How many iPhone and iPad owners wind up having a frayed USB lightning adapter with wires visible or protruding from the cable? One of my own Lightning cables ended up a frayed disaster after less than a year of being always plugged into a MacBook, and only used on a desk – not exactly demanding … Read More
Every Mac which has the Pages app for Mac OS X installed includes a little Easter Egg that few know about; a famous Steve Jobs speech, tucked away in a little unassuming folder. Technically, it’s two different Steve Jobs speeches, the famous text from the Crazy Ones Think Different campaign, and arguably the even more … Read More
How often have you had a file open in one application on your Mac, only to need it opened in another OS X app instead? Fairly often, right? When confronted with that situation, most Mac users will do one of two things; go back to the Finder file system and re-open the file in the … Read More
Fiddling around with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad while driving or riding a bike is dangerous as it takes your eyes off an important task, which is why things like texting and driving are made illegal. Many of us use our iPhones and iPods in the car though for listening to podcasts and music … Read More
Saving a file or document as a PDF is easily done from almost anywhere in Mac OS by using the print to PDF feature, which is part of the Mac Printer service, but to trigger it you have to go to the Print menu and then specifically select to ‘print’ the file as a PDF … Read More
Though most email services nowadays support the “Sent” outbox, where you can easily find all emails that you’ve sent out from an iPhone (or elsewhere with that email account), not all mail providers do. This is particularly true for POP3 accounts where the email will be downloaded once from the server then deleted from the … Read More
Few Mac users seem to know it, but the Finder window toolbars of Mac OS X can be customized to serve as a quick-launch panel. You can store almost anything in the Finder toolbar, whether it’s an app, a directory, automator action, network share, a website bookmark, or even a frequently accessed document. Adding items … Read More
Have you ever wanted to share an iPhone picture with someone, but you’re concerned about them flipping through your camera roll and finding other photos you’d rather not share? If you want to limit that you have a few options available, but because the iPhone doesn’t have a specific ability to lock onto a single … Read More
The user path is the series of directories that command line programs are searched in order to run. For example, if you type ‘iostat’ into the terminal, then iostat will be run from /usr/sbin because “/usr/sbin” is part of your $PATH. Accordingly, users who frequently use the command line may need to adjust or add … Read More
Typically you can download anything from the Mac App Store without incident, that’s the way things are supposed to work. Sometimes things aren’t so hunky-dory, and one of the more peculiar errors from the App Store is the incredibly vague “We could not complete your purchase – Unknown Error” message.
Using Google’s “multiple sign-in” feature is a great way to juggle between multiple Google accounts and Gmail addresses. But a common issue with using multiple Google accounts is being able to determine which is the default account, and it’s easy to get things mixed up with multiple logins. That’s what we’re looking to resolve here, … Read More
Whether you’re waiting for your favorite show to come on TV, some wet paint to dry, or that chicken parmesan to finish cooking in the oven, we all need to use a countdown for helping us wait for something throughout regular life. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPad has such a feature built right in, and … Read More
Every app in the iWork suite offers optional password protection of files created, modified, or opened within their respective application. In practice, this means that no user will be able to open or access the file and view the contents on their Mac or iOS device without entering the password first. Password protecting iWork documents … Read More
Did you know you can start printing any file directly from the desktop of a Mac? While most users open a file and then print it from the application of which the file was built in, that’s not actually necessary, instead printing can be initiated from anywhere in the Finder of OS X. This often … Read More
When you set up a new Mail account in Mac OS X, you typically enter the service provider, email address, and the email accounts password once, then everything just works, right? Well, generally, but sometimes things aren’t so simple, and a frustrating issue that some users encounter is Mail app repeatedly asking for their password, … Read More
When you point your iPhone or iPad at a web address (like osxdaily.com), iOS will perform a DNS lookup to send you to the proper location. DNS servers handle part of that lookup service, translating numerical IP addresses into the readable domain names we’re all more familiar with and associate with web sites and other … Read More
Ever needed to reboot an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that doesn’t have a functioning power button or a Home button? It’s tricky if not impossible, right? Even with the Assistive Touch on-screen buttons and variety of workarounds for a failed power button, rebooting an iOS device without working hardware buttons is a challenge, but … Read More
From time to time, Apple will offer free out-of-warranty repair services for devices and hardware that are determined to be dysfunctional or defective. For example, many users experienced the failure of their iPhone 5 lock / power button, and Apple later determined that some of the devices manufactured were susceptive to power button failure, thus … Read More
