You can use the tab key to auto-complete paths within Go To Folder on the Mac, a particularly handy trick to keep in mind the next time you’re navigating directory paths on the Mac. Tab key auto-completion is a feature that many command line users are familiar with, particularly those with a unix and linux … Read More
It’s easy to wind up with an overwhelming number of Safari web browser windows open on a Mac (or Windows too). If you’re like me you tend to have a million browser windows open at the same time, as you read, browse, and research things around the web. This can make it really difficult to … Read More
Mac OS X warns users in a variety of different ways if they have downloaded a file from the internet to their Mac, with a popup message that says something along the lines of “[NAME] is an application downloaded from the internet. Are you sure you want to open it?”, or even “this application can’t … Read More
Parallels is pretty great software that lets you easily run Windows apps on Mac OS X. The latest version was just announced and is faster than ever with full 64-bit support, it retails for $79.99 which isn’t a bad price but why pay more when you don’t have to? I like a good deal, so … Read More
Special characters can be accessed easily in Mac OS X through a special floating window called the “Character Viewer”. From within this characters menu, you’ll find a list of various dingbats, arrows, parenthesis, foreign currency symbols, pictographs, bullets and stars, math symbols, letterlike symbols, Emoji, and latin characters, plus a helpful “Recently Used” option which … Read More
Did you know that you can immediately open any directory from within the Open & Save dialog windows found throughout Mac OS X? Say you want to open a file contained in a folder which is buried deep in the file system and you know the path, or that you want to save a file … Read More
Mac OS X includes Samba support by default, which allows for communication between OS X and Windows PC hardware. SMB is what enables simple Mac to Windows file sharing, but you can also go further and utilize the command line of OS X or Linux to remotely monitor, start, and stop services running on Windows … Read More
You can switch the functionality of the iTunes store arrows so that if they are clicked they will take you to the iTunes library instead. Launch the Terminal and use the following command: defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YES You can reverse this and go back to the iTunes Store links with: defaults write com.apple.iTunes … Read More
You may have noticed that when you select a song in iTunes a little arrow will appear next to the song name, the artist, album, genre, and every other sort category. If you happen to click on that little arrow, you’ll be directed to the iTunes Store for that album or artist. I’m really not … Read More
iTunes 10 has a cool feature where you can use album art as a HUD mini-player on your desktop, it looks pretty great and reminds me of the iPod music player on the iPod touch and iPhone where it’s centered around the album art, being totally barebones except for when you hover over and click … Read More
Need to change the hostname of a Mac? For most people if you want to change your Mac computer name you just do it through the Sharing system preference, it’s quick and very easy. For those of us that are more geekishly inclined, we like to do things through the Terminal. This tutorial will show … Read More
I’m liking iTunes 10 but I can’t say I’m a fan of the vertical control buttons, which some are calling ‘traffic lights’ since well, it resembles traffic lights. Sure it saves space but it breaks away from the standardized UI convention. Thankfully we can change back to the classic horizontal buttons without much effort. If … Read More
Did you know that you can use Quick Look to zoom in on items within Expose? This is an awesome trick sent in by one of our readers: “While in Exposé in Snow Leopard, press the space bar while mousing over a window. You’ll get an actual-size preview of the window. You can read all … Read More
The quickest way to set your IP address from the command line is to use the versatile and powerful ipconfig utility, which is bundled directly with Mac OS X. We’ll show you how to set an IP address with ipconfig by retrieving one from a DHCP server, and also demonstrate how to set a specific … Read More
Anytime that you run a command through the Terminal directly by a command name like ls or dscacheutil, your Mac is looking through a series of directories for that command to exist. This list of directories is called the PATH, and it’s a carry over from the unix underpinnings of Mac OS X. As you … Read More
Here’s a Mac heartbreaker: a motorcycle enthusiast went for a ride carrying his MacBook Pro 13″ in a backpack, unfortunately the zipper holding the MacBook Pro in place failed going a reported 195mph (315km/h)!
Apple looks like they’ll be jumping full force into the touch screen market sometime in the future. An uncovered patent application shows an iMac Touch that runs both Mac OS X and iOS, which seamlessly switches between the two operating systems depending on how the screen is orientated. In this image, the iMac screen is … Read More
Often overlooked, the Terminal can be used to accomplish all sorts of fun stuff. Something that you may find handy, is the ability to Tweet using built in Mac OS X command line utilities like curl. Yes, curl! Now of course this is not a full featured Twitter client by any means, but if you … Read More
