Need to know when you bought an app from the Mac App Store? Knowing purchase dates of apps can be helpful for accounting and year end tax purposes, plus a variety of other reasons, and here are two quick ways to get that information.

Get a List of All Apps and Purchase Dates from the Mac App Store

Launch the Mac App Store and click on “Purchases” tab, you’ll find that apps are automatically sorted by purchase date, showing the most recently bought apps at the top. Shown is the original date the app was bought through the App Store, even if the the download progress was stopped.

If an app is missing from that list and you are certain you bought it with the same Apple ID, check the hidden purchases list.

Get the Purchase Date of a Single App from the Mac OS X Finder

Go to the /Applications folder, select an app bought from the Mac App Store, then hit the spacebar to enter into Quick Look. You’ll see the purchase date shown near the bottom:

Sometimes the Quick Look version will show the downloaded date rather than the purchase date, despite labeling it as purchase date. This typically happens when an app has been transferred between multiple Macs, and the Quick Look method is being used on the Mac that downloaded the app at the latest date. If you find this inaccurate, just use the Mac App Store method above.

Hat tip to FinerThings for the Quick Look trick.

Did you know you can turn your Mac into a wireless access point by using Internet Sharing? Internet Sharing works for nearly all versions of Mac OS X, from 10.6, to OS X 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X Mavericks, and beyond, and with internet sharing enabled, your internet connected Mac will broadcast a wifi signal that can be used by another Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, or whatever else you need to get online from.

Though it may sound like an advanced feature, internet sharing is actually really easy to set up on a Mac, and if you follow along you’ll have it working in no time at all, effectively turning a Mac into a wireless router.

Read more »

If your Mac menu bar is starting to resemble an icon farm, remember that you can remove items from the menu bar by holding down the Command key and dragging items out of the menu. The icon will disappear into a puff of dust, the same way an icon from the Dock or sidebar disappear.
Read more »

Kext files are kernel extensions for Mac OS X, typically these are device drivers for hardware like the graphics card, wireless card, printers, etc. Most Mac users have no need to directly interact with .kext files, but for those who do, installing them can be annoying. Sure you can install .kext files manually by digging around in /System/Library/Extensions/ and performing a bunch of permissions voodoo, but there’s an easier way.

Kext Drop is a free tool that makes installing kernel extensions as simple as dragging and dropping them into the application window or Dock icon. Then all you need to do is click “Install”, and all the permissions changes are handled for you, it doesn’t get much more simple than this.

Read more »

Yup you read that title correctly. This is kind of stupid and might be fake, but it’s entertaining anyway. MacGasm found the above video of a kid pestering maybe his brother, who finally has enough and slaps him silly using the iPad itself. Or maybe they’re testing out FaceTime?

The Apple Support Profile page provides an excellent dashboard to check technical support history, status, and warranty information for all registered Apple products under ownership. Assuming you have used the same Apple ID (email address) for all purchases and registrations, you’ll find every Apple item you’ve bought and registered here, including Macs old and new, iPads, iPods, iPhones, and more.

• Check your own Apple Support Profile – Apple.com

After logging in with an Apple ID, click on any item to get more information about it, including:

• Serial numbers and model numbers for all Apple products
• Coverage details
• Registration status
• Phone tech support eligibility
• General warranty coverage information (same as this)
• AppleCare warranty extension eligibility
• Past cases and repairs history
• Status of support cases and repairs

Remember, to take full advantage of the Apple Support Profile, be sure to always use the same Apple ID when registering new products.

This is an extremely useful site for tech support, troubleshooting, and general ownership purposes, be sure to bookmark it. Nice tip from @MacGeekPro.

Want to shuffle around some windows in the background without bringing them into the foreground? Hold down the Command key, and then click on a windows titlebar, the window can now be moved and dragged around in the background without bringing it to the foreground. This should work in all versions of Mac OS X.

This is a great little trick to clear the view for other apps or the desktop. Try it out yourself or see the brief video below for a demonstration of how it works.

Thanks to Josh F. for sending in the tip

Read more »

If you want to insure full Mac compatibility of a new external hard drive or flash disk, you’ll want to format the drive to the Mac OS Extended filesystem. This is particularly necessary for purchases of generic PC drives, which almost always come preformatted to be Windows compatible rather than for Mac OS X.

Yes, connecting an external hard drive or USB flash key to a Mac will generally read and work fine as is because the Mac can easily read other filesystem formats, including Windows MSDOS, FAT, FAT32, ExFat, and NTFS formats, but unless you intend on using the drive between a Windows and Mac machine, formatting it to be entirely Mac compatible filesystem is highly recommended, and necessary for Time Machine and to make disks bootable.

If you have never formatted a drive before on the Mac, don’t worry, it’s super easy and we’ll walk you through the entire process.

Read more »

The highly anticipated jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 is coming as soon as next week, according to a recent tweet from the hacker pod2g, who is working on the project. The comment suggested a hurdle for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2’s A5 processor has been overcome, and stated that “With some luck we could expect a release in a week.”

@Pod2g is the same developer who uncovered the untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1 that was released in a variety of popular jailbreak tools, including redsn0w, PwnageTool, and Corona. The upcoming jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 is also expected to be untethered, meaning the device will be able to reboot freely without the assistance of a software boot tethered to a computer.

This will be the first jailbreak available for the iPhone 4S, and the first jailbreak for iPad 2 running iOS 5.

If you have a third party SSD you probably noticed that Mac OS X Lion probably doesn’t support TRIM on the drive. While OS X Lion supports TRIM for all Apple SSD’s, many third party SSD’s are left without trim in OS X 10.7, OS X 10.8, OS X 10.9, and OS X 10.10.

