A new malicious effort by cyber criminals is making the rounds, which mimics Apple’s user account management site in an attempt to steal Apple IDs.
With a stolen Apple ID, a criminal can potentially log into your iCloud account and gain access to email and contacts, as well as use remote services to lock or wipe your Mac or iDevices. Continue reading
Resizing windows in OS X allows you to optimally use the real estate of your display. If you find yourself constantly using the same approach to resizing windows, you might find some use in the less-obvious features Apple has implemented for managing window sizes. These include resizing from multiple sides of a window at once, in addition to making use of full-screen views, and zooming windows. Continue reading
Apple’s iMessage service is the default messaging system for anyone using OS X or iOS, so if you use one of these systems then you likely have an iCloud account active and ready to receive messages. Unfortunately, at times and especially if you have a popular iCloud user name, you may receive spam texts and other messages through your iCloud account. Continue reading
When you take a screenshot in OS X, you might expect the resulting image to be the same size as you see on screen; however, if you take a screenshot using a MacBook with a Retina display, then depending on what program you use to open it, you may find the resulting image to be rather large.
This happens because the screen output image on Macs with Retina displays have double the number of pixels, to take advantage of the system’s greater pixel density for a crisper image. Continue reading
When you either first set up your Mac, or if you have upgraded it to the latest versions of OS X, you will find Apple has changed some of the default spell checking services to auto-correct typographical errors.
While in many cases autocorrect can be convenient, there are times when it can be a burden, especially if you are intending to use misspelled or non-standard words. Continue reading
Built into Mac OS X is the ability to take screenshots using simple keyboard commands, which can be exceptionally useful for communicating what you are seeing on-screen with others.
The basic options for creating screen shots in OS X are fairly well-known; however, there are additional options for managing them, which can greatly enhance how you create and use screenshots. Continue reading
Apple’s OS X Mavericks operating system is the fastest-adopted version to date. According to a recent analysis done by Chitikia, the OS has reached 40 percent of the Mac user-base. This level has been achieved in the five months since Apple made it available as a free upgrade in its App Store.
In comparison, OS X Mountain Lion was adopted by about 34 percent of users in a 14-month period Continue reading
Apple’s Notification Center in OS X is a central service that allows you to view messages and warnings from your system along the right-hand side of your screen. Messages appear either as banners that disappear, or as alerts that require you to click a button to close. You can also click the Notification Center icon next to the Spotlight icon in the system menu bar, to view all the available messages in the system. Continue reading
Starting with Lion, OS X has been distributed almost exclusively online through the App Store, or if you need to wipe your system and reinstall, then the installer can be accessed through Recovery Mode.
While these approaches should work just fine, sometimes it might be impractical, such as when you need to install to more than a couple of systems. In these situations, each system will need to download the installation files, which can take a very long time, especially if your bandwidth is somewhat limited. Continue reading
While most Mac systems come with multiple USB, Thunderbolt, and firewire ports (for older systems), you may find yourself needing to daisy-chain your devices to get them all connected to your Mac. This may be simply because you are out of ports and need to use a hub or similar setup to give yourself more ports, or you may simply find it convenient to connect all devices to one port.
This may especially be the case with portable systems, where you have perhaps one or two USB ports, or maybe have used Continue reading