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
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
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
You can setup virtually any Mac as a home theater media center, all you need is the right tools. Yes, that means your MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac Mini, iMac, even Mac Pro, can all turn into a media center, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. For the purpose of this article, we … Read More
It’s possible to adjust the display contrast at a software level in Mac OS X, which can have very dramatic effects, either good or bad, depending on your needs. Most Mac users don’t know this and many may not find it helpful, but used appropriately it can be a helpful Accessibility adjustment for many with … Read More
Did you know that you can quickly see or hide all the hidden files in a directory from any Mac Save window with a simple keystroke? This is very useful when you are saving a file to a directory that will appear as invisible, also known as a dotfile in OS X.
Your Mac runs a series of maintenance scripts on it’s own to clear out various cache and log files. To see when the scripts were last run, type the following at the command line: ls -la /var/log/*.out You will then see something like this: -rw-r–r– 1 root wheel 283124 16 Jun 02:15 /var/log/daily.out -rw-r–r– 1 … Read More
You can easily stop the “Sent from my iPhone” text from appearing on your outbound iPhone emails, or change it to be something else. Removing or customizing the signature applies to emails that are sent as replies or as new messages from the iPhone, and you can set it to whatever you want, or to … Read More
One of the Mac Mail apps many talents is the ability to automatically detect when a flight number is present in an email, and then give you the option to view the flights status by using the flight tracking Dashboard widget in OS X. Yes seriously, the Mac eMail app can track flights! This doesn’t … Read More
As many loyal Safari users already know, the dedicated “refresh” button was removed from the browser’s toolbar starting with the release of Safari 4. It seems that Apple decided it would be better placed at the end of the location bar. The “new” format also includes a much smaller button which quite frankly is much … Read More
We have discussed in the past, some of QuickTime X’s hidden talents. Using a yellow slider control (iPhone Movie Editing anyone?), you can trim audio files from directly inside of QuickTime Player. The next time you need to MacGuyver yourself a ringtone, try this simple process: Open an audio file in Quicktime X (X just … Read More
Hate it when you click on an iTunes link or an App Store link and the iTunes application launches, forcing you out of your browser and into the cludgy music / everything media app? You’re not alone! Fortunately with a little free extension, you can completely stop iTunes and App Store links from opening iTunes … Read More
Spotlight is amazing at finding files buried deep within your Mac, but what if you found the file you wanted, and you don’t know what folder it’s contained within on the Mac, or if it’s buried deep somewhere in Mac OS X? The answer is as easy as a keystroke, because with a simple key … Read More
Ok so anyone that uses Google has probably noticed by now that you can change the background image of Google.com and set it to something you’d like. Today though people are finding a surprise; whether they set an image or not the Google background picture has changed!
Have you ever wanted to know how you can check to see if your AT&T account is eligible for an iPhone upgrade? You can instantly check your AT&T iPhone upgrade eligibility by dialing a simple short code on your phone. This is super easy, here is how you can check your iPhone upgrade eligibility with … Read More
Did you know that you can use a MacBook 13″ MagSafe power adapter on the 13″ MacBook Pro? Or a MBP 15″ adapter on the 13″ models? And the 11″ MacBook Air adapter with a 13″ MacBook Pro, and so forth? In most cases you can interchange power adapters, this also means the older white … Read More
Single Application Mode is an interesting feature of MacOS and Mac OS X that is often misunderstood, we’ll discuss what the feature is, how it works, and how to enable it on your Mac running nearly any version of Mac OS still in use, whether that’s macOS 12, 11, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, or newer.
The Mac OS X Application Switcher is a handy way to quickly cycle through open applications, but did you know you can quickly quit programs you aren’t using with the Application Switcher as well?
