Need to adjust Mac Mail app so that it sends new email compositions as plain text? This can be a popular change for some email situations, and it’s easy to make the adjustment to plain text emails in Mail for Mac. Email defaults to wanting to send as rich text, meaning bold text, highlighting, fonts, … Read More
A wide variety of websites and online services are region restricted to the USA: Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, annual credit reports, some banks, the list is significant. Region restrictions are generally something you don’t notice until you need to access a website from outside the USA, and then they’re a huge pain. We’ll show you how … Read More
Flick down with two fingers on a trackpad or Magic Mouse in Mac OS X and you’ll experience inertial scrolling, where after your finger has stopped moving the page continues to scroll in the intended direction until it slowly stops. This fluid and natural scrolling experience comes from the iOS world, and while it works … Read More
Have an Android phone or tablet that you want to transfer files and movies to and from your Mac with? Maybe you got a new Kindle Fire that is freshly rooted, and you’re looking to move some of your own movies and pictures to it? No sweat, there are some really easy ways to do … Read More
Need to jump to the parent directory of a folder on the Mac? Buried in a nest of folders in the Finder of Mac OS X? Mac OS includes a handy keystroke to immediately jump to the parent directory of a Finder window. For some quick reference, the parent directory is the enclosing folder in … Read More
A new third party tool called Siri0us has appeared that brings Siri Dictation (speech-to-text) to the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 4G. The add-on, which requires a jailbroken device, uses Nuance technology to work almost exactly like the dictation feature of Siri does to convert your speech to text. It’s accurate and initiated … Read More
For those who prefer the old fashioned method of reading printed directions on paper, maps and directions can be printed directly from an iPhone or iPad via the built-in Maps app in iOS 5. This is handy if you need to give someone else paper directions, or if you don’t want to potentially get a … Read More
Recently we covered how to show full file names on the Mac OS X desktop, avoiding the abbreviated labels that occur when a file or folders name is too large to fit in the allowed character count limit. That trick was done by increasing the desktops grid size, but as one of our readers pointed … Read More
Exposé was replaced with Mission Control in OS X Lion by name, but that doesn’t mean some of the most useful functions of Expose are gone, and in fact what you could see in Expose is still around in the newest versions of Mac OS X, including Mountain Lion 10.8 and newer. One very popular … Read More
Forgetting a user account password can be a major frustration for Mac users, but fortunately there are a some simple and secure ways to recover and reset a lost password on any Mac. One of the best ways to handle this situation and reset a lost password is to use an Apple ID, which allows … Read More
If you make any customizations to Mission Control, or if you encounter obvious problems with how Desktops and apps are handled and assigned, you can restart Mission Control without having to reboot the entire Mac.
If you’re recording video chat or just troubleshooting problems with iChat, knowing the frame rate and other video statistics can be helpful information. From the Video menu, pull down to “Connection Doctor”, then select the “Statistics” option from the pull-down menu to see the window shown up top. The group under “Local” is your own … Read More
Traveling abroad can quickly become frustrating when you attempt a search on Google.com and discover you are redirected to the local countries variant of Google, with the local language and all. This language redirect can happen when using a VPN or proxy as well. While this is convenient for things like local search and Maps, … Read More
iCloud and iOS includes the ability to sync some iCloud data directly over a 4G, LTE, and 3G cellular connection when a wireless network isn’t available, assuming the iPhone or iPad has a cellular capability anyway. We’ll show you how to toggle iCloud syncing over cellular in modern iOS as well as older iOS versions.
If you signed up for iTunes Match and you’re seeing some peculiar icons in your music library alongside track names, don’t miss this chart put together by Apple that explains what each icon means, helping you troubleshoot the problem. The icons include: Cloud with a slash through it – ineligible for iTunes Match X’ed out … Read More
Quick Look is one of the better little features of Mac OS X, but a new hidden option in OS X makes QuickLook even better by allowing you to select, highlight, and copy text directly from the windows.
For the music lovers out there, DockArt takes the “Now Playing” notification concept a step further and actually replaces the iTunes Dock icon on the Mac with the currently playing albums cover art.
You can hide unwanted System Preferences from appearing in the control panel without actually removing them. This is a helpful distinction for setting up other user accounts or just for hiding System Prefs you never access and no longer need:
