If there’s one thing PC users have the hardest time with when they use my Macbook Air, it’s the trackpad. What seems completely common and functional to me leaves them baffled and confused.
“How do I click the mouse?” they ask, tapping away in frustration, not knowing that all you need to do is press down a bit and, you know, actually click the thing.
If you’re one of those folks, or you just like to be able to tap the trackpad without actually pressing it down, here’s how to do so.
When you’re writing up a long document, or even in the middle of a simple one, it’s good to be able to move around and edit in the text without taking your hands off the keyboard. All the little switches from keyboard to mouse and back again take up valuable time, and–perhaps more importantly–force you to change the way your brain is processing information.
Using the arrow keys is a good way to move the cursor around, and of course there are the standard Command key shortcuts, but did you know that there’s some legacy keyboard shortcuts that come to us all the way back in Emacs, a popular text editing program for Unix, the operating system Mac OS X is based?
There are, and here are a few good ones. I’ve tested them in Text Edit, but chances are several Mac text editing programs will take advantage of these.
The OS X Finder is an amazing thing, letting you create folder within folder, duplicate files, find your documents, and generally get stuff done. More and more, the Finder features are being integrated across all apps and documents on your Mac.
Case in point is the ability to find the directory path of a document from the document’s title bar, as well as being able to (since Mountain Lion, anyway) rename your documents in the title bar as well. All of this is thanks to the proxy icon, which Apple defines as: “An icon in the title bar of a document window that users can manipulate as if they were manipulating the corresponding file-system object.”
Here’s how to use them on your Mac.
I’ve just picked up one of those fancy USB 3 drives to use with my Macbook Air as a sort of secondary backup when I travel, as it was so inexpensive for a 120 Gb drive. I wanted to know how much faster it might be, even on my non-USB 3 Air, than the run of the mill USB drive that you can pick up for a few bucks at the local electronics store, or get as a giveaway at a tech conference, for example. I also wanted to see how fast the new SSD drive that I installed in my Macbook Air was, just for kicks.
I wasn’t sure how to measure the relative speed of these drives, though, until I found out about Disk Speed Test from the fine folks over at OS X Daily. I was able to check the speed of my fast USB drive, my internal SSD drive, and an external USB-powered drive, and compare them all, which is pretty peachy.
Here’s how it works.
With all the excitement over the recent release of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 7, it’s easy to forget that the Cupertino-based company has another OS in the works, OS X Mavericks Beta. Currently at version 8 of the Developer Preview, or beta, OS X Mavericks continues to quietly update in the background, with more refinements over time.
One of these improvements is the ability to delete tags from the sidebar. As you may recall, we showed you how to add and modify tags to the list in the Finder sidebar, as well as how to drag and drop files to tag them.
It turns out, though, that now you can actually delete tags as well, completing the tag circle of life. Here’s how.
Maybe it’s just me, but I always picture someone yelling at me when I get messages and emails in all capital letters. It might just be a mistake on their end, I suppose, since it’s fairly easy to accidentally hit the Caps Lock when you’re aiming for the Shift key on today’s smaller laptop keyboards.
No worries, though, since it’s pretty easy to actually turn the Caps Lock key off on your Mac. Here’s how.
Yesterday, we showed you how to record your iPhone or iPad’s screen using Reflector, an app that runs on your Mac and records the iOS device’s screen via a little AirPlay magic.
Today, let’s talk about recording your Mac’s screen. I was surprised to find out that QuickTime Player (which is already on your Mac) will do this for free. Here’s how to make the magic happen.
I wasn’t sure if this would be a good iOS Tip or OS X Tip, but I figure that since most of the heavy lifting occurs on your Mac, we’d post this as an OS X Tip.
Ever want to record your iPhone screen? Maybe take a video of something you’re doing on your iPad? Well, you can record any portion of your screen with Quicktime Player, which we’ll cover later this week, but the easy way to get a video of what’s going on on your iPad or iPhone is to use an OS X App: Reflector.
What the app does is trick your iOS device into thinking that your Mac is an AirPlay device, like an Apple TV. Once your iPhone or iPad is sending it’s video display to your Mac, Reflector has a built-in recording option.
Here’s how to make it all happen.
One of the worst things, in my opinion, is how modern autocorrect fixes words that I’ve misspelled into correctly spelled but inappropriate words. What’s worse is the way Mac OS X arrogantly assumes that I must mean the word that makes no sense in context, because it is closest to the typo I just made.
For me, it’s far better to just see the red line of doom; that way< i can right click and choose the right word, or just type it again. I mean, it's typing; it shouldn't be that big a deal to do it twice. If you're like me and want to turn this "feature" off, here's how.
Poor Dashboard widgets. They seem so sad, sitting there, their vast potential wasted by a lack of any good ones.
Luckily, our friends over at OS X Daily have pointed out a pretty slick way to roll your own using Safari. Who knew?
Here’s how to make your own darn widgets in OS X with nothing more than a copy of Safari and any web page you want to keep track of.
Having access to a dictionary is one way to really improve your vocabulary. When my teacher in eighth grade English class told me that, I ignored it, because who has time to stop reading, grab the dictionary from the shelf (or under my seat, in middle school), and look up that word. By the time I was done with that, I’d have lost any meaning in the reading I was doing, anyway. Ugh.
Flash forward to now, and almost every device has a dictionary attached to it. The same is true for Mac OS X, at least the Mountain Lion variety, and it’s super easy to bring up.
Ever need to send a buddy a quick screenshot or file? How about sending a file from your iPhone to your friend on a Mac?
Getting files from one computer to another is a fairly easy task, what with email and services like Dropbox around, but I’ve been using Messages to send files to friends, family, and even myself lately.
Here’s how to do it.
As it turns out, I end up having to sign a lot of documents, such as contracts, IRS forms, and the like. Many of these are in PDF form (bravo), and some even let me fill them out via my keyboard (even better).
Unfortunately, they still expect us to print these babies out, sign them with a pen, and then get them back into some sort of digital format, via a scanner or picture with our iPhone or something.
Luckily, Apple’s own Preview makes all that superflous. It’s super easy to get your pen and paper signature onto a PDF. Here’s how.
Network locations are extremely useful if you use your Mac across a variety of networking environments, like a Proxy-laden school building, a super secured enterprise site, or a special set up at home. Each environment could take a ton of extra time setting up the details if you only had one networking setup system.
Luckily, Mac has always had this idea of Locations, a way of setting and saving all the little networking details for each location you use your Mac in. Did you know, however, that you can switch between network locations in the Apple menu? I didn’t, so I figured I’d share what I found out.
When you drag a bunch of items into a folder in the Finder on your Mac and some of the items in there have the same name, your Mac will ask you if you want to replace the items in the folder you’re dragging to. This is all well and good when you’re trying to do just that, but what about when you want to merge the files from the first folder to the second?
Well, it’s amazingly simple.
It used to be a no-brainer to enable the Apache web server included with Mac OS X. You’d hop into the System Preferences, fire up the Sharing preference pane, and then you’d be good to go.
Starting in Mountain Lion, however, Apple hasn’t given a user-friendly checkbox as in previous OS X releases. Instead you need a little bit of Terminal magic.
Here’s how to enable and start the Web Service in OS X Mountain Lion.
Sure, there are quite a few keyboard shortcuts to navigate Spotlight, making it more of a power user tool than you’d think.
Did you know, however, that you can reveal found items in the Finder using Spotlight? Me neither. So here’s how.
Ever end up with a lot of Finder windows floating around your Mac screen? In previous versions of Mac OS X, the choice was to close them all with a keyboard shortcut, Option-Command-W, which will end all your Finder suffering in one short tap.
In Mavericks beta, that still works. Yet Apple has also added another way to deal with multiple Finder windows: merging them. Here’s how.
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been getting stuff into a new folder in the Finder the same way as I always have, just like I did way back in OS 7, OS 8, OS 9, and even ten years ago in OS X.
I make a new folder in the Finder using Shift-Command-N, or by selecting New Folder from the Finder menu, then Command- or Shift-click all the files I want to put into that folder, and drag them all over. I’ve heard you can even copy and paste files into a new folder the same way, but I’m kind of old school and don’t mess with that.
Today, though, I read about a totally different way to do this. Color me surprised (and a bit chagrined) to find out that there’s an easier way to put a bunch of items into a new folder in the Finder.
The Finder in Mac OS X is specifically designed to help you find stuff. In any Finder Window, you can arrange the icons or lists of files alphabetically by Name, by Kind of file, by the Application that opens that file, by Date Last Opened, Added, Modified, or Created, and also by Size and by Label.
In list view, you can also click on the top column title to sort the list in ascending or descending order. It’s a pretty comprehensive way to find your stuff in the Finder, without even having to search for it.
Did you know, however, that you can also arrange Applications by application type (Productivity, Social Networking, Music, Video, and so on)? I didn’t, so here’s a tip on how to do just that.
In OS X, all file types have a default application that opens when you double click on them. If you double click on a PDF file or a PNG file, chances are that your Mac will open it in Preview, Apple’s default PDF and image file app. If you’ve given an app like Adobe Reader, for example, permission to set itself as the default PDF app, then all PDFs will open in Reader.
Over time, you may have set apps as default that you no longer want to open your files. Conversely, you might want all JPG files to open in Preview, except one specific JPG file, which you’d like to open in Photoshop. Here’s how to make both of these situations work for you.
Parental controls are a wonderful thing, letting you filter internet content, restrict your kids to certain apps, and even keep them from accessing the Mac during times they should be sleeping or doing homework.
Did you know, then, that you can manage the Parental Controls in OS X from another Mac on your network? This means that you can make changes and add or remove restrictions on the fly from your own Mac, rather than having to brave the bedroom of, say, a grumpy and smelly pre-teen daughter who might not be overjoyed to see you messing about on “her” computer. I mean, hypothetically.
Here’s how to set up your child’s Mac to be able to do this.
This one’s for all you Macbook and Magic Trackpad users; you know who you are. Mac OS X comes with Mission Control, a way to see all the open applications running on your Mac. Typically, you can hit the F3 key to bring up Mission Control and see what’s what on your Mac.
Similarly, you can either click on any Desktop Space across the top of Mission Control, or hit Command-Arrow (right or left) to switch to different Desktop Spaces on your Mac. This makes it easy to visually keep things separate. Some folks keep their web browser in one Desktop Space, and their word processing app in another, switching back and forth as they need the respective apps.
If you’re using a trackpad to access your Mac OS X laptop, or you’re using a magic trackpad connected to your Mac desktop, however, there are a couple of cool trackpad gestures you can use to do the same thing.
I saw this tip over at OS X Daily today, and it reminded me of all the times I did this as a Mac IT guy a couple of jobs back.
See, every so often, the Macs where I worked would start to act weird. Nothing truly game-stopping — just little things, stuff that was easily worked around but always a little bit annoying. The first stop when things are weird, for me, was always Repair Permissions in the Disk Utility app. I’d usually then Verify the disk in that very same app, and see if it returned any errors. If not, I’d usually drop into single-user mode and do a file system check.
Here’s how to do just that.
Command-Tab is probably seared into your muscle memory to switch between running applications while on your Mac. I know it is permanently stuck in mine.
You probably also know that Command-Tab can also be used to quit apps as well, right? And hide apps? To be honest, I knew the first tip, but not the second one, which (to me) makes it worth a share.
