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Change the Browser User Agent in Chrome, Safari, & Firefox

Jan 16, 2013 - 14 Comments
Change the User Agent in Safari

A web browsers user agent is how a website knows what type of computer, operating system, and browsing app you are using. Some sites serve different themes, CSS, content, or even different sites to different browsers and OS’s, and many developers often need to change their own user agent to be able to test these … Read More

Get Fast Access to Sleep, Shut Down, and Restart Controls in Mac OS X

Jan 15, 2013 - 12 Comments
OS X Power controls for shut down reboot etc

Many longtime Mac users may know the handful of keyboard shortcuts to instantly reboot, shut down, and sleep Macs, but for those who haven’t memorized the precise keystrokes yet, a much safer option is to instantly summon the power controls for OS X instead. This allows you to choose the power option you need while … Read More

Turn TextEdit Into an HTML Source Viewer with a Simple Settings Change

Jan 14, 2013 - 2 Comments
View HTML Source with TextEdit

TextEdit is a reasonably decent text editing app that has been bundled along with just about every version of OS X since the beginning. If you’ve ever opened an HTML file with TextEdit you have probably discovered the app actually renders the HTML code, displaying the formatted text, rather than displaying the source itself. This … Read More

Set MTU Size from the Command Line of Mac OS X

Jan 14, 2013 - 18 Comments
Set the MTU size in Mac OS X

MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit, and a larger MTU size generally increases efficiency of a network connection because each packet carries more data, but sometimes the default MTU sizes (often 1500) will cause issues with some networks and needs adjusting. If you need to change the MTU size on a Mac, you can do … Read More

Converting Image File Formats with the Command Line & sips

Jan 11, 2013 - 16 Comments
Convert image files from the command line

Converting images to new file formats is very easy thanks to a variety of tools built directly into OS X (and most Linux distributions). Though the easiest method uses Preview for converting images, there’s a command line option that uses the same sips tool we’ve discussed before to perform batch resizing from the command line. … Read More

Check the Battery Level of Bluetooth Devices Connected to a Mac

Jan 10, 2013 - 13 Comments
Bluetooth keyboard battery level, shown in the System Preference panel

Most Bluetooth accessories don’t have battery indicators located on the device itself, and that includes the Apple Wireless Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad. Rather than waiting for the battery to run low, thereby causing the devices connection to weaken, stop registering movements, clicks, or certain behavior, you can choose to manually intervene by periodically … Read More

How to Disable Finder Icon Thumbnails and Previews for Images & Video Files

Jan 10, 2013 - 11 Comments
Disable Finder icon preview thumbnail generation

Have you noticed that when you’re browsing through folders on the Mac that icons are actually previews of images and even live playable videos? This sure makes the OS X Finder snazzy looking, but in some situations where tons of images and video files are contained within single folders, it can have the unwanted side … Read More

Enable an Emoji & Special Character Menu Item for Fast Access in Mac OS X

Jan 9, 2013 - 4 Comments
Show the Emoji Character Viewer menu bar item in Mac OS X

Emoji icons are a lot of fun and special characters can be extremely useful, but the standard way of opening the character viewer panel isn’t the smoothest in the world. Fortunately, OS X has an excellent bundled menu bar option that can be enabled to allow for extremely fast Emoji and character access, letting you … Read More

Monitor a Bluetooth Device’s Connection Strength in Mac OS X

Jan 8, 2013 - 14 Comments
Bluetooth Connection Monitor in OS X

Those who use external Bluetooth devices with a Mac, whether it’s a keyboard, mouse, headset, or anything else, are probably aware that connection strength between the device and the computer is going to directly impact how usable the device is. The next obvious question then is, how do you check the strength of such a … Read More

Fixing Grey Songs & Unplayable Albums in Music App on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Jan 7, 2013 - 3 Comments
Fixing gray songs in iOS Music app

Have you ever gotten a new album or podcast, synced it over to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, then when you went to play the songs you discovered they were grayed out in the Music app? The album is there, the song title is there, but because the song is grey you can tap … Read More

Nevermind, No Free Downloads of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, & CS2

Jan 7, 2013 - 9 Comments
Adobe Creative Suite 2

Update: Adobe apparently made some sort of error, and is not actually giving away any CS2 software for free. Here is what they have to say on their Community Forums: On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated … You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2! What is true is that … Read More

Get a List of Preferred Wi-Fi Networks from Command Line on Mac

Jan 3, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Mac Terminal icon

Retrieving a list of preferred wireless networks can be helpful when troubleshooting wi-fi problems, amongst other reasons too. If you’re looking to print out a list of wi-fi networks the Mac has used as preferred and connected to before, the following trick will do just that!

9 Essential OS X Maintenance & Set Up Tips Mac Users Should Do Right Now

Jan 1, 2013 - 6 Comments
Essential Mac maintenace tips for new years (or any time of year)

Ever wondered what maintenance is truly essential for a Mac? Maybe you’re wondering what the best backup solution is? Or maybe you just want to secure your Mac a bit more? Take the time for these simple digital resolutions to make your Mac perform better, be safer and more secure, plus give you some added … Read More

A Nice & Simple Binary Clock Screen Saver for Mac OS X

Dec 29, 2012 - 25 Comments
Binary clock screen saver

Minimally styled clock screen savers are fairly popular and we’ve shared a variety of them here before, but it’s hard to get more minimal than a binary clock. The aptly named BinaryClock is just that, a free and simple binary clock screen saver for OS X that has some nice color effects that change with … Read More

How to Get Snapchat in Mac OS X (or Windows)

Dec 28, 2012 - 72 Comments
Snapchat on Mac

Snapchat is a very popular quirky picture messaging client for Android and iPhone that allows people to share pictures and have conversations that disappear after a very short time interval, after which the shared content is gone forever. The spontaneous and fleeting nature of the messages has given the app an interesting reputation that you … Read More

11 Must-Have Free Apps for New Macs

Dec 26, 2012 - 93 Comments
Evernote for Mac

Some OS X apps are so great and so universally useful that they earn the title of “must-have” on just about any Mac, and we’re bringing you an essential list of these must-have apps that also happen to be completely free. Whether you have a brand new Mac that needs some new apps and utilities … Read More

See a List of All Wi-Fi Networks a Mac Has Previously Connected To

Dec 21, 2012 - 10 Comments
List of past wi-fi networks

Knowing which wireless networks a Mac has been connected to in the past be can be helpful for a variety of reasons, including network troubleshooting, determining where a Mac has been, if a specific wifi password is recoverable, and a myriad of other technical reasons. Searching for past networks is completely different from finding currently … Read More

Preview Mac Fonts Directly from the OS X Fonts Panel

Dec 19, 2012 - 7 Comments
Preview Mac Fonts quickly and easily with the Fonts Panel

The next time you want to see a live preview of what a Font might look like without actually implementing it, use this great little trick to reveal a precise font preview anywhere in Mac OS X where the Fonts panel exists. All you need to do is open the Fonts window as usual, but … Read More

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