Bored with the Mac OS X default screen savers? I was too, sure you can make your own screensaver out of pictures but I wanted something more than that. Here are six random and free screen savers for Mac OS X: a new fancy Instagram feed, two cool galaxy animations, 2001’s HAL computer display animations, … Read More
In Mac OS X, a users short name is what their home folder is named after and it’s also the shorthand name for logging into the Mac either from a lock screen or a network connection with remote access through SSH and SFTP. There’s various reasons that you’d want to change the user short name, … Read More
A newly discovered patent shows that Apple is working to build displays that have a unique ability to direct their viewing angle, creating a controllable privacy mode that blocks peripheral observation of the screen. This ‘privacy mode’ would be activated by something like a touch event that would instantly change the displays viewing angle. As … Read More
You can pause any active download from the Mac App Store by right-clicking on the apps icon in the Dock and selecting “Pause” from the menu. Resuming the download is just a matter of right-clicking again and selecting Unpause.
If you’re tired of the antiquated (retro?) text-only appearance of the command line and Terminal.app, check out the fascinating new TermKit project. TermKit aims to bridge aspects of the GUI with the command line, allowing this re-imagined terminal to see anything from icons to images, with progress bars and indicators that commands have executed successfully … Read More
Migrating from a Windows PC to Mac just got a whole lot easier thanks to an app called Parallels Transporter. It’s actually two apps, one client that runs on the Windows PC and the other runs in Mac OS X, install both and they’ll talk to each other and do almost the entire file migration … Read More
The default setting in Mac OS X Finder is to display no file information, but you can easily set the Finder, Windows, and the Desktop to show image dimensions through a setting in View Options. Basically, you’ll see the complete resolution of a picture highlighted in blue underneath the file name, hugely useful for Mac … Read More
You can access two unusual debugging options in the Mac OS X System Preferences for Desktops and Screen Savers panel by using a keystroke while accessing the panel.
Mac OS X Lion Dev Preview 3 was just released to developers and along with it came a new bunch of beautiful high-res wallpapers at 3200×2000 resolution. You can download all 14 wallpapers in a zip bundle from Mediafire Here’s a few to see, but you’ll need to use the above download link to get … Read More
Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 is now available for developers to download. The release is labeled as another update to Developer Preview 2, but MacStories notes that Apple’s Mac Developer Center indicates the release is in fact Lion Developer Preview 3. The update is available through Software Update and weighs in between 1GB … Read More
The top command is a great way to get a quick overview of how your system is performing and how apps are using your resources. If you are unfamiliar with it, it’s basically a command line task manager like Activity Monitor and it shows processor usage, memory usage, disk activity, load average, and other helpful … Read More
Just like you can drag your own folders into the sidebar, you can also drags apps into Finder window sidebars for quick access. Once apps are in the sidebar, if you click on them they will launch, which makes desktop windows serve a dual purpose as both file manager and a quick application launcher.
An upcoming iteration of iOS may include further abilities to respond and react to environmental stimuli, according to a patent granted to Apple. The patent describes sensors that make a device aware of its speed, direction, temperature, and orientation on Earth, in addition to utilizing a microphone and camera to detect changes in the surrounding … Read More
Apple has patented a very unique keyboard design that uses micro-perforations to shoot air at the users fingers upon touch, providing tactile feedback to whoever is typing. What makes this patent even more interesting is that not only could it apply to standard keyboards, but also virtual keyboards on iOS devices, as PatentlyApple elaborates: flowing … Read More
Don’t want to dig out the Terminal or Activity Monitor to relaunch the Finder? No sweat. Hold down Option and then right-click on the Finder icon in the Dock. You’ll now see an otherwise hidden “Relaunch” option, select it and Finder will quit and relaunch. It only takes a few seconds to reload. Relaunching the … Read More
If you’re video chatting at night or in an area with limited lighting, you can brighten your face by opening up a blank white web browser window. This is obviously a really simple tip, but it’s kind of fun to see how surprisingly useful blank browser windows can be (like speeding up Safari on the … Read More
You can run multiple instances of any application in Mac OS X with a little command line magic. Using the ‘open’ command to launch GUI apps from the Terminal, we can run a new instance of any app, even if it is already running.
TenFourFox is an essential web browser for any Mac OS X user that is still using a PowerPC machine. It’s a fork of Mozilla that is practically identical to Firefox 4, the only difference is that it includes support for PowerPC chips, meaning you’ll get all the CSS3 and HTML5 support that Firefox 4 comes … Read More