Read more »

The Dock disappears whenever an app is put into Mac OS X full screen mode, but that doesn’t mean you can’t access the Dock if you need it. To show the Dock in a full screen app, swipe twice at the bottom of the screen, the first swipe won’t show anything but the second swipe will draw the Dock upwards as usual.

Regardless of Dock auto-hide settings this will activate the same way so long as the user is in full-screen mode for any given app. This is the only way to reveal the Dock under such circumstances, and the feature is defaulted this way because it reduces screen clutter and maximizes the on-display room for the given app. On a huge display like an iMac that may not seem to meaningful, but on smaller screened Macs like the MacBook Air, this makes a lot of sense and is very useful.

This feature is exclusive to versions of OS X that have full screen app mode, which was introduced in OS X 10.7 and continues in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and presumably into the future.

The Mac OS X Terminal includes a great feature that lets you quickly access new manual pages from any existing Terminal window.

Read more »

Screen zoom is a useful feature of Mac OS X that zooms into the screen where ever the cursor is located, making it easier to see parts of the screen, examine pixels, read small fonts, and perform other functions with greater visual clarity. The zoom feature was enabled by default in some earlier versions of Mac OS X whenever the control key was held down, but in modern versions of Mac OS X, the screen zoom feature has been turned off by default, and is now a feature of Accessibility settings.

Read more »

Mac users who have Windows running in Boot Camp will appreciate this utility which grants complete keyboard access equivalency to Apple keyboards in Windows. The appropriately named “Apple Wireless Keyboard Helper” is a nice free Windows tool that restores many of the Windows-specific functions and keys that are seemingly lost when using an Apple keyboard, including the Delete key, Print Screen, CTRL+ALT+DEL, volume adjustment, function toggle, and more.

Read more »

FreeSpaceTab is a free utility that lets you manage hard disks and mounted volumes directly from the Mac OS X menu bar.

With an attractive and simple GUI, you can pull the menu down to see all mounted drives and partitions, arranged by volume type (local drives, disk images, network volumes, etc) as well as free space available on each volume. Drives can ejected on a per disk basis, or mass ejected if you want to unmount everything. Also nice, the menubar icon itself can be set to display available disk space on the default boot volume, allowing for an quick way to see available drive capacity.

These menubar apps are especially useful if you hide the Mac OS X desktop to reduce clutter, because they give you information and functionality that you’d otherwise need to access the desktop or a Finder window for.

• Download FreeSpace Tab from the Mac App Store (free)

FreeSpaceTab is a better solution than the recently discussed a hidden eject menu that can be enabled in Mac OS X, containing additional functionality as well as the ability to eject disks. All in all a worthwhile app to download, check it out.

If you’ve maintained old iPhone baseband in order to utilize carrier unlocks, you’ll be pleased to know that you can now upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 and jailbreak untethered the iPhone while preserving the unlockable baseband. The procedure is done by using the newest version of PwnageTool 5.0.1, and if you’re familiar with past versions of pwnage then you should be right at home, but nonetheless we will walk through the entire process.

Note: Only need a jailbreak? If you don’t need a carrier unlock, use this guide to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 untethered with redsn0w, it’s faster and doesn’t include the baseband preservation.

Before proceeding, make sure you meet the following requirements:

• iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS with preserved and unlockable baseband: 01.59.00, 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.13.04, 06.15.00
• iOS 5.0.1 IPSW – optional, depending on if you already have it stored locally or not
• iTunes 10.5.2
• PwnageTool 5.0.1 – download now

Assuming you meet all those requirements and you understand the risks, continue on. Read carefully or else you can accidentally update your baseband and lose your unlock.

Jailbreak iPhone with iOS 5.0.1 while Preserving Baseband Unlock

• Launch PwnageTool 5.0.1 and select your iPhone model, then click the next arrow
• Let PwnageTool search for firmware (or you can download iOS 5.0.1 firmware manually), select it and click the Next arrow again
• Click “Yes” when asked if you want to save the custom IPSW file to the desktop, and click yes/no depending on your activation
• Let PwnageTool build the custom IPSW, enter the administrator password when asked
• Now connect the iPhone to the computer and place it into DFU mode: Hold power button for 3 seconds, continue holding Power button and also hold the Home button for 10 seconds, release Power button but continue to hold Home button for another 15 seconds
• When DFU is confirmed, quit out of PwnageTool and launch iTunes
• Hold the Option key and click on “Restore” and select the custom firmware created by PwnageTool, located on the desktop
• iTunes will now restore the iPhone to the custom iOS 5.0.1 build, simultaneously jailbreaking the phone and also preserving the unlockable baseband
• After the device has been jailbroken and booted up, launch Cydia and download Ultrasn0w 1.2.5 to unlock the iPhone

The unlocked iPhone should now be good to use on another carrier. If you have trouble activating, use the original activated SIM card briefly to pass through activation, or run the newest version of redsn0w on top.

Typically we try to just post workstations for Mac setups, but Rejean H sent in pictures of what amounts to a giant collection of Macs built up over the years, and we just had to post it.

Ranging from some of the first Macs to be released, to the Macintosh Portable, Mac Classic, 20th Anniversary Mac, Power Mac 7200, 9500, Performas, eMac, G4 Cube, clamshell iBook, to modern aluminum iMacs and a new MacBook Air, this is a room full of one huge collection of Apple gear.

Check out more pictures below:
Read more »

Spotlight is a wonderful feature of Mac OS X that lets you quickly find literally anything on a Mac by search, that includes files, apps, folders, emails, you name it, and Spotlight will find it, but sometimes you don’t want everything to be indexed. Whether that’s an external backup drive, a scratch disk, a directory of temporary items, or just a private folder with files you don’t want easily found through the search function, you’ll find that excluding drives, files, and directories from Spotlight is actually very easy.

Read more »