The password on your Mac is the primary way you will secure and prevent unauthorized access to it. If you suspect your password is compromised, decide you wish to use a different one, or have forgotten it, then there are several approaches for changing it. These range from the use of the standard system preferences, to various approaches with the Terminal, and finally with use of the Recovery and Single User modes on your Mac. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: May 2014
How to change the default Web browser and E-mail client in OS X
When you click a link in OS X, be it a Web link or a mailto link for sending an e-mail, OS X will open the default program that is associated for handling this type of link. In a fresh OS X installation, these will be set to Safari and Mail, but you can use any program that is capable of managing these links.
As with handling files of a particular type, OS X uses Continue reading
Six tips for efficient use of your Mac
While OS X is built to be simple, there are often times when I see people taking many unnecessary steps to perform basic operations on their Macs. For instance, to find a buried window, some people may resort to shuffling those in the foreground to the edges of the screen, in order to reveal those underneath.
There are many ways to optimize the way you use your Mac, but here are six tips that may help you reduce Continue reading
How to quickly resize images in OS X
There may be times when you have a photo or other image on your Mac that you would like to resize. These may have been downloaded from the internet, taken on your iOS device or with another camera, or taken as a screenshot on your Mac.
While often you can embed an image in a document or e-mail, and then resize it in this medium, sometimes a Continue reading
iOS ransom hack spreading to US
The iOS ransom hack that began targeting users in Australia and New Zealand is also affecting those in the United States and other countries.
The hack began this weekend with a number of victims in Australia seeing a “Find My iPhone” service message that locked them out of their iOS devices and claims that a $100 ransom must be paid to a PayPal account in order to regain control of the device. Continue reading
Fix About This Mac not showing proper disk space
If you need to look up how much of your Mac’s disk space is being used, you can simply choose About This Mac from the Apple menu, and then click the More Info button to bring up the system information summary. In here, you can click the Storage section, to see all attached hard drives and a colorized breakdown of the file types and sizes stored on each. While this feature is convenient, sometimes it may not show an accurate breakdown of the space used. Continue reading
Malicious attack locks iOS devices, demands ransom
In recent hours, a number of iOS users appear to have been hit by a malware attack that locks their iOS devices and demands a $100 ransom to unlock it again.
Those affected by the issue have reported that when using the device as they normally do, it suddenly locks itself and then displays a message from an “Oleg Pliss” which claims Continue reading
Google releases VirusTotal Uploader for OS X
Google has released a new software package for OS X that allows you to upload malware or other suspicious software samples to its popular VirusTotal scanning and malware indexing system. This Web site has been widely used to help people identify new malware threats, and having this tool available on OS X will hopefully help boost security for Mac users. Continue reading
What are the Command Line Developer tools in OS X?
Sometimes you might try to run a program or two on your Mac, and encounter a message that states you need to install the command line developer tools. The message will then have options to install the tools, cancel the request, or get Apple’s XCode software package.
If you encounter this warning, you may wonder Continue reading
How to change or unlink files from applications in OS X
OS X will automatically associate programs to handle file types they are built to read. For instance, if you have a file with a non-standard extension such as .xyz, then if you double-click it OS X will likely ask you to select an application to use; however, if you have installed an application that can handle .xyz file types, then OS X will detect this and launch this application when you open a file of this type. While convenient, if you would like to unlink this association then you will have to jump through a couple of hoops. Continue reading