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Every time you whitelist Cult of Mac, a kitten is born

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And you want more adorable kittens in the world, don't you?
And you want more adorable kittens in the world, don't you?
Photo: Ben Scherjon/Pixabay CC

Seriously, people, we have families to feed. Kittens to adopt. We need your ad impressions.

The new iOS content blockers, as well as traditional ad-blocking browser plugins, threaten the wallets of every ad-supported website, including Cult of Mac. Luckily, it’s easy to whitelist us (and any other sites you want to support). It’s incredibly easy to restore order to the online universe, whether you’re using an iPhone or a Mac.

How to pin Safari tabs in El Capitan

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Keep your important tabs active in the background for easy access.
Keep your important tabs active in the background for easy access.
Screen: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Let’s be honest: there are a handful of sites that you visit a lot, open in tabs in Safari.

If you want to keep these tabs ready to go in every Safari window you open, even after you’ve quit Safari and re-launched it, you can use El Capitan’s new tab pinning feature to keep pages “open, up to date, and easily accessible.”

The sites you pin will stay active in the background, pinned to the left side of your tab bar. Here’s how to create (and get rid of) pinned tabs in Safari.

How to get ready for your iOS 9 upgrade the right way

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This action plan  will ensure your iOS 9 upgrade is buttery smooth.
This action plan will ensure your iOS 9 upgrade is buttery smooth.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Whether you’re getting a new iPhone 6s or not, you’re going to want to upgrade to iOS 9 to take advantage of everything Apple’s new mobile operating system has to offer.

iOS 9 is ready to revolutionize your mobile life, but there are a few things you should do before making the leap. Here’s how to get your iPhone (or iPad) ready for its iOS 9 upgrade — the right way.

How to fix weird ‘talagent’ keychain issue

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Get rid of the annoying Keychain messages about talagent with this easy fix.
Get rid of the annoying Keychain messages about talagent with this easy fix.
Screen: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Are you getting something like following message on your Mac every time you log in?

talagent wants to use the "local items" keychain. please log in with password.

If so, you’re in luck, because we have a fix. Here’s how to get this utterly annoying pop-up out of your face.

Save your battery with iOS 9’s Low Power Mode

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Keep your iPhone humming for up to three hours until your next charge.
Keep your iPhone humming for up to three hours until your next charge.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

iOS 9 brings a bunch of battery-boosting features, most of which work right out of the box. But there’s one battery-saving feature you’ll have to enable yourself.

Called Low Power Mode, this new feature should prove super-useful when you need to eke out just a bit more time with your device — provided you’re not doing anything intense.

Master web notifications in Safari and Chrome

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MacBook Air
The World Wide Web would like you to pay attention.
Photo: Apple

Websites these days have another tool to engage you: the desktop notification. Many sites, this one included, allow you to opt in to a system of popup notices that encourage you to click through and see new content.

Of course, not all content is created equal, and you might someday wish to stop being notified of new cat photos from that feline-friendly website.

Here’s how to manage web notifications using two of the Mac’s most popular web browsers, Safari and Chrome.

Panic button app could save your life — or go terribly wrong

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witness-iphone-app - 1
WItness gets you help from your own emergency contacts when you need it most.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

If you’re afraid of ever being in a dangerous situation without any witnesses or good samaritans nearby, you might want to consider downloading this new app appropriately named Witness. Calling itself the ‘panic button for the smartphone age,’ one tap broadcasts live video and your current location to a list of preset emergency contacts, who can then decide if it’s appropriate to take action.

Of course, if they do nothing, they could potentially have front-row seats to a very morbid and disturbing show.

Weird Digital Crown fix will make you fear for your Apple Watch

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Yikes! Water and electronics still freak me out.
Yikes! Water and electronics still freak me out.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

My Apple Watch is getting a little crufty. I wear it every day, including when I sweat a lot — like during a run, for example.

Recently, the Digital Crown started to get a little tough to turn. It took extra effort to spin the darn thing, and I wasn’t able to rotate it smoothly anymore.

Luckily, Apple had me covered — but I wasn’t prepared for what I had to do to get this Digital Crown fix to work.

10 essential Finder tricks every Mac user should know

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Photo: Yeray Hdez Guerra/FlickrCC
Master your Mac with these 10 Finder tips. Photo: Yeray Hdez Guerra/Flickr CC

In Mac OS X, you’ll spend much of your time in the Finder, the part of your operating system that manages files and such. While you might think you know all there is to know about it, the Finder is a complex and wonderful app — with its own special tricks to master.

Here are 10 essential Finder tips that will help you get the most out of your time working or playing on your Mac.

Shield your iPhone fitness data from other apps’ prying eyes

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Keep your activity data private. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Keep your activity data private. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

With the advent of Apple’s motion coprocessor chip (the M8 in recent iOS devices), any apps that you download and grant permission to can use this data to enhance their offerings.

This lets apps like RunKeeper, Carrot Fitness and others both gather fitness data from your iPhone as well as send it to the Health app.

This could raise privacy concerns for some, so being able to decide which apps we allow to access our fitness-tracking data — or whether the iPhone tracks these activities at all — can be a helpful.

Here’s our recipe for getting finer-grained control over your fitness-tracking data.

How to enable that sexy new iTunes Notification Center widget

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Quicker than switching to iTunes, for sure. Screengrab: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Quicker than switching to iTunes, for sure. Screengrab: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

The advent of iTunes 12.1 gave us a sweet new widget that lets you control iTunes from the Notification Center’s Today section, without ever having to switch to the app itself. You can even favorite songs and buy currently playing tracks if you’re listening to iTunes Radio.

Unfortunately, this widget doesn’t seem to appear by default. To enable it, you need to drop into System Preferences. Here’s how to get it up and running.

How to keep those annoying phone calls off your iPad or Mac

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Photo: Alex Heath/Cult of Mac
Seriously, I don't want to have to ignore your call on three devices. Photo: Alex Heath/Cult of Mac

I love the idea of being able to answer a phone call on my Mac, or even on my iPad. The convergence of this communication technology seems like it has great potential.

In reality, though, I end up getting three rings for every call, each slightly time-shifted from the rest, as I sit in my office/living room with my iPhone, iPad and Mac. You’d think that such an intelligent system would know that I had all three devices in one room, and only ring through to one specified device. Until Apple figures that out, maybe in an iOS update or OS X 10.11, there’s only one thing you can do: Disable the heck out of it.

Here’s how.

Local Apple Retail Store Out Of Stock On iPad Mini LTE? Here’s How To Order One Anyway

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Screen Shot 2012-11-27 at 6.09.54 PM

So, I sold my iPad mini WiFi today, in hopes I could head to my local Apple retail store and pick one up. My friend was headed down to the store to pick hers up, so I figured there were plenty in stock. Just to be safe, I gave them a call to check on the availability of the 16G model LTE that I wanted to purchase.

The local Apple rep that picked up the phone said that they were out of stock, and did not know when new ones would be available.

I hopped onto the Apple Store app, in hopes I could fool the system, and order one for store pickup, anyway. Sadly, I was unable to get the app to allow me to buy one for in-store pickup; I could only get it to send me one via mail, with a 2 week shipping date.

Then I got crafty.

Eject Stuck CDs Or DVDs From Your Mac [Video How-To]

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eject

Every once and awhile, your Mac will decide not to eject a CD or DVD, for various reasons. It could be that it can’t detect the disk, it’s in an incompatible format, or that the disk itself is locking up the computer. But, no matter the reason, here are some quick fixes for ejecting stuck CDs and DVDs.