The next time you’re at the command line and need to eject every single mounted volume, hard drive, disk, disk image, and/or external drive attached to a Mac, you can instantly eject them all in one fell swoop with a handy osascript command string. This is great if you work frequently in the Terminal and … Read More
iMessage sends text messages, pictures, and movies over cellular data rather than through the traditional SMS and MMS protocols, but have you ever wondered just how much of an iPhone data plan all your iMessage use is consuming? It turns out that you can find this information through a somewhat buried location in iOS Settings, … Read More
Many iPhone users rely entirely on the iPhone as their camera of choice, so why not take the best pictures possible? That’s what these Camera app tips are for, helping you snap better photos and making you a better photographer by taking advantage of some of the wonderful features that are built into the camera … Read More
Mac OS X comes with a bundled port scanner tool, just one of a variety of features tucked into the ever useful Network Utility app. That means you don’t need to bother with the command line or install more advanced tools like nmap to quickly scan for open ports on a given IP or domain, … Read More
The iPhone and iPad Calendar app defaults to starting a week on Sunday, which is the generally accepted standard of most US calendars. Meanwhile, some other nations start the calendar week on Monday, and some users just prefer to start the week on the first weekday of Monday rather than the weekend of Sunday anyway. … Read More
Many iPhone and iPad users know that Siri has a huge range of capabilities surrounding specific actions, but fewer know that Siri can also serve more obscure functions, like generating a random number for you. This is handled through Siri’s data connection through Wolfram Alpha, and it’s effective at truly randomizing integers similar to the … Read More
Those of us who have been using an iPhone or iPad for a while have likely acquired a sizable amount of iOS apps through purchases, downloads, promos for temporarily free apps, and general promo code redemptions, many of which end up deleted or removed after the initial install. If you ever want to quickly see … Read More
Ever needed to remotely check the battery level of a Bluetooth keyboard connected to a Mac? Or maybe you’re just a heavy Terminal user and wanted to see the current battery life of a wireless keyboard without having to leave the command line? You can do that easily through the Terminal of either a remote … Read More
Mac users who primarily browse the web with Safari will eventually notice the “Flash out-of-date” message appearing somewhere in the browser. This happens because the Mac will intentionally disable the Flash player plugin when it has become outdated, preventing any potential security breaches from occurring. As you probably guessed, this just means you need to … Read More
Apple has released iTunes 11.2.1, an update that, curiously, resolves the issue where some users encountered their /Users folder gone missing along with changed permissions to the same directory. Initially thought to be a bug with the OS X 10.9.3 update, apparently the problem was actually related to the accompanying update to iTunes.
Update: iTunes 11.2.1 resolves this problem, making the Users folder visible again while also turning the directory permissions back to normal. All Mac users should install iTunes 11.2.1, even if they only updated to iTunes 11.2 and did not update to OS X 10.9.3 yet.
A feature called “Phone Noise Cancellation” is available on iPhone which aims to reduce background ambient noise when on a phone call, but for some users it can sound strange and make their phone calls sound weird, or worse. This may be due to the ambient audio stream created by the feature. Apple describes the … Read More
If you send a lot of photos and video from an iPhone or iPad to friends and family, you’ve probably noticed that sending a movie brings up a curious looking pixelated black and white “Compressing Video” screen where the video is being squeezed down to a smaller size. If the video you’re trying to email … Read More
Being able to quickly access recent work files on a Mac is an obvious productivity booster, but what if you need to find files created or modified on a very specific date? There are a few ways to do this, but one of the fastest tricks is using date search operators in the Spotlight search … Read More
App Nap is an energy feature introduced to the Mac in OS X Mavericks that causes inactive applications to go into a paused state, helping to reduce power usage. The feature can help to prolong battery life for the MacBook line, and it can also make an impact on overall energy usage from the computer. … Read More
The Mac Mail app defaults to naming the email flags as colors; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, and Gray. Those default flag names aren’t too descriptive, so a much better choice is to rename those mail flags to better accommodate your emailing habits, perhaps naming them as things like “To-Do”, “Family”, “Work”, “Important”, or … Read More
The Mail app on our iPhones and iPads downloads and stores emails and attachments into iOS, which makes for easy searching and retrieval of past emails. For most users this is no big deal and the convenience overrides any potential issues, but some users who send and receive a lot of attachments or tons of … Read More
Whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying the new system font of iOS is slimmer, lighter, and more modern looking. If you’re a graphic artist, developer, or designer looking to make your own designs or mockups that fit into Apple’s new design language, using the proper font is a good place to … Read More
