You’ll often hear Mac users reference their machines by a model and the build year (for example, Mac Mini 2010, or MacBook Pro 2016), or by a timeline within the year it was released (iMac mid-2011 model). Sure some Mac users just have an amazing memory for this stuff, but everyone else can retrieve the … Read More
Want to concert an audio file to an iPhone ringtone? That’s easy to do on the Mac, thanks to QuickTime. Yes the video player! This also allows you to concert audio tracks of video files to ringtones too. Sure, most people use QuickTime Player as a way to watch movies, but using it’s Export function … Read More
Mac OS X makes it easier and faster than ever to access and tweak Accessibility Options from anywhere on the Mac, thanks to a new keyboard shortcut. The Accessibility panel allows Mac users to quickly toggle zoom, VoiceOver, sticky keys, slow keys, mouse keys, screen contrasts, screen invert, and more, depending on what version of … Read More
Bored with your Mac screen savers? Don’t forget to check out the four beautiful new screensaver additions to OS X Mountain Lion, or the 14 new ways to display them. If you haven’t seen them yet: Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and click on the “Desktop & Screen Saver” panel Find them … Read More
The new OS X Reminders app is iCloud enabled, and much like the Notes app, it lets you pin a list to the desktop. These two features combine to bring a synced and automatically updating To-Do list right to the Mac desktop, meaning if you change or complete a task while on the go from … Read More
Need to remove the audio track of a movie? iMovie on the Mac can make quick work of that, so as long as you have iMovie in Mac OS X you’ll be on your way to turning a movie with sound into a silent movie. This is helpful for when you need to add a … Read More
Do you type your email often, but would prefer to not have to type out the entire thing on your Mac? Then you’ll find this trick to be particularly useful. Text Expansion is a wonderfully helpful feature that lets you type a short character sequence that instantly gets expanded out to something else. This has … Read More
Did you record a great video on your iPhone or iPad and now you want the full quality version on a computer? If you’ve ever used the iOS built-in sharing tools to send a movie from an iPhone or iPad, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed the quality gets reduced from the high quality HD 4k, 720p, … Read More
Previous versions of Mac OS X allowed you to see a “Now Playing” notification pop up over the iTunes Dock icon, the alert showed the song and artist name anytime a track switched and is a really popular tweak. It turns out that hidden feature is missing from OS X Mountain Lion, but with the … Read More
Encrypting folders and requiring passwords for access is an excellent way to store and protect private data on a Mac. Now, there is a new means of password protecting folders and sensitive files introduced in Mac OS X that lets you create a new encrypted disk image directly from a specified folder. Though you can … Read More
We already knew that NASA used a lot of Macs during the Mars Curiosity landing event, but hardcore Mac geeks will be interested to know the Rover itself is running on both hardware and software that Apple used not only in consumer Macs of yesteryear, but that Apple still uses today!
Looking for some temporary peace and quiet from alerts and notifications but don’t want to completely disable Notification Center on your Mac? There are two quick ways to temporarily hush all notifications in Mac OS X, silencing and stopping both the pop-up alerts and sound effects with the notifications, these two methods last until the … Read More
A never-before-aired commercial for the original Macintosh has surfaced which any fan of Apple history should get a kick out of it. Coming in at just over a minute long, the unaired TV ad includes some big name early-Apple employees, including Andy Hertzfeld, Burrel Smith, George Crow, Bill Atkinson, and Mike Murray, all describing Macintosh … Read More
As you probably noticed when configuring iMessage on a Mac, you use an Apple ID during the set up process. This allows iMessage to sync all messages between any Macs and any iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad you may have using that same Apple ID, allowing all Messages app conversations to sync and be the … Read More
Since OS X 10.7.2 onward, you can access files stored in iCloud directly from the OS X Finder. Furthermore, if you have multiple Macs configured with iCloud and running Lion or Mountain Lion, you can actually use this hidden folder to sync files between Macs with iCloud, much like DropBox. With OS X and iOS … Read More
We have discussed the powerful new Wi-Fi Scanner tool in OS X but it turns out there’s a much easier way to access the Wi-Fi Diagnostics app than to dig around in /System/Library/CoreServices/ and make a Dock or LaunchPad alias. Instead, you can quickly launch the excellent wi-fi diagnostics app on a Mac at any … Read More
Mac OS X includes a great built-in utility that helps you test existing password strength, and also generate new strong passwords. If you’re wondering if your password is secure this is a great safe way to test the quality of it, and it’s also a safe way to create new strong passwords that you know … Read More
The new Notes app in OS X features a default font that is kind of hard to read and looks a bit goofy, nearly like Comic Sans. If you want a more professional looking font that’s easier on the eyes, you can easily switch the default font from “Noteworthy” to the always classic Helvetica, or … Read More
