Whether you are a seasoned Terminal user or just getting your feet wet, you may find yourself somewhat limited by the text based interface of the Terminal. Though powerful, the single line entry point, fixed font size, and scrolling history behavior of the Terminal’s output may have you squinting, scrolling, and otherwise jumping through some hoops to see what you are working on. However, there are a few built-in tricks in the OS X Terminal that may help you overcome these frustrations. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Apple Updates AppleCare+ for Apple Watch: Covering greater charge ranges
Apple has updated its AppleCare+ protection plan for the Apple Watch, claiming it will replace batteries free of charge if they do not hold at least 80% of its original charge level. This changes from the original AppleCare+ plan that only addressed batteries that would not hold 50% of their original charge. Continue reading
How to use Spotlight as a quick conversion calculator in OS X
The Spotlight search on your Mac allows you to find and preview files on your system, and can be quite convenient for opening applications, or in later versions of OS X, looking up quick bits of information. Spotlight also interfaces with the OS X calculator so you can use it to run quick calculations, but in addition, you can use it to perform a number of supported conversions, including currency, area, length, speed, and mass. Continue reading
How to put your personal Mac on your work’s network
Quite often corporate networks will have restrictions that prevent you from using them with your personal system. Sometimes, only systems that have been imaged by an IT department are allowed on a domain, with others being restricted via MAC address filtering (among other methods) from even connecting. However, you may find yourself having worked on projects using your personal laptop, and then needing to either access a printer or copy files to network resources at work. While using USB drives is the preferred approach for this, depending on your network setup you may be able to get yourself onto the network. Continue reading
How to fully reset Safari on your Mac
Being the default browser shipped with every Mac, you are very likely using Safari as your main way of accessing the Web. Therefore, if something goes wrong where Safari either loads and runs slowly, crashes on startup, or is otherwise not functioning correctly, then you might find yourself in a bit of a frustrating situation. If you need to reset aspects of Safari in order to regain functionality, then even though the options for doing so are somewhat scattered, you can still use them to regain use of your browser. Continue reading
Apple Watch may lock after going to sleep
If you have an Apple Watch and are finding you need to unlock it regularly after it has gone to standby mode while still on your wrist, then you are not alone. Recently the Apple Watch was found to have troubles reading heart rates, especially for those with tattoos and other obstructions on their wrists, but the problems that cause the watch to miss heartbeats may also have the watch assume it is no longer on your wrist, and thereby lock itself for security. Continue reading
Apple Keychain ‘completely cracked’ by security researchers, but are you vulnerable?
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have revealed findings that show Apple’s Keychain password service is vulnerable to malware that can steal passwords from other apps on the system and gain access to services and devices that you use with your Mac.
The Keychain stores passwords in an encrypted format, so while direct access to them is exceptionally difficult, OS X supports services that allow apps to authenticate and then have access to the passwords. Continue reading
Mac not booting or display not working? Here is how to get your files.
In order to access the files on your Mac you will usually need to have a functioning version of OS X, along with a working display so you can interact with your system. From here, you can either use file sharing on the local network to access your data, or copy your data to external drives. However, if your Mac will not boot, or its display is not working properly, then you still may be able to get your data off of it. Continue reading
How to downgrade iOS and restore your iPhone from a backup
If you have installed a new version of iOS, or have otherwise modified your iPhone or iPad and are now running into problems that you cannot seem to overcome, then a quick fix is to restore your phone to a recent backup. These issues may especially happen if you have installed test versions of iOS from Apple, such as a public or developer beta of the latest versions of iOS. While you may wish to simply downgrade your iPhone or iPad, unfortunately Apple provides no utility for this. Therefore, your only approach is to use a backup of your device that you made before upgrading or modifying your device, so hopefully you created one before upgrading or modifying your device. Continue reading
How to remove the FlashMall adware from OS X
Anytime you are using your Mac and are suddenly inundated with popups, unwanted Web pages opening, and other ads, then you are likely either using or getting too close to illegitimate resources. Generally this happens when you stumble across a nefarious Web site, but at other times it can be from adware and other malware you have installed on your system. One such instance of this is if you find persistent popups showing up on your Mac that reference “FlashMall,” which occurs from having installed the CrossRider trojan. Continue reading