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How to Restart Mission Control in Mac OS X

Nov 23, 2011 - 31 Comments
Restart Mission Control in OS X

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.

Find the Frame Rate & Check Video Stats in iChat

Nov 23, 2011 - Leave a Comment
Check Frame Rate and video Stats in iChat

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

Stop Google.com Redirecting to Local Country or Language Version of Google

Nov 22, 2011 - 46 Comments
Stop Google.com Redirecting to Another Countries Version of Google

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

Sync iCloud Documents & Data Over a Cellular Connection in iOS

Nov 22, 2011 - 1 Comment
Sync iCloud over 3G

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.

iTunes Match Icons Explained

Nov 22, 2011 - Leave a Comment
iTunes Match icons explained

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

Select Text in Quick Look Windows for Mac OS X

Nov 21, 2011 - 24 Comments
Select Text within QuickLook Windows

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.

How to Replace iTunes Dock Icon with Album Art

Nov 21, 2011 - 27 Comments
iTunes Album Art Dock Icon

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.

How to Hide System Preference Panels in Mac OS X

Nov 21, 2011 - 1 Comment
Hide System Preferences Mac OS X

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:

Block Caller ID on iPhone to Always Make “Blocked” Calls

Nov 20, 2011 - 19 Comments
Always Make Blocked Calls from iPhone

The iPhone can be set to always hide the dialing phones number from the recipients caller ID’s. That means that if you turn off the “Show My Caller ID” feature, every call you make will not show up on the phone number you are calling, offering additional privacy to phone calls made from your iPhone. … Read More

Show the Location Path of Current Wallpaper in Mac OS X

Nov 20, 2011 - 26 Comments
Show current wallpaper location on the Mac OS X desktop

Ever set a desktop background picture on the Mac and have no idea where the original wallpaper image is stored in OS X? Maybe you set an image from the web and lost it, or maybe you’ve wondered where that default background image is stored so you can share it with your iOS device or … Read More

Show a “Now Playing” iTunes Notification in the Mac OS X Dock

Nov 19, 2011 - 55 Comments
iTunes

Using a defaults write command, the iTunes Dock icon can be set to display a “Now Playing” song and artist pop-up that transitions in and out and music starts. It’s a nice addition, particularly if you’re playing songs from a shared network playlist and have iTunes hidden in the background.

Quickly Access iPhone & iPad Settings with IconSettings Shortcuts

Nov 18, 2011 - 19 Comments
IconSettings is like SBSettings for iPhone and iPad

Using iOS folders and some bookmarks, anyone can mimic the quick iOS Settings access of the popular jailbreak tweak SBSettings – minus the jailbreak. It’s simple and you don’t have to install anything but a few shortcuts: Launch Safari on iOS Go here and scroll until you see a list of settings names and click … Read More

Remove the Old MobileMe Menubar Icon After Switching to iCloud

Nov 18, 2011 - 4 Comments
Get rid of the old MobileMe icon

After you’ve made the transition to iCloud from MobileMe, the option to remove the old and now obsolete MobileMe menu bar icon disappears. It’s easy to get rid of though, as Tony R shows us in this tip he sent in: Hold down the Command key and click and hold on the old MobileMe icon, … Read More

Unlock the iPhone 4S with an iOS 5 Bug

Nov 17, 2011 - 16 Comments
Unlocked iPhone 4S

If you didn’t already buy an unlocked iPhone 4S from Apple or take advantage of Sprint and Verizons 90 day unlock request, you can apparently unlock the 4S’s GSM SIM card slot yourself by taking advantage of a strange bug in iOS 5 and how the iPhone 4S handles the Edge network. Here’s what you’ll … Read More

Install & Run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in a Virtual Machine on top of OS X Lion

Nov 17, 2011 - 50 Comments
Mac OS X Snow Leopard running in a virtual machine on top of OS X Lion

We showed you how to run OS X Lion in a virtual machine on top of Snow Leopard, but it seems everyone wanted to know the opposite of that: how to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in a VM on top of Mac OS X Lion. Follow our instructions and you’ll be up … Read More

Quickly Search the iTunes Store & iOS App Store from Anywhere in iTunes

Nov 17, 2011 - 2 Comments
Option Return searches the iTunes Store

You can quickly search the iTunes Store and iOS App Store from anywhere within iTunes, all you have to do is hold down the Option key while hitting Return in the standard search box. That’s really all there is to it, with Option+Return you search all purchasable content through the online stores whether its an … Read More

Run Mac OS X Lion 10.7 in a Virtual Machine on Top of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Nov 16, 2011 - 13 Comments
Install Lion in a VM over Snow Leopard

If you don’t want to deal with dual booting between Lion and Snow Leopard, another option is to run Mac OS X Lion in a virtual machine atop an older 10.6 Snow Leopard installation. This is not supposed to work with 10.6 without a quirky configuration, but it does, and it’s easy to do. For … Read More

Show All System Preferences from a Quick Menu in Mac OS

Nov 16, 2011 - 8 Comments
Pull Down System Preferences list

Rather than rearranging all of the System Preferences to be sorted alphabetically, you can access a quick pull-down menu of all the panels that is sorted by name. Try it yourself, access System Preferences from the  Apple menu, then click and hold on “Show All” to see the full list of preference panes available sorted by … Read More

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