Increasing the size of the Mac mouse and trackpad pointer is an important ability for those with visual impairments, but it’s also a great way to make a Mac more friendly for newcomers to computers in general, like kids and grandparents. This tutorial will detail how to increase the size of the cursor on a … Read More
Portal 2 for Mac is out, the game is a unique puzzle-shooter blend that is unlike nearly any other game on the market. The game includes single player and a new multiplayer cooperative mode that requires two players to work together in unique ways. Valve describes Portal 2 as follows: Portal 2 draws from the … Read More
Customizing the Mac Finder window toolbars can be a good way to gain quicker access to features you use often, and to help navigate around the file system of OS X , but what if you overdo it and the toolbar becomes cluttered with way too many buttons and doo-dads, resulting in a toolbar that … Read More
If you’re coming to Mac OS X from elsewhere in the unix & x11 world, you might be used to the focus of Terminal windows following your mouse cursor. With a little command line magic, we can enable this hidden feature in the Mac OS X Terminal.app too.
Is that Magsafe cable cord getting in your way when using your Mac laptop? Try attaching the cord to the side of your Mac’s display by using the cables clip as shown in the pictures. This works with newer MacBook Pro’s, unibody MacBooks, and new MacBook Air too, it clips directly onto the side of … Read More
If you’ve bought a MacBook Air recently, you may have a faster SSD than a model that was purchased just a few months ago. The difference in read and write speed is noticeable, the above chart shows the ‘old’ Toshiba TS128C drive atop a ‘new’ SM128C drive, which Anandtech assumes is produced by Samsung, saying: … Read More
Update: Updated with direct download links for the DP2 Update 1 packages – these files are only relevant for developers with DP2 installed. An update to Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2 has been pushed out via Software Update. The download comes in at around 1GB and changes aren’t specific other than being “recommended … Read More
You can add a Recent Items menu Stack to the Mac OS X Dock by using a defaults write command. The default is set to “Recent Applications” but once the Dock item exists you can adjust it to feature other recent items too, like Recent Files, Recent Items, Recent Servers. This is a neat feature … Read More
Late last night, a reference to a “ix.Mac.MarketingName” mystery string appeared on the iOS App Stores under the required compatibility section of nearly all apps. Initially people thought it was just a bug, but the placement and wording of the text started a fury of speculation. Most unusual of course is that it’s seemingly a … Read More
The Finder window sidebar makes navigation in Mac OS X easier, with quick access points to various aspects of a users home directory, as well as throughout the file system. Users can choose to show the Finder sidebar, or to hide the Finder sidebar, depending on their individual preferences.
You can start a FaceTime call from any web browser in Mac OS X or iOS with a custom URL structure. Then, if a user or yourself clicks that defined URL, a new FaceTime chat will attempt to initiate automatically to the set Apple ID, email, or phone number. This is a fun little trick … Read More
After a bit of use, my MacBook Air 11.6″ started to exhibit a strange behavior, it refused to wake from sleep. I’d open the MacBook Air, hit every key imaginable, and the Mac just stayed asleep, nothing would get it to turn on. If you’re interested in this you’re probably affected too so before I … Read More
If you would like to see the folder sizes on the Mac, you can do so easily by enabling a folder size calculation when looking at directories in the List View of Finder in Mac OS X. What this trick does is show folder sizes on the Mac, calculated in megabytes, kilobytes, or gigabytes, depending … Read More
If you’re trying to access the Mac App Store and you are getting the “Cannot Connect to App Store” error, you can typically resolve the issue with a few simple troubleshooting steps. This article will walk through some simple solutions to reconnect to the Mac App Store.
If you get easily distracted by things sitting around in the background, HazeOver might be for you. It’s a free utility that casts a shadow on all inactive windows, in other words, any window that isn’t in the foreground will be “hazed over.” Windows actually phase in and out of the shadow so it’s a … Read More
Booting a Mac with Verbose Mode can be a helpful troubleshooting trick for some obscure situations where users are trying to determine what is going wrong with a Mac during the system boot process. Just as it sounds, verbose mode is verbose, meaning it lists everything going on behind the scenes, and you’ll watch as … Read More
Want to use a rotated display on a MacBook? You can do exactly that, and the same way that you rotate screen orientation on a display connected to a Mac can be done with the built-in display of a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air (pictured).
Apple has announced the dates of WWDC 2011 as June 6 to June 10, which is just a day later than the rumored iPhone 5 release date. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, says “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” with a note … Read More
