How to Print Envelopes from Contacts on Your Mac

NOTE: This article covers only the Mac side of printing contacts. It is known throughout the land that printing is looked upon as a dark art, and lo there are various and sundry paths one can take to achieve it. However, the half of the equation where the printer doesn't work right or won't line…

Intuit Hoses Quicken (Mac) Users...Again

Episode #112   Last November I told you I finally found a suitable replacement for Intuit’s Quicken personal finance software, after nearly 15 years of searching. That replacement was iBank and I’m still totally happy with it. In the meantime, Intuit is up to its old tricks again. As you may recall, Intuit discontinued Quicken for…

iTunes 12: Changing Media Shortcuts on the Mac

These little symbols indicate which section of your iTunes Library you can access by clicking on them—selecting the music notes will take you to, well, your music, the movie reel goes to your movies, and so on. What’s not so apparent is that you can edit those icons to be whatever you’d like, so if…

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…

Dr. Mac Looks for a Lovable List Manager for Mac and iPhone

Episode #109   There are three kinds of people: Those who make lists; those who don’t make lists; and I wish I could remember the third kind, but I didn’t write it down on one of my lists… As you probably guessed, I’m the first kind: An inveterate list-maker who is never without a notepad,…

Ten One Mountie: Easily Hang an iPhone/iPad on a MacBook

A Mountie from Ten One Design shown on an iPhone 5S for scale. First off, I have to spend a moment on the packaging. No thick plastic nightmare, just some clear tape around the edges. It's wonderful to get right to the goodies without having to break out the heavy machinery. Both the top and…

iTunes: Deleting Songs (Completely) from a Playlist on Your Mac

You can bypass that warning by pressing Command-Delete on a song instead, but still, that only removes it from the playlist, not from your library. Now of course, you could go out into your full library view and delete the item from there, but it’s handy to know that there’s a shortcut that’ll let you…

BBEdit on Your Mac: Trick Text Files into HTML Syntax Coloring

_________________ Here's the problem. I and several other editors here at the Mac Observer compose our articles first in BBEdit. The file extension I use is “.txt,” but it could just as well be “.text” That's so when I double click one of my draft articles, it loads into BBEdit. Just as a reminder, the…

iBank 5: Dr Mac Can Finally Say Goodbye to Quicken

Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves  Episode #98 I love managing my finances on my Mac, but I have never liked depending upon Intuit or its Quicken for Mac products. Intuit, as you probably know, has no love for Mac users. Way back in May of 1998, when Apple was at the depths of the death…

How to Instantly Share Mac Screenshots Using Dropbox

We'll start off the Week Of Tips with a fantastic one from Nathan Toups, currently the CTO of KEY, a startup in stealth mode that's offering personalized service to short-term renters (like, if your AirBnB had a concierge). He gave me a tip about screenshots and Dropbox that may well make your life dramatically easier.…

Connect a MacBook to an iMac's Display with Target Display Mode

_________________ The applicable document here is: “Target Display Mode: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).” That Apple document goes into great detail, so I won't repeat it here. The Short Version Here's what TDM is all about. Let's say you have a MacBook Air with a small display that you use for travel. At home you have…

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,…

Yosemite Now Available on Mac App Store - Build 14A389 [Update]

Yosemite was first unveiled during June's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). During the “It's Been Too Long” media event earlier on Thursday, Apple said Yosemite would be released later in the day, and now is apparently later. Yosemite is free. We have a handy list of Macs supporting Yosemite if you're looking to know whether…

List of Macs That Will Run Yosemite

OS X Yosemite promises to make it easier to share information with your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, can send and receive calls through your iPhone, more powerful Spotlight searches, iCloud Drive support, a redesigned interface that takes visual cues from iOS 7 and iOS 8, and more. The short answer to the question of…

iTunes: Deauthorize Before You Sell Your Mac

To take care of it, open iTunes, click on the “Store” menu at the top, and choose “Deauthorize This Computer.”  iTunes’ll want to know what Apple ID you’re deauthorizing, so enter that info. When you’re finished, repeat this process for every Apple ID you’ve authorized on your Mac. That’s all there is to it! But…but…what…

4 Ways to Restart the Mac Finder

____________________ These techniques generally assume you are doing a configuration change that requires a benign relaunch (kill and restart) of the OS X Finder. If the Finder is really hosed, you may not be able to launch apps as in technique #3 below and you may have to resort to Unix trickery as in technique…

Retina MacBook Pro gets Faster Processors, More RAM

Apple's Retina MacBook Pro gets a speed bump and more RAM The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro includes Intel's 2.6 GHz dual-core i5 processor with 8 GB RAM, up from 4 GB, and 128 GB SSD storage plus Intel Iris Graphics starting at US$1,299 or $1,499 with 256 GB storage. A 2.8 GHz model with 512…

Black Holes and Scientific Computing with Apple's New Mac Pro

Recently, Dr. Khanna and I were in a FaceTime session, and he was explaining how the 2013 Mac Pro in concert with OpenCL, has greatly assisted his scientific work. That conversation led to this interview which, we hope, provides substantial insights into using these Apple tools for scientific computing. TMO: First, give us a little…

8 GB of RAM in the New Entry-Level iMac is Just Fine

_____________________ First, the sensible thing to do is see how much memory Apple specifies as required for Mavericks. Apple's OS X Mavericks specification page says that you need at least of 2 GB of RAM to run OS X 10.9. If course we all know that numbers like that are on the conservative side. The…

How to Log in From a Mac to Linux in Parallels Desktop 9

_______________________ Recently, I ran across an interesting situation with Parallels. As you know, I'm a regular user and reviewer of the Parallels Desktop. For example, “Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac: Faster, Better Windows Experience.” So when my wife told me that she couldn't log in (ssh) from her Windows 7 PC to her copy of…

How to Really Use the Magical Option Key on the Mac

This key is known generically as a “modifier” key, and shares this moniker with the Command (Apple) key, the Control Key, and the Shift key. The Option key is located on either side of the space bar for your convenience. The Option key is adjacent to other modifier keys Modifier keys are used in combination…