How many times have you typed something to discover the last two characters are in the wrong order? You know, when “the” turns into “teh” and “something into “somethign”, a fairly common general mistype. Well the Mac has a solution to this, with a great little keystroke that swaps the last two characters.
If you’re wondering who made the SSD (flash storage) drive on a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro it’s fairly easy to determine: Pull down the Apple menu and choose “About This Mac”, then click on “More Info” Click “System Report” Look under “Hardware” for the “Serial-ATA” entry and select it Expand the chipset and … Read More
The optional Path bar shows the complete filesystem path to the current working directory in any Finder window of Mac OS X. This optional window-dressing item has more use beyond that though, because not only does it show you the present directory, it’s also interactive. In short, that means you can double-click the individual folders … Read More
Satellite Eyes is a neat free app that automatically adjusts your desktops background wallpaper to satellite images of your current location. Commute to work and you’ll see a new background than what you do at home, fly across the country or world and it’ll change with you. For a simple app there are a fair … Read More
If you travel internationally with a Mac or you split life between different parts of the world you can make your computing life easier by adjusting regional settings based on your current location. Mac OS X makes this very easy to do and you can switch from US to metric, change currency, and set the … Read More
If you use Instagram and you’ve ever wanted to download all the pictures you’ve taken you’ve probably noticed there is no built-in option to do so. Thankfully there are several free options that let you back up all photos from Instagram and export them all directly to your computer. We’ve narrowed it down to the … Read More
We have covered a handful of different ways to disable the internal screen on a MacBook Pro/Air while keeping the laptops lid open and the computer turned on, ranging from a command line approach, dimming brightness or using sleep, and even a silly magnet trick, but for whatever reason there have always been a few … Read More
If you’ve ever entered a lengthy command into the terminal and upon execution discovered a syntax error, a “no such file or directory”, or “command not found” message because you made a typo, you’ll love this quick tip that lets you rerun the last executed command while replacing the erroneous syntax. You’ll need to be … Read More
Some of you may have experienced the unfortunate kernel panic on boot problem that is occurring on certain Macs after they’ve installed recent software updates. If you haven’t installed the “Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2” yet it’s best to avoid it completely until a fix comes from Apple. If it’s too late and you’re experiencing crashes … Read More
Apple revealed an all new “next generation” MacBook Pro at WWDC 2012 today, it’s the first retina Mac to be made available and comes in addition to their standard MacBook Pro line. The enclosure looks similar to existing unibody MacBook Pro models, though it is significantly thinner and lighter than any previous models.
It’s always a good idea to backup a file if you’re going to be making some changes to it and you’re uncertain of the outcome. In the Finder this is as simple as just selecting the file and hitting Command+D to create a duplicate of the file in question, but in the command line you … Read More
Do you remember how you could make small and precise 1/4 incremental changes to brightness and audio volume in Mac OS X Snow Leopard by holding down the Option key? Many thought this feature disappeared with OS X Lion, but it turns out you can still make those incremental adjustments in both OS X Lion, … Read More
If you think a Mac display looks fuzzy or blurry there are a few common solutions to check into before assuming the screen itself has a problem. Likewise, if your screen text just doesn’t look right it may be due to a few settings within Mac OS X. With that in mind here are a … Read More
We often get asked what the single most useful Mac tip is, or what a handful of the best tricks are. It’s impossible to answer such a question given the diversity of use cases of OS X, but here’s a collection of what are surely some of the absolute best tips for Mac OS X … Read More
Keeping a portable Mac turned on while the lid remains closed is commonly referred to as clamshell mode. Clamshell mode basically docks the MacBook Air / Pro / etc and allows the GPU to power an external display only, which can help performance of some games and graphics intensive tasks. Additionally, some MacBook users just … Read More
Are you looking for a way to make the command line a bit more user friendly? If so, you may find Fish to be a pretty nice alternative shell whether you are completely new to the OS X Terminal or you just want some general assistance when at the command line.
Closed Captioning places written text at the bottom of video content, allowing for anyone to read along with the video rather than listen to the audio. This is an essential feature for certain accessibility purposes and for individuals who are hard of hearing, but it’s also just a useful feature to enable if you want … Read More
The MacUpdate June 2012 Bundle is an absolute whopper of a deal with 11 killer Mac apps that would otherwise retail for $457 for just $49.99. Some particular highlights in the bundle are Parallels 7, ScreenFlow 3, Civilization 5, Jaksta, and My Living Desktop, but you’ll find every app in the bundle to be quite … Read More
