An underused feature of Mac OS X is the ability to use any Finder window as an application launcher. This is actually a feature of the Toolbar, which is usually thought to just hold things like the back and forward buttons, list and icon views, etc. But in fact, that same toolbar can launch apps … Read More
Office 2011 for Mac is scheduled to be released at the end of October according to Microsoft, but ZDNet claims that the official release date will be October 26. This expected ship date date came from Amazon sales page for Office 2011, but now the date is no longer shown. which is now confirmed as … Read More
PixelStick is a great utility for designers who want to quickly measure distances and angles on their screen. Just launch the app and start dragging the endpoints to adjust measurements and get the pixel dimensions. This is an awesome tool, and it’s free to download. You can grab PixelStick for free from the developer, Pixelated … Read More
If you need to convert a .docx file to .doc, don’t pay for one of the many conversion sites or utilities out there. Your Mac has the ability to handle the file conversion entirely on it’s own already built in, and it’s completely free, no downloads or third party software is required. To convert the … Read More
AppleJack is a really handy troubleshooting utility for Mac that works even if you can’t load the Mac OS X GUI. Running in Single User Mode, it’s a simple menu-based tool to run a series of tests and repairs on the Mac OS. With AppleJack you can easily: * Repair Disk * Repair Disk Permissions … Read More
If you frequently access a file server from a Mac it’s pretty helpful to map the network drive to your desktop. There’s two ways to do this, one method is just mapped for one time use and will reset after a reboot, and another method is a more permanent route that allows the mapped network … Read More
Solitaire is one of those great card games that has passed countless hours over the course of it’s existence. Eventually it involved from just a card game to a computer card game, and it became a staple of the Windows gaming environment. But now you’re on a Mac, what do you do for your solitaire … Read More
This is a rather strange error message which you may see in Mac OS X, you’ll get the notification “Another device on the network is using your computer’s IP address” and then you’ll lose internet access with the dialog box telling you to try connecting again later. No thanks, we need internet access now! So … Read More
The Internet Explorer 9 beta is out now for testing, and a reader sent in this picture which is sure to disappoint Mac users all over: Internet Explorer 9 is not available to download for Mac, its for Windows Vista and 7 only. OK so sarcasm aside, I hear it’s actually pretty decent (for IE … Read More
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
