Category Archives: How-To

Dos and Donts for managing data on external hard drives

USBDriveIconXYour data is the most important aspect of your computer, and unfortunately we often don’t realize this until we’re faced with the possibility of having lost exceptionally valuable (if not priceless) work. This can happen as easily as a computer suddenly shutting off on you and no longer booting, or when you attach an external hard drive containing all of your files, only to find it will not mount and cannot be repaired. Continue reading

How to manage inactivated e-mail accounts in OS X

MailIconYosemiteXWhen you start a new job or join a new group, club, service, or other organization, you may be given an e-mail account to use with that service. You then may set this account up in Mail so you can access it quickly from your iOS and Mac OS devices, in addition to any Web client your provider may use. However, if you are terminated or otherwise leave your organization then access to new e-mail may be restricted and you will no longer be able to receive new messages. Continue reading

How to enable screen sharing services remotely in OS X

ScreenSharingIconXIf you have any Mac that you would like to manage remotely, then you can enable Screen Sharing or Remote Management in the Sharing system preferences. However, if these become disabled or if you keep them disabled by default, then you will not be able to access your system. Nevertheless, if you have Remote Login enabled and can establish an SSH connection, then you can take a few steps to re-enable Screen Sharing. Continue reading

How to present and record your iPhone or iPad on your Mac

iPhoneIconXEvery now and then you may wish to display something from your iPhone or iPad on your Mac. This may be during a presentation, or just for kicks, but if you have content on your phone and while you can always use various sharing services to send content to people or even to your Mac for displaying, another very quick approach can be done if you simply have an available lightning cable. Continue reading

Four quick April Fools pranks for your Mac-loving friends

CalendarIconXHappy April Fools day! If you have an inkling to participate in sly festivities on this day of pranks, you might consider looking no further than your friend or colleagues’ Macs. While you can post a fake note on a fridge, or lure a buddy to some humorous end, with only quick access to a friend’s Mac or iPhone you can have quite a fun time at his or her expense. Continue reading

How to change video playback speed in QuickTime X

QuickTimeXIconXWhen Apple replaced its aging QuickTime Player 7 with the newer QuickTime X, it touted the change as a ground-up rebuild to supplant the band-aided framework that had kept QuickTime 7 going for so many years. QuickTime may now be better poised to handle future media types and implementations, but since its announcement QuickTime X has not really done much, and has left many without obvious approaches for some of the basic controls that have been conveniences over the years. Continue reading

Hot corners annoying you? Make them explicitly requested.

MissionControlIconXOne of OS X’s notable features is its Hot Corners service, where by moving your mouse to a designated corner of your screen you can activate one of several designated tasks, including sleeping your system, preventing sleep, triggering Expose views, and more. These options undoubtedly have their benefits; however, there is also the problem where the default approach for assigning hot corners makes them too easy to trigger. Continue reading

Tips and tricks for increasing the use of the OS X Console

ConsoleIconXOne of the top troubleshooting tools you will use in OS X is the Console app, with which you can view a centralized list of logged system activity, be it from the system console or from application-specific log files. With the details output in the resources available in the Console, you can often track relevant activity for when crashes and other faults occur, and then address them accordingly. Continue reading

How to run “headless” virtual machines in OS X

VMWareFusionIconXIf you run multiple operating systems on your Mac in virtual machines, then you likely use either Virtual Box, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels Desktop. For the most part, when you set up a VM on your Mac with any of these solutions, it will run as a window that shows you the graphical view of the virtualized OS. However, if you use your VMs for servers instead of running desktop applications, then you can use a small trick to run them in the background, and thereby save both a little processing power and some desktop clutter. Continue reading