Want to quickly get to the User Library folder on Mac? A keyboard shortcut is one of the best ways to do that, particularly if you find yourself frequently accessing that folder. Using keyboard shortcuts are often the fastest way to navigate around the filesystem in Mac OS X, but new versions of MacOS and … Read More
Go2Shell is a free Finder toolbar add-on that creates a new Terminal window from the current directory of any desktop folder in Mac OS X with a click of a button. This is similar to the services option that can be added to the right-click contextual menu, but Go2Shell is faster due to resting in … Read More
A new developer build of Mac OS X 10.7.3 has been released by Apple as build 11D36. This is the third developer version of OS X 10.7.3 and is available for registered Mac Developers to download through the dev center with no known issues. Listing no known issues could suggest public availability in the near … Read More
Need to resize a ton of pictures on a Mac? Instead of downloading a third party application or using Preview, you can use Automator to handle the entire operation, even renaming the images to indicate they have been resized to a new resolution. Automator is included in every Mac OS X installation’s /Applications/ folder and … Read More
If you have a lot of app windows open in Mission Control, and you are grouping items in Mission Control by application, you can use a neat little trick to zoom into any Mission Control thumbnail on the Mac.
Growl is a popular notification system for Mac OS X that throws up those fading pop-up windows in the upper right corner of the screen. It’s a nice add on to OS X, and tons of other applications use Growl as their notification system. Then Mac OS X 10.7 came out, and Growl went from … Read More
Macs don’t have a “Print Screen” button like their Windows PC keyboard counterparts, but taking screenshots from a Mac that is booted into Windows by way of Boot Camp is easy with a few keyboard shortcuts. The secret is remembering which keys to press, and beyond that the process of printing screen captures in Boot … Read More
A helpful command line tool called hdiutil is included in Mac OS X that allows disk image files (.dmg extension) to be mounted directly from the Terminal, without the need of using the GUI. Using hdiutil for such a task is helpful for scripting or remote connections through SSH.
Want to compare hard disk performance or see just how big of a speed difference that SSD upgrade had? Grab the free Disk Speed Test tool from the Mac App Store, it’s a quick and simple way to measure drive performance. The app works by creating large blocks of temporary data that are written to … Read More
Can’t decide which wallpaper to use as your desktop background? Me neither. Fortunately there’s a setting in Mac OS X that causes the desktop picture to change itself automatically at a user selected time interval, ranging from every 5 seconds to once a day or upon system wake. Essentially this means your wallpaper will change … Read More
Apple is rumored to be working towards releasing retina display equipped MacBook Pro’s in the second quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the Taiwanese trade publication Digitimes. Citing upstream component sources, the displays are said to be 2880×1800 pixels and become yet another competitive advantage for Apple’s portable lineup: While the prevailing … Read More
Did you know you can launch a file directly into its default app, right from a Quick Look preview on Mac? And you can open the files from Quick Look preview into other compatible Mac apps too.
The next time you’re trying to tell someone how to update apps from the Mac App Store, why bother with a walkthrough when you can just send them a URL? Yup, you can send someone directly to the Mac App Store’s “Updates” portion just by using a link instead. This is a great trick for … Read More
Preview is an often underused Mac OS X app that can handle a lot of file and image conversion tasks without the need for downloading any third party tools. Preview also happens to be the default PDF viewer in Mac OS X, and as such it can be used to easily convert any PDF file … Read More
Whether you are disabling Spotlight or just wanting to reduce menubar icon clutter, it’s possible to hide the Spotlight icon. Here’s the best part though; if you just want to hide the Spotlight menu, you can do so without disabling the search abilities from functioning in the Finder or with other apps that rely on … Read More
The user caches folder sits in ~/Library/ and contains cache files from nearly all applications that are actively used in Mac OS X. While most apps maintain their caches reasonably well and don’t let things get out of control, some aren’t so good at it, and some apps leave behind rather large folders that serve … Read More
Apple has posted their annual iTunes and App Store rewind lists for 2011, naming the best music, movies, TV shows, books, podcasts, iOS apps, and Mac apps for the year. We’ll cover the best apps for iPad, iPhone, and Mac, and you can check out the rest of the winners on the iTunes or Mac … Read More
I’ve gotten in the habit of immediately putting my MacBook Air to sleep by shutting the lid, by far the easiest method if you’re on the go. Typically this works without a hitch, but today the Air didn’t sleep when shut. Because the MacBook Air has no moving hard drive or sleep light, I didn’t … Read More
