Whether testing performance of an application, Mac OS X animations, or just out of general curiosity, you can measure the refresh rate in Frames Per Second of onscreen actions and animations on the Mac by using a free developer tool from Apple called Quartz Debug. Part of the Graphics Tools package of Xcode, Quartz Debug … Read More
Now that the Mac windows green maximize button defaults to sending apps and windows into Full Screen Mode, a notably sized cohort of MacOS and Mac OS X users who perhaps didn’t know this behavior changed until accidentally finding out, are left confused with the following question; “how do I get out of full screen … Read More
Many users have a love or hate relationship with iTunes, which is required to sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a Mac or PC (presumably an Apple Watch too). When iTunes syncing works as intended, that’s fantastic, but sometimes things don’t work out that way. iTunes 12 in particular appears to have some … Read More
Some users who have updated to iOS 8.2 have discovered the Safari web browser no longer works as it should on their iPhone or iPad. There seems to be a few variations of Safari issues with iOS 8.2, but typically the problems manifest as an inability for Safari to launch or stay open, Safari becoming … Read More
Using FileVault full disk encryption is one of the better ways to protect your Mac and personal documents from prying eyes and password resets, but if you’re troubleshooting a Mac with FileVault, either your own or someone else’s, it’s kind of annoying to have another layer of passwords necessary to enter before you’ll be able … Read More
A notable amount of Mac users have discovered that a random Mac OS X password popup window can appear from iCloud, FaceTime, or Messages, any of each asking for the respective iCloud password. The random password request is very non-specific and just has the logo, “iCloud Password – Please enter your password for email@address” with … Read More
Rarely, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will become completely unresponsive and errant, leading to what amounts to a frozen device that just won’t do anything. The most obvious indicator of this is when something on screen just cease up completely and the touch screen becomes unresponsive to all input, and clicking on any of … Read More
A few Mac users that update to Mac OS X discover their sound and audio output has ceased to work, leading to a completely mute Mac that does not respond to the volume keys. Fortunately, the mysterious missing sound output issue is incredibly simple to fix, and there is nothing actually wrong with the Mac.
On some rare occasions when trying to copy files, Mac users may encounter “error code 36”, which completely halts the copy or move process in the Mac OS X Finder. The full error is usually read as “The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “FileName” can’t be read or written. (Error code … Read More
Have you ever had the experience where an iPhone is suddenly not ringing on incoming calls, or making any sounds when a new message arrives? The mute button isn’t turned on, so what on earth is going on, right? This is surprisingly common experience for those who are more novice iPhone users, and after troubleshooting … Read More
Apple is offering to repair certain malfunctioning MacBook Pro models sold between February 2011 and December 2013. The impacted MacBook Pro models exhibit unusual graphics behavior, including distorted screen images, outright screen failures, and even sometimes unexpected system reboots.
Though most advanced Mac users will find it easiest to enable root with Directory Utility from the GUI of Mac OS X, another option is to turn to the command line. No, we’re not talking about using sudo or su, we’re talking about enabling the actual root user account, which can be appropriate for some … Read More
One of the most frustrating issues that has impacted some users of OS X Yosemite are persistent wireless networking difficulties. Apple has released multiple updates to OS X aimed at addressing the problem, but for some Mac users, they either offer no help, or even worse, may add new trouble for wi-fi connections. We have … Read More
Rarely, when you plug an iPhone or iPad into a particular Lightning charger cable you’ll see a pop-up or lock screen message on the device that says something to the effect of “This cable is not certified and may not work reliably”. This usually prevents the lightning cable from charging the device as well. Though … Read More
Sometimes you need to enter a password into the terminal, usually for sudo or su commands, which lets users execute a command with super user privileges. This is fairly typical for allowing access to read or modify something that would otherwise not be possible with a standard user account. You’ll commonly see sudo prefixing another … Read More
If you have ever switched from an iPhone to an Android or Windows phone, either temporarily, out of necessity, or for testing purposes, you may have noticed that a new phone will sometimes not receive inbound messages that have been sent from other iPhone users. Well, you probably didn’t notice it because you didn’t get … Read More
Some Mac users who have been experiencing longstanding wi-fi issues with OS X Yosemite have discovered that updating to OS X 10.10.2 does not resolve their networking difficulties. Perhaps more troubling, some Mac users who had functioning wi-fi previously have discovered that new wireless difficulties have appeared on their Macs after updating to the OS … Read More
Adware is generally something most Mac users won’t have to worry about, but that doesn’t mean that OS X is entirely immune to the potential nuisance, and nobody likes it when their browser has been hijacked by that type of junk. If you’re at all concerned about adware impacting your Mac and web browsing, you … Read More
