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…

Apple hid the Users directory with its iTunes 11.2 update… The Users directory is where the Home folders live for every user on your Mac. You can show your own Home directory in the sidebar for Finder windows, which does give you quick access to your own files. If you need to see your complete…

Panic discussed this on the company blog in late 2012, outlining the steps taken to make Coda compliant with Sandboxing restrictions. The company pointed out that Apple had gone to great lengths to assist in getting Coda out the door. Unfortunately the need to get Coda in the hands of users eventually outweighed the time it…

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…

I have been teaching courses in both Adobe Photoshop and iPhoto for several years. As for the powerhouse app, Photoshop, I see many eager students quickly become dispirited due to its many complex aspects. In fact, most students I see taking these courses are mostly interested in “quick-and-dirty” ways to edit and “fix” their digital…

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…

Occasionally, a Mac can become stubbornly uncooperative and refuse to accept inputs. It's time for a reboot. Here are some simple techniques to force a restart your Mac with escalating abruptness. _______________________ The first thing to know about Mavericks is that it changes the behavior of the Power button. In Mavericks, if you quickly tap…

When first setting up Hider 2, you are asked for a password that will be used to protect your data, and given guidance on if the password is considered strong enough to prevent someone from guessing it. You are also given the option to store this password in your Keychain.  You can then start adding files…

__________________ There are several reasons why one might want to utilize both of these Ethernet ports. This article is focused on the ones I'm familiar with and have tested. Other configurations include, for example, something called “link aggregation.” That's when two Ethernet ports are combined to achieve greater bandwidth. That's a subject for another time.…

One might understandably assume that using this field would look for files within the current folder. Instead the default behavior is to search your entire Mac, a behavior with which I associate the Spotlight icon in the Menu Bar. However, there is a way to set it to search within the current folder and it's…

It's that time again. Or, well, it's time to talk about Cirque du Mac, but since Macworld/iWorld is happening during a new date range for their show, it means it's technically not that time again. But that's just nitpicking, isn't it? Either way, Cirque du Mac is happening on Friday, March 28th, 2014 and this time… this…

_________________________ 1. SpamSieve. I wouldn't even think about using Macintosh email app unless it's supported by C-Command's SpamSieve by Michael Tsai. This app has changed my computing life greatly for the better, and I love it. SpamSieve uses Bayesian filtering to build a corpus, and it learns as it goes. The longer you use it,…

_________________ First, this is not a review. The best review I have seen of this iMac is by Anand Lal Shimpi: “21.5-inch iMac (Late 2013) Review: Iris Pro Driving an Accurate Display.” It's simply an awesome review, as are all those by AnandTech. If this Mac has been on your shopping list, read the review.…

We would like to thank Leawo for sponsoring TMO this week. Listeners of recent Mac Geek Gab episodes have heard discussion of all manner of Blu-ray topics, and one frustration is the fact that the Mac won't natively play Blu-ray disks, even if you've got a USB Blu-ray reader. Enter Leawo's Blu-ray Player for Mac. This…

_______________________ My investigation started with my trial run order of a new Mac. As far back as I can remember, when I placed an order with Apple's online store, there would be an accurate assessment of the sales tax for my location. At the point in the order process where the estimated sales tax is…

The first computer I saw, touched, and even wrote programs for, was the Commodore PET 2001 with its 4KB RAM, built-in keyboard, and a cassette player for saving and loading programs — what today we call apps. I was captivated, and was certain I was seeing the future. Two computers that had a big impact…

The very first computer we owned was a Timex Sinclair. With its touchy-feely keyboard and its one hertz screen refresh (connected to an old television, naturally), it was a lean, mean, flight-simulator machine (after waiting a half-hour for Flight Simulator to load). But hey, we all gotta start somewhere. The first real computer we had…

Step One If you're an unnamed user in Germany, you do the only thing you can, and that's set about turning that trash can into a PC case and fitting all those unused parts into it (spotted by 9to5Mac). The result is a hackintosh (a home-built PC running OS X) with a Core i3 (Haswell)…

____________________ OWC's Jarrod and Ron wrote in their blog: “We got our hands on an Intel E5-2667 V2 8-core 3.30GHz with 25MB Cache processor, installed it in the new Mac Pro and have done some benchmarking to get an early look at the performance vs. the stock Apple / Intel E5-1650 V2 6-core 3.50GHz with…

BACK UP YOUR STUFF. Yes, it’s all in caps. Yes, it’s like I’m shouting. That’s because this is the most important step you can take for keeping your computing sanity in the new year. If you have no backup, then please go buy an external drive and create one as soon as you can. Under…

_____________________ The goal here is to recommend some very good, respected apps for beginners that are in typical use on the Mac. It would be impractical to list every available app, and I recognize that many advanced amateurs will have their own favorites. I've defined six categories of apps: a sky chart that does telescope…

Individual applications typically have a number of sub-processes, each handling separate tasks within the application. There are data communications processes, system and data maintenance processes, processes that watch and manage network and security, processes that monitor and report on other processes, logging processes, power management processes, process processes… just tons of work to do… quietly…

___________________________ The idea must be that if enough content is thrown out there, things like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, and a couple of million iOS and Android apps, people will just keep buying stuff and corresponding revenues will rise. The guiding principle I've always used to fight this assault is Sturgeon's Law. That is,…

“We're extremely excited about the MacBook Air,” Mr. Skaugen said. “Essentially, cooperating with Apple doubled the battery life from generation to generation—from 6 to 12.5 hours on the MacBook Air.” MacBook Air (mid-2013) Apple's 2013 MacBook air model was introduced during June's World Wide Developer Conference, and they were the first Apple laptop to get…