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Test Wireless Signal Strength from Command Line of Mac OS X

Jul 7, 2010 - 6 Comments
Monitor Wi-Fi Signal Strength from Command Line of Mac OS X

If you’re trying to tweak a wireless router to get the best signal, being able to continuously measure the wi-fi signal strength while you toy with the antennas, placement, and whatever else on the network is really valuable. While most users are best served by using the Mac Wi-Fi Diagnostics app to monitor signal strength … Read More

Fix iPhone Proximity Sensor Problems

Jul 6, 2010 - 1 Comment

Some users who have upgraded to iPhone OS 4.0 (iOS 4) have noted that the proximity sensor behaves differently, sometimes it’s just less sensitive, a bit slow or lagged, and other times it’s just not as responsive. In the worst case scenario, the iPhone is up to your ear and the device doesn’t detect that … Read More

Get iPhone Photo GPS & Geolocation Data

Jul 6, 2010 - 7 Comments

If you want to know exactly where a photo was taken with an iPhone, the actual image file can often tell you that thanks to it’s embedded GPS and geolocation data. This is often referred to as Geotagging, and it’s a little known feature that is used on almost all smartphone cameras by default, including … Read More

How to Resize a Window That is Too Big or Off Screen in Mac OS

Jul 5, 2010 - 70 Comments

There are times when you will find a windows sizing controls have been rendered inaccessible, the most likely cause is from changing the Mac’s resolution by hooking it up and then disconnecting it from an external display, however I have also seen poorly written javascripts resize windows to outrageous proportions as well. Additionally, sometimes a … Read More

How to Disable iPhone Data Use

Jul 2, 2010 - 6 Comments

Want to turn off all mobile data use on iPhone? The iPhone offers a feature that allows users to easily disable all iPhone data usage when on a cellular network. This means if you’re about to hit your bandwidth cap, you can simply toggle cellular data usage off and avoid any potential overage charges from … Read More

How to Adjust Display Brightness on Mac Precisely

Jul 1, 2010 - 8 Comments

If you need to adjust the brightness of a Mac display precisely, you can turn to two different tricks that offer precision control on just how bright a Macs screen is.

Set Spotlight Search Priorities in Mac OS X

Jun 30, 2010 - 4 Comments

You can easily adjust the search priorities in Spotlight so that other items are listed first in the Mac OS X Spotlight search results. For example, you could adjust the priorities so that files and documents are listed above apps, or so that images are shown above everything else. There are a ton of options … Read More

Change the Font Size of Text in Safari on Mac with Keyboard Shortcuts

Jun 29, 2010 - 3 Comments
Change the Font Size of Safari on a Mac

If you want to make reading a web page a bit easier on the Mac with Safari, you can issue some simple keyboard shortcuts to change the displayed font and text size on a page. To increase the Safari web browsers readable text size, hit the Command key and + key (plus key, it’s located … Read More

Customize the Mac Finder Window Background

Jun 28, 2010 - 22 Comments

Did you know that you can customize the backgrounds of any Finder windows in Mac OS X? This is a nnice way to customize the appearance of your Mac a bit, and you can either choose images or colors, or go with the default setting of a simple white background. In the screenshot above, the … Read More

Stop Link Spam from appearing in Copy/Paste from certain websites

Jun 28, 2010 - 2 Comments

You know what’s really annoying? When you go to certain websites, copy some text from them, and go to paste elsewhere and it gives you something like this: Basically, it’s an “iPhone without a screen,” is how Engadget hears it. Oh — and it will cost only $99, supposedly. Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/new-apple-tv/#ixzz0pH6qJPa4 You wanted to … Read More

Disable the Internal Microphone on your Mac

Jun 25, 2010 - 36 Comments
Disable Microphone on Mac

All Macs have a microphone included in them, but if you want to disable the internal microphone on your Mac, you can do so through a variety of methods. We’ll cover the two easiest approaches to turning off the microphone; reducing the input volume so that no sound is picked up by the microphone, and … Read More

iPhone DFU Mode Explained: How to Use & Enter DFU Mode on iPhone

Jun 24, 2010 - 133 Comments

Need to use DFU mode with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? Maybe you need to restore from firmware or troubleshoot an iOS device from DFU? We’ll explain how to enter and exit DFU mode on any iPhone model with a clickable Home button, what DFU mode is, why you may want to use it, … Read More

Save Disk Space on your iPhone / iPod by Converting Song Bit Rate to 128kbps

Jun 24, 2010 - 1 Comment

If you don’t mind the degradation that come with reducing an audio files bit rate, you can potentially save quite a bit of disk space on an iPhone/iPod/iPad by selecting an option the next time you sync the device in iTunes. Here’s what you’re looking to do: In the Summary tab just look near the … Read More

Opt out of iAd location and data tracking cookies

Jun 23, 2010 - 5 Comments

You can opt out of Apple’s new iAd location and data tracking service, which will use gathered data on you to serve targeted ads through Apple’s new iAds platform. To opt out of iAd cookies, visit http://oo.apple.com from the device you wish to opt out with. Note that you must be running the latest iOS … Read More

How to Backup your iPhone to iTunes

Jun 22, 2010 - 53 Comments

Backing up an iPhone is important because it allows you to recover all of your personal data, apps, and stuff, if you ever need to restore the iPhone, upgrade it, or replace it with a new phone, all of which is done by restoring from the backups that are made. By default your iPhone will … Read More

Make Hidden Application Icons Translucent in the Dock of Mac OS X

Jun 22, 2010 - 19 Comments
Finder icon on the Mac

One of the more interesting little known Dock modifications on the Mac is the ability to make hidden app icons appear as translucent and muted in the Dock to indicate their hidden status. If you look carefully at the screenshots of the Mac Dock in this article you’ll see the effect, as some of the … Read More

Remove the “Last login” Message from the Terminal

Jun 22, 2010 - 4 Comments
Mac Terminal icon

When you launch a new Terminal window or tab in Mac OS X (and most linux distributions) you’ll be greeted with a little message, either some “last login” details, or maybe even a message from the admin from /etc/motd. The last login details are default in a new Mac OS X terminal session, whereas the … Read More

Launch a file into its associated application via Quick Look preview

Jun 21, 2010 - 6 Comments

You can immediately launch any file into its associated application from Quick Look preview mode by holding down the command key and then pressing the down arrow key, so if you’re looking at a PSD file it will launch in Photoshop, a JPG into Preview, MP3 into iTunes, etc, directly from Quick Look! Thank you … Read More

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