Need to securely delete a file, group of files, or an entire directory, insuring that it’s quite literally never recoverable by any known possible means? You can do this easily from the command line with the help of an incredibly powerful tool called srm. srm, as you may have guessed, stands for ‘secure removal’, and … Read More
Have you ever noticed how some apps will have information pulled from your iOS Contacts list, like peoples names, numbers, and contact information? Or, contrarily, how some apps should have access to your address book, but don’t, and are then feature limited? Though this happens by choice, it’s fairly easy to overlook these settings during … Read More
If you need to create an encrypted PDF with password protection, forget about buying Adobe Acrobat or other expensive software, because Mac OS X has you covered with built-in tools. Yes, the Mac can natively create secure password protected PDF documents, meaning it’s free, and it’s also impressively easy to do.
Spotlight is the core of Mac OS X’s Search functionality, and if you want Spotlight to ignore a file, folder, or drive, the traditionally recommended advice is to drag the items to exclude from indexation into the Spotlight system preference panel exclusion list. That’s the recommended approach because it’s simple to use and easy to … Read More
It’s really easy to delete calls from the iPhone call history log, and you can get quite specific in the process. You can delete a single specific call, outbound calls, incoming calls, all missed calls, received calls, basically, if it is included in the Phone app “Recents” list, it can be deleted with ease. While … Read More
FileVault is an amazing disk level encryption feature that comes with Mac OS X. When it has been enabled, it encrypts everything, all disk contents, and actively encrypts and decrypts data on the fly, meaning any newly created data or document will instantly be encrypted as well. It’s fast and incredibly secure, using XTS-AES 128 … Read More
Ever wished you could turn off the phone call portion of your iPhone, while still retaining the ability to use data, access the internet, even send iMessages? You can do that with a funky workaround we’ll cover here, and it’s an amazing solution if you’re looking for some peace and quiet but in a situation … Read More
Mac OS X defaults to automatically re-opening windows when an application is quit and relaunched later. This feature is borrowed from iOS and it’s incredibly useful, and once you become dependent on it you’ll find that it can really increase your productivity by allowing you to get back to work quickly. This is especially true … Read More
Read Receipts allow others to be notified when you have read their messages on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. From the user perspective it displays as a tiny “Read” indicator below a sent message if the recipient has seen the message. There is some obvious benefit to that, but it can also be a … Read More
Siri defaults to speaking responses back through the speakers of the iPhone and iPad, and often quite loudly at that. Though you can control Siri’s volume level independently of general system audio levels, having the voice of Siri be set to a very quiet level isn’t much of a solution if you actually want to … Read More
Having been inundated with spam text messages and SMS lately on my iPhone, I went looking for a solution to put an end to it all. Though it’s not as simple as it should be, there is a way to block virtually all spam texts from ever reaching your phone, and it actually works. To … Read More
Want to hide an app or two from appearing on the iOS home screen? Maybe you want to hide all apps downloaded from the App Store, but keep the defaults visible? Or maybe you just want to hide a stock app that shipped with your iPhone or iPad like Safari or iTunes? You can do … Read More
Using the automatic log out feature is a good way to bring an additional layer of security to a Mac. It works just as you’d expect; after a predetermined amount of time has passed without activity, the active user account logs itself out. This means all currently running apps close out as well as all … Read More
Disabling the camera access in iOS prevents the Camera app icon from appearing on the home screen, it turns off the lock screen camera, and it also prevents all third party apps from using the camera at all, which as you may have guessed also disables FaceTime. No, you don’t have to physically remove the … Read More
The Mac includes an optional Guest User account which is perfect for temporary usage situations like letting your friend or family quickly check their Facebook account and email from your computer. This is great because the Guest Login can be active while your normal user account is too, meaning you can quickly hand off your … Read More
From iOS 6.1 onward, users can now reset the Advertising Identifier on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This means you can basically throw all the anonymously gathered data about a device that is used to serve relevant ads out the window and start fresh, thereby removing any of the targeted data that has been … Read More
The ability to block incoming calls on the iPhone is missing on older versions of iOS, and though new versions of iOS can block calls, older devices are left withthe Do Not Disturb feature. Do Not Disturb is excellent, but it’s not really blocking unwanted calls, it just sets a time period where any calls … Read More
If you accidentally permitted a Mac app to gain access to things like your personal contacts list or location, or you’d just like to start over again and have granular control over which applications can access certain data, you can use the command line tool tccutil to change this and reset Mac app access to … Read More
