macOS

Final Cut Pro X to get features pro editors wantApple shared the details with video trainer and consultant Larry Jordan, who said he’s glad to know the updates are on the way, and that the company is actively working to improve Final Cut Pro X.“It was an interesting meeting,” Mr. Jordan said on his blog.…

Recently, professor Ulf von Barth of Lund University in Sweden alerted me to the fact that the mechanism has changed yet again. In the article linked above, I explained that all you had to do was download and install Apple’s Xcode IDE, and everything would be as expected. Now, you have to do a little…

In OS X Lion, this behavior has changed dramatically. Now, your icons are sort by date, but then organize into groups. You’ll have a group of files last modified (or created, added,  or last opened, depending on which option you choose) today, a group of yesterday’s files, a group of the previous seven days’ files,…

The galaxy, it turns out, is NGC 3190, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo (the “Lion”). It’s almost edge on to our line of sight.The galaxy was the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day for May 3, 2010. Our thanks to reader Paul Duke who sent us the tip.

Fear not, Snow Leopard users; Apple has not forgotten about you. Apple Software Installer Update 1.0, released by Apple late Monday, is a bug fix for for Apple’s previous operating system that “addresses an issue that may prevent certain Apple software from installing.”  Recommended for all users running Mac OS X 10.6.8, the update weighs…

So first, find the MAC address of the machine you want to set up time limits for. An easy way to get this is by going to System Preferences > Network on the computer in question, choosing Wi-Fi from the list on the left, and clicking on the Advanced button. The computer’s MAC address will…

The update is available for Intel-based iMacs running OS X 10.7 or later and weighs in at 481KB. It is available via the Software Update application on compatible iMacs, or as a downloadable installer at the Apple Support website.

So here’s how it works. After you’ve installed and launched the program, you’ll have access to a new menulet in your menu bar. Use that or Clarify’s built-in keyboard shortcut to start taking screen shots. The interface for composing your screen shots (and do I know about screenshots) couldn’t be simpler to understand. It’s pretty similar to…

One of my favorite utilities for cleaning up the Windows PCs my clients bring to me, Piriform’s CCleaner, has come to the Mac. CCleaner for Mac has been in beta for a while, but the final version of the utility was released on January 30. The app adds cleaning capabilities for Safari, Google Chrome, Opera…

The three questions that were on our mind right after Mountain Lion was announced were: What are your thoughts on Apple’s plan for yearly updates to OS X? Is it stressful? Doable? What’s your reaction to Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper, especially regarding what you suspect Apple’s plans are for the future? How well is Apple doing…

Gatekeeper lets Mountain Lion users control where their apps come from. They can choose to allow app downloads from anywhere — just as they have always been able to do — or limit downloads to the Mac App Store and trusted developers. By adding their Developer ID to apps, developers can “sign” their apps to…

So what that button did in previous versions of Mac OS X was to expand and collapse both the sidebar and the toolbar in Finder windows. What I think it was most often used for, though, was frightening the heck out of unsuspecting new Mac owners.“Where did my buttons go?! AAAAAAAAH!”I always used it for…

Upgrading If you had been using AU 5.5.3 on Lion, the update will replace it with version 6. Because version 6 isn’t as full-featured as the previous version, Apple has made an upgrade to the original app available, AU 5.6.If you’re still using Snow Leopard, you should continue to use Airport Utility 5.5.3, It requires…

Editor’s note: This is not intended to be a detailed, technical article. Instead, it’ll be restricted to the essentials, general simplifications, and some links for more details. Also, this first article on the subject focuses on Comcast and its IPv6 efforts. I asked Century Link about their plans, but they weren’t forthcoming about their IPv6…

So to help me keep that promise, open Safari and click on the button to see your list of previously downloaded items (or hit Option-Command-L to bring it up). If you’ve cleared the list or haven’t ever downloaded anything in Safari, you won’t see that button at all (and the keyboard shortcut’ll give you a big…

Once all messages are selected, go to File > Save As and save the document as the default rich text format to the desired location on your hard drive.Finally, find the file you just created and open it to reveal a rich text file with all of your emails listed one after the other. This…

NetSpot allows you to do a site survey for your home or building. A site survey is a diagram that shows various Wi-Fi parameters for a floor or section of your house or building. The first step is to create a map, first by giving the maximum dimensions (in feet or meters) and then using…

So first, figure out if you have automatic login on. If you do, you’ll never see your login screen at all, so go to System Preferences > Users & Groups to check. Choose Login Options from there, and if “Automatic login” is on, click on the padlock in the lower-left corner of the window to unlock the…

But did you know that similar rules apply to text selection? In Pages, for example, you can use Command, Option, and Shift to do some pretty funky things with your text, which can make formatting documents much simpler. How, you ask? Well, I’m not going to tell you! It’s my secret! Oh, all right, I’ll…

So ask your relative first if you can mess around with her machine. You’ll need her admin password to gain access to all of her other passwords, so I hope you’re a trustworthy individual. Start your sleuthing on that computer by opening Keychain Access, a program that lives in the Applications > Utilities folder. If…

So first, type whatever you want to look for in Safari’s search bar. (I’m resisting the urge here to call it “Safari’s Google search bar” mainly out of respect for the seven of you who are using Bing as your default instead.)Then click on a link from your search results to bring up a page.…

With Christmas just around the corner, you may be adding some new Ethernet devices to your home network. These days, keeping track of them, their IP addresses, their services, and even how close you may be to exceeding the DHCP license limit on your router is essential. iNet from BananaGlue will help you do that…

You may know that when you click on iPhoto’s “Share” button in the lower-right corner of its window and choose “Email” (or when you select Share > Email from the menu bar), your selected images will be put into iPhoto’s stationery interface. You’ll have a bunch of choices on how you’d like the message to look,…