One of the coolest things about the current version of iOS, and one I show every new iOS user, is the way you can double click the Home button to bring up the multitasking bar. This shows a horizontal list of all the recently closed apps on your iPhone, making switching between their saved states super easy.
If you want something similar on your Mac, then you have to try AppsBar, a $1.99 app in the Mac App Store that does the same thing, only at the top of your screen.
Quicklook is Mac OS X’s way of letting you see any file up close with just a tap of the spacebar. When you’re in the finder, for example, and you click on a photo, you can hit the spacebar and see the photo large and up close, making it easier to figure out which images to toss, and which to save. You can do the same with any supported text file, like an rtf, doc, or pdf file to see what’s in it at a glance.
But what if you want to copy a quick bit of text to paste somewhere, like an email? Instead of opening the file, waiting for the associated app to load, and then copying the bit of text, give this trick a shot.
The default black type on white screen window that comes as default in OS X Terminal is functional, but it’s really not that fun to use. Adding in color and some contrast is a good way to keep your aesthetic sense engaged, as well as make Terminal a bit more useful. In fact, there are many other themes built right in that do just that, and several you can download and install from the web.
Here’s how to change to one of the built-in Terminal themes, and a bit more on how to install third-party ones to boot.
There are many times you might want to knock out the background of a particular image on your Mac. Typically, I pop into Photoshop or Fireworks to use the Magic Wand tool to select all the white space of that image, and delete from there. These programs cost hundreds of dollars, though. Isn’t there a free way to do this?
It turns out that Preview, the free image & PDF viewing (and now editing) app that comes with OS X will do the very same thing, without you having to spend an extra dime on image editing software. Here’s how to do it.
Tired of right-clicking (control-click or two-finger click on trackpads) on a file and seeing a ton of duplicates in the Open With… contextual menu pop up? Not only is it aesthetically annoying, it takes up valuable real estate on smaller screens, and makes you move your mouse cursor more than you should, which could lead to repetitive-stress injuries. Or, you know, a tired finger or three.
Anyway, if you want to get rid of those duplicates, try the following.
The excellent Mac app 1Password is a cross-platform password management app which makes it easy to have unique strong passwords for every site you visit, as well as keeping all your private bits of data secure and available to only you. While you’d think a single app that holds all your sensitive data would be a point of weakness, AgileBits has proven its app to be super secure, even against hackers with malicious intent.
When you use the app to create or store passwords, though, you might want to be sure that you don’t reuse a password you’ve already used on a different site: it’s more secure if you don’t. You also want to make sure that all of your passwords are strong ones. How can you know that, though, with a long list of them? It’s simple, really: just sort by password strength.
CultofMac reader, Ashwin, asks,
“I wanted to know if there is way to use an USB stick as a password for my Mac. One of my friends has it for his Windows (machine). So, is there a way to do it for a Mac?”
The concept here is fairly simple: you install a program on your Mac, and then use it to take any USB stick you have and turn it into a secure password device for your Mac.
If you were used to inverting the colors on your Mac with a Control-Command-Option-8, you might have noticed that this has changed in OS X Mountain Lion. The older keyboard shortcut doesn’t work any more, and has been replaced with the less simple Command-Option-F5 shortcut to bring up an Accessibility Options dialog box. You have to then manually click the checkbox next to Invert Display Colors.
Here’s how to get the old shortcut back, for a quick invert.
Terminal app can be daunting at first, but it’s really the best way to hack into your Mac’s configurations and preferences to customize things to work for you rather than against you. With the right Terminal commands, you can tweak the Finder, mess with the user interface, build a more private and secure Mac, and even enable features that aren’t officially supported on older Macs.
Here are a few of the better ones.
So far this week, we’ve spent time hacking our Macs via the Terminal, the best darn behind-the-scenes app you can find in Mac OS X. We’ve talked about tweaking the Finder, the user interface, security and privacy, and the Dashboard.
Today, let’s look at a few of the newer features of the OS X world, and how to make them work on older, unsupported Macs using some Terminal magic.
We’ve passed along information on using Terminal, the most useful app on your Mac, to tweak the Finder, change up some User Interface features you may not want or like, and to keep your Mac more secure and your data more private.
Today, let’s look at the Dashboard, with its widgets and things, and see what we can do to hack it a bit.
