I'm pleased to welcome this week's sponsor, Digiarty, makers of MacX DVD Ripper Pro back here to TMO. Having a simple, DVD-ripping solution is vital as we all move to consuming our content on iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs. MacX DVD Ripper Pro makes this easy with a single app solution that you can download…
Dave Hamilton
Dave Hamilton co-founded both The Mac Observer and <a href="https://www.backbeatmedia.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">BackBeat Media</a>, and he is producer and co-host of the <a href="https://www.macgeekgab.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">Mac Geek Gab Podcast</a>. He has worked in the computer industry since the early 1990s, doing time as a consultant, trainer, network engineer, webmaster, and programmer. He has worked on the Mac, all the various Windows flavors, BeOS, a few brands of Unix, and it is rumored he once saw an OS/2 machine in action. Before that he ran some of the earliest Bulletin Board Systems, but most of the charges have since been dropped, and not even the FBI requests that he check in more than twice a year. Dave's reachable for paid consulting at <a href="https://www.davethenerd.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">DaveTheNerd.com</a> and you can find links to him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ here, too.
Articles by Dave Hamilton
Facebook is a Background Resource Hog on Your Mac, Too
Unfortunately, it's not just your iPhone that's being overworked by Facebook. Facebook runs rampant when its website is loaded in your Mac's web browser, too, using more RAM than just about every other app – and definitely every other web page – you have open. After only being open – and left in the background…
Steve Jobs Stories Need to Be Told, Stop Fighting about Books and Movies
There are two things that are important to know. First, there is no one true source. That fact will become more and more clear as time marches on. 20 years from now people won't care about that. My second item is far more important, though: the number of people that knew and experienced Steve Jobs…
What Will It Take For You To Disable Your Ad/Content Blocker?
Part of what I'm happy about is the change this will bring to our industry as a whole. I'm also happy about some of the specific changes it will bring to TMO. Ad blockers are, of course, a slippery slope. It's easy to start by saying, “well, I'm going to use it on sites that…
iOS 9 Content Blockers - Bring 'Em On!
It's immediately obvious that blocking content which causes web pages to load slowly also means blocking ads. In fact, it almost primarily means blocking ads. Today's standardized web ads are delivered using a series of cascading scripts, meaning one script triggers another and then yet another until one of them has an ad to display.…
Sponsor: Macphun's Creative Kit with 5 Essential Photo Editing Apps
I'm very pleased to welcome – and thank! – Macphun to TMO as this week's sponsor. Macphun has been creating software for the Mac and iOS for a long time and has earned “best-of App Store” honors for all of the last 3 years. Right now they're featuring their Creative Kit, a suite of 5…
Skype for Mac Hotfix Released to fix Audio Selection Issues
Skype for Mac 7.8.390 is available using Skype for Mac's built-in update function or as a manual download from Skype. Kudos to the Skype team for engineering a quick fix!
Use AppleScript To Create a Custom Evernote PDF Menu Action
To optimize the workflow I wanted to be able to save a PDF directly from Mail to Evernote, name it with a custom name (so as to be in sync with our agenda) and automatically file it in the “MGG” notebook so that it syncs between John and me. Evernote makes it pretty easy to…
Skype for Mac Update Ignores Its Own Audio Settings
Skype released an update for their OS X app today, version 7.8.388, that includes a nasty bug: it now ignores whatever audio devices you have selected in Skype > Preferences > Audio/Video. It treats every one of those 3 drop-downs there as though you have selected “Same as System.” Skype 7.8.388 now ignores audio device…
The Apple Watch iOS App Isn't Bloatware
Not everyone will be an Apple Watch owner, and that's understandable. I've heard many folks complaining about this forced installation, calling the Apple Watch app “bloatware.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this is an indication of how good we iPhone users have it. Sit down with anyone who has ever bought…
Sponsor: Lucidchart, Visio for Mac
It's my pleasure to thank Lucidchart for sponsoring TMO this week. Lucidchart is, in short, Visio for Mac users. In your browser. No separate app to download, but it sure does feel like a Mac app. Lucidchart is easy to use, very quick to get started, and has intuitive controls. Start with Lucidchart's templates and…
Digital Music: Can You Hear Above 16-bit/44.1kHz?
