best results
12. 5 tricks using the Command key to improve your workflow – that little Command key can really boost your OS X workflow
13. Must-know usages of the ‘cd’ command – nearly all command line users are familiar with ‘cd’, and these tricks can help you master the command and get around much faster than before

Did we forget something you found awesome? Let us know in the comments! Don’t forget to check out our 13 iOS tips roundups for 2013 while you’re at it!

2013 was a big year for iOS, seeing the release of several new iPads, iPhones, and perhaps most noticeable of all, iOS 7 and it’s dramatic interface overhaul. To wrap up the year, we’re going to offer a roundup of our thirteen favorite articles on iOS and it’s accompanying devices. No, these certainly weren’t the most popular articles published by OSXDaily, but because they’re mostly tips lists and collections, they’re all knowledge-packed with tons of information that is sure to teach everyone something new.

1. 4 essentials everyone should know when getting started with iOS 7 – while some of iOS 7 stayed the same, some of it looked very different… these are some absolute essential tricks to familiarize yourself with the new experience
2. 5 simple usability tips to improve iOS 7 – a few adjustments can go a long way in improving usability and readability, and that’s exactly what these tips aim to do
3. Make your own beautiful abstract wallpapers in iOS – a simple guide for using Camera app and Snapseed to make your own gorgeous wallpapers that look fantastic on all iOS devices
4. 6 tricks to speed up iOS 7 – if you felt that installing the new update slowed down your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, this is for you
5. 8 ways to increase the battery life of iOS 7 devices – sure the whizz-bang flashy eye candy features of iOS 7 look great, but they can also negatively effect battery life
6. Boosting the battery life of an iPad Air or iPad Mini Retina – the two new iPads launched this year can get a nice boost to their already impressive battery lives by toggling a few Settings adjustments
7. 10 tips for using iOS Mail smarter and faster – email can be a burden, but these tricks are practically guaranteed to make you more productive when emailing from the mobile world of iOS
8. Safari keyboard shortcuts for iOS devices with external keyboards – if you use a Bluetooth keyboard with an iPad, these are must-knows
9. The ultimate Siri commands list – did you know that Siri could do this much?
10. 95 funny Siri commands that are sure to make you laugh – keep entertained for hours by asking Siri a bunch of silly questions and commands, you’re sure to get a chuckle out of the responses
11. iOS 7 vs iOS 6 visual comparisons – just how big of a change was iOS 7? Compare many visual elements and apps between 7 and iOS 6 to get an idea
12. The iOS 7 Jailbreak from Evasi0n – a new version of iOS was followed by a new untethered jailbreak, for those interested in that sort of thing
13. Reasons why you should NOT jailbreak – not sure if you should bother with the jailbreak or not? These are good reasons to avoid it, and it’s particularly valid for those who are less tech savvy

Think we’re missing anything? Let us know in the comments. And don’t miss our 13 for 2013 Mac OS X tip roundup as well!

A fair amount of users held off on updating their iOS 6 devices to iOS 7 for a variety of reasons, and thus those holdouts missed out on the option to use the new iOS 7 jailbreak from Evasi0n. For those users still running iOS 6.1.3, iOS 6.1.4, and iOS 6.1.5 on their iPads, iPod touches, and iPhones, having patience has finally paid off, as a new untethered jailbreak for those elder versions of iOS has finally been released.

The jailbreak tool is called p0sixpwn, and it’s a free download for Mac OS X and Windows users.
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Though we all rely heavily on text messages and iMessage these days, sometimes it’s just easier to talk on the phone. This can be particularly true if you’re in the middle of a texting conversation and things are moving quickly, being misinterpreted, continuously skewed by autocorrect, or, if you’re like me, you’re just plain awful when it comes to accurately typing anything on the iPhone’s small virtual keyboard and find it easier to just talk. Fortunately, the Messages app in iOS has built-in quick calling options, which work particularly well on the iPhone since you can make a phone call directly from any message thread. For iPad and iPod touch users, the quick contact option allows for FaceTime chat, whether it’s a video call or an audio call. Like many things in iOS, it’s easy to use but commonly overlooked:
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Looking for some goofy, silly, stupid, and just plain funny Siri commands? If you want to have a laugh, then Siri can certainly provide a chuckle or two. Siri, the lovable semi-intelligent virtual assistant that lives on our iPhones, has plenty of useful tricks and an enormous commands list up his/her sleeve, but not everything Siri does must be helpful. If you’re looking for a laugh, you can issue Siri a huge variety of odd statements or commands, and in turn get some hilarious if not just outright sassy responses back.

By no means is this a complete list of Siri’s humor archives as people seem to find new humorous features every day, but this is an amusing variety of nearly one hundred goofy statements and commands to make. Sometimes asking the same question twice or three times in a row can get different and ever continuously more ridiculous responses back. No spoilers given on the answers, just hold down that Siri button and have some fun to see what you get.

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Do you want to control which apps can use your location on Mac? Want to see exactly what apps are using your location data on the Mac? Mac OS X now has the ability to easily view and manage which applications can access a users location data.

This article will review first how to determine what apps are using location data, and second how to change and control what apps are allowed to use location data on Mac OS.

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This weeks Mac setup comes to us from B. Van, a video editor and student who has a nice and clean desk and great hardware config, let’s learn some more:
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Having voice turn-by-turn directions right in your pocket with an iPhone is easily one of the most helpful features of the Maps app for iOS. The navigational assistant will get you just about anywhere you need to go without ever having to look at the phone screen, all you need to do is listen to the directions. That’s where this tip comes into play, because some users have trouble hearing the voice volume on the turn-by-turn mapping function, or they may find it too loud in some situations.
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Just about every Mac comes with a front-facing camera these days, referred to usually as the FaceTime camera, and on older machines was called iSight. Nearly all of the time, this camera works flawlessly and you’ll never have any problems with it, but a frustrating error can appear from time to time that makes many users think their is a hardware problem with the camera. Manifesting as a black screen with a camera logo that is crossed out with the text “There is no connected camera”, the error message can appear across just about any Mac, be it an iMac or a MacBook Air / Pro, and any version of OS X from Lion to Mavericks and OS X Yosemite, and with almost any app that wants to use the front camera. When the Ma camera is not working, the screen may look like this:

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The keyboard in Safari long had a convenient “.com” button, which made going to websites quicker, and if held down revealed more TLD (Top Level Domain) choices, like .net, .org, .edu, and .us. As many have noticed, that “.com” button is missing from iOS 7… at least upon first glance. It turns out there still is a way to easily type top level domains with the latest versions of Safari, it’s just slightly hidden.
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Looking for the best old school gaming emulator for Mac OS X? Look no further, OpenEmu is an awesome emulator for nearly all of the classic retro gaming console, with full support for Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, NeoGeo, NES, Nintendo DS, Sega 32x, Sega Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo (SNES), TurboGrafx 16, and VirtualBoy. OpenEmu basically bundled each individual emulator engine into a single app, allowing for a convenient central location for all your old school emulation needs, and offering a nice looking gaming library browser for game ROMs too.

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