Well, so far this week, we’ve shown you how to tweak the Finder and change up some user interface types of things, all using the power of Mac OS X’s Terminal app, a window into the back end of your Mac. Today, we’re going to spend a little time with the Terminal commands to make your Mac just a bit more secure and private.
Yesterday, we spent some time with Terminal commands that tweak the Finder in different ways. Today, we’ll look at some commands you can issue in the Terminal to mess around with the user interface. Let’s get started.
The Terminal app is like a window into the inner workings of your Mac. It accesses the Unix core of your Apple computer directly and without any muss or fuss. It can feel pretty daunting at times, but it’s really the way to dig in and make your Mac work the way you want it to. The Finder can be hacked a bit using the Terminal, of course, so we figured we could show you a few tricks, too.
Here’s how to hack up the Finder a bit to make it work better for you.
The Option key is a powerful ally in the transition from new, beginner user of OS X to the power user that you want to be. There are a ton of hidden features in the Finder alone that are hidden behind the underrated and unassuming Option key. There are Option key tricks for the OS X Menu Bar, for apps in the iWork suite, in Safari, and a few more random ones to boot.
So, sit back, relax, and get ready to hit that Option key a whole bunch of times in a row.
Well, we’ve shown you tips on how to master the Option key in OS X in the Finder, in iWork, in Safari, and in the Menu Bar.
Here are a few more that we thought you’d like, in no particular order.
What fun the Option key is in OS X, right? Adding it to clicks and keystrokes makes many features accessible that would otherwise be hidden. We’ve spent the last few days talking about how to maximize the Option key in your power-user Mac workflow, in the Finder, the Menu Bar, and in iWork apps.
Now, we’re going to head over to Apple’s built-in browser, Safari, and show you how the Option key can make your Safari life just that bit better.
The Option key is a fantastic part of Mac OS X, making many features accessible that would otherwise be hidden. We’ve spent a couple of days talking about how to maximize the Option key in your power-user Mac workflow, in the Finder and in the Menu Bar.
Today, we’re going to spend some time with Apple’s office productivity suite, iWork, and show you some cool tips on using the Option key in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
The Option key is a powerful ally in your transition from new, beginner user of OS X to the power user that you want to be. There are a ton of features in the Menu Bar that are hidden behind this underrated and unassuming Option key.
Here are some of the more useful ones.
The Option key is a powerful ally in the transition from new, beginner user of OS X to the power user that you want to be. There are a ton of hidden features in the Finder alone that are hidden behind the underrated and unassuming Option key.
Here are some of the more useful ones.
We showed you a handful of fantastic, instant keyboard shortcuts to shut down, reboot, or sleep your Mac, but an even safer way is to bring up the Power button dialog box that happens when you hit the, well, Power button on your Mac. That’s the one in the upper right corner of the keyboard on most modern Macs, while some older Macs have it as a separate button integrated into the body of the Mac itself.
Either way, hit that Power button and then you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to activate the different options in the dialog.
We all should back our stuff up frequently and often. With the advent of iCloud and Time Machine, keeping your Mac and the important things on it backed up has gotten easier, but there’s always a good reason to back stuff up when you can.
Reminders often have a lot of important data about us, our schedules, and things we really need to do. Keeping these backed up separately, in addition to the system wide backups we all should do, is probably a good idea as well. Here’s how to back them up, and to restore them when you need to get them back.
A while back, we wrote up a tip on reindexing the hard drive on your Mac using Terminal. Recently, a Cult of Mac reader emailed us to let us know it wasn’t quite working on his end.
Rob,
I read your post on using terminal to reindex the hard drive on a mac. Any idea why when the command is executed the terminal displays “Indexing disabled.”?Thanks,
Mike S
Here’s what he had to do to get it working again.
One of the trickier things about creating a playlist for any party is making sure you have the right music for the people you’ve invited. Sometimes, though, you might want to give this nerve wracking process a miss, and let the guests at your house choose the music.
Here’s how to do just that, using nothing more than your Mac and the iTunes Album Artwork screensaver.
I’ve been a Mac user since the Performa 638 CD I purchased in 1994, and I had no idea these shortcuts existed. While I wouldn’t recommend them to every Mac user, if you’re comfortable with the potential issues of immediately shutting down your Mac, you’ll want to learn these post-haste.