At best you'd think, “My TV doesn't display UV or IR so it won't make any difference since I can't see those frequencies anyway.” At worst you'd be concerned about getting a sunburn or a heat rash. Now imagine I said, “You should listen to my special audio version of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue…
Sponsor: MacX DVD Ripper Pro Giveaway
I'd like to thank Digiarty for sponsoring TMO this week with a great giveaway of MacX DVD Ripper Pro. This normally sells for US$59.95 but this week you can get it for free via our special link. They are limiting this to 10,000 copies, so act quickly to be sure you get one of them.…
How to Enable Apple's SMS Relay on your Mac or iPad
When iOS 8 was released and the feature wasn't there, we all waited for Yosemite. When Yosemite came out we realized we needed to wait for iOS 8.1. Now that you have those two installed (you must for this to work), there are just a few more steps to follow, but they are pretty simple: First,…
How to Use PayPal with iOS 8 Family Sharing
Apple's Family Sharing in iOS 8 is something many users are eager to setup in order to finally deal with the issue of sharing purchased apps (and music and movies and more) with family members. Frustration has set in for some, however, when the setup process informs users that PayPal is not a valid payment…
Hands (and Wrist) on the New Apple Watch (Video)
Apple Watch All Photos by Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus The Demonstration Process Apple had a pretty scripted demo they walked interested media through. It started with the reality that there were two different software builds on the demonstration Apple Watches on hand. The ones Apple's staff members strapped onto media—and yes, they strapped it on, presumably…
Hands on with iPhone 6 and 6 Plus - Which One Should You Get?
Both the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus are worthy contenders to be your main device and, after some hands-on time with them I have a few things to share that might help you decide which is right for you. The iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6, side-by-side in Reachability mode. Bigger is…
How To View and Move Skype's Chat Window During Calls
One issue is that chat is now hidden as soon as you start any call, be it audio or video. I could possibly see where a video caller might want the full window to be consumed by video, but I certainly don't need a huge avatar on my screen during an audio call. Maybe the folks at Skype are…
iTunes 11.2.1 Fixes Hidden Users Folder Bug, Restores Folder Visibility
Speculation went wild, with many (including Apple Support reps) presuming that this was intentional on Apple's part and now policy. Apple ended that speculation late last night with the release of iTunes 11.2.1 (also available via Software Update). Install this and you can literally watch your /Users folder re-appear during the installation process. No reboot…
Hidden Users Folder Result of iTunes 11.2 and Find My Mac Combination, not 10.9.3
Never fear, we published a few tricks to unhide those folders. We became curious when more and more people began reporting that their folders hadn't disappeared, so we set about doing some isolation testing. After all, OS X 10.9.3 wasn't the only update Apple released yesterday. iTunes 11.2 made its public debut, as well. Turns out that hidden /Users folder has nothing…
Directly Rip and Convert Blu-ray Disks With Handbrake
Blu-ray, disks, however, are not supported directly by this Handbrake/VLC combo, and that makes things frustrating. Typically you need to first rip the Blu-ray into some format that Handbrake will understand and then you can convert/compress from there. MakeMKV is one such program that will do that Blu-ray conversion. What many users don't realize, though,…
Podcasting How-To Video: Creating a Noise Gate on Your Mac
A noise gate can easily solve this problem by only allowing sound through when the input volume reaches a certain level – i.e. when someone is talking and only then. My favorite audio swiss army knife for the Mac, Audio Hijack Pro, allows you to implement a noise gate very easily. Follow the simple steps in this…
Twitter for Mac's Cache Might be Eating Lots of Your Disk Space. Here's a Fix.
9to5Mac's Seth Weintraub replied that I should also check my “twitter icon cache.” It was time to dig. Twitter operates inside OS X's Sandbox, which means all of its application data lives inside your [home] / Library / Containers folder. For Twitter specifically, that's: [home] / Library / Containers / com.twitter.twitter-mac Doing a quick “Get…