Tag: apple
Whether you are talking about your car, phone, dog, your favorite football player or even about trying to make the best out of your work day, speed is one of the things – if not the most important – that always come up. The same theory applies to your Mac and the way you want it to respond to your commands.
There are countless pieces of advice you can find on the Internet telling you what you can do to make sure that your Mac is as responsive as you want it to be. However, although some of those tips will show you the right path to achieve that, others have nothing to do with improving the speed of your Mac’s OS X system.
What you can do to make sure you are not doing daily maintenance work on your Mac with no effect just because someone told you that, let’s say, is to repair the disk permissions. Actually, when repairing the disk permissions, OS X will just examine files and folders on your hard drive to check if their current permissions are set the way they were supposed to be.
If the permissions are different from the expected ones, they will be changed to their correct settings. That is only one of the many suggested practices users will wrongfully perform on a daily basis when noticing that their Mac is getting a little sluggish and unresponsive. Read More»
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Say you’re doing a project for school, a presentation, or you simply need to get a hold of an application’s original (512 x 512) icon. Searching Google Images may do the trick, but you’ll often find yourself with pictures that are too small, blurry, modified or just not the one you’re looking for. This short guide will show you how to get your hands on an application’s original icon, right from within itself.
Power users should know that most Mac OS X apps (be they Apple-developed, or created by third-party devs) contain something called a “Resources” folder. This folder is mostly used by the application itself to get the images and sounds it needs to display / play throughout the course of running. Yes, you’ve guessed right: this is the place you need to be to start looking for that app’s icon set. We’ll use Apple’s GarageBand as the example for this short tutorial.
1. The first thing you need to do is navigate to where GarageBand is installed on your computer. If you have it already living peacefully in your Dock, just right-click its icon and select “Show in Finder.” Whether or not you’ve placed the music-making program in your Applications folder, you can simply fire up Spotlight (CMD + Space) and do a quick search to locate the app. Hold down the Command (CMD) key and hit Return (Enter) with the GarageBand selected in Spotlight. Congratulations! You’ve found where GarageBand is situated on your Mac’s hard drive.
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1. Select multiple files
Select multiple files and folders by holding down the Command or Shift key as you click with the mouse. This also lets you select non-continuous items, so you can skip those that you don’t need. You can then drag them all to another location as one, or duplicate or copy them all in one go.
2. Open multiple files
Open multiple files and folders as one by hitting Command + [O]. Folders will show their contents, and any files selected will open in their respective applications.
3. Transfer multiple files
If you need to email or transfer a group of files, say via iChat or FTP, multiple-select the items or group them into a folder. Then right-click on the folder or items and choose Create Archive or Compress (depending on your version of OS X). Finder will then create a zip file containing all the items. The overall file size will now be smaller, so sending the email will also be quicker. Read More»
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1. Boost memory
The simplest way to a faster Mac is by installing extra RAM. Before you buy, check the maximum RAM capacity of your Mac. You can download a free program called MacTracker that will tell you the precise technical specifications of every Mac ever produced.
2. Install RAM in pairs
Many Macs will give you a speed boost if you install matching RAM modules in pairs. G5 and Mac Pro towers actually require the installation of pairs of modules, though most other Macs will allow the use of an odd number, with the proviso that you won’t get the fastest possible performance from them. Crucial’s website will tell you the specifics for your model.
3. Faster drive
Installing a faster hard drive as the boot drive on a tower Mac will yield performance gains, especially if you go up to a 10,000-speed drive. On a laptop, installing a 7,200rpm drive (to replace a 5,400 rpm model) will also make things faster, though older Mac portables don’t have user replaceable hard drives Read More»
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Addressing users of an iPod shuffle (1st and 2nd generation), or iPod shuffle (3rd generation), Apple has updated its Support section with new information on how to update your player’s software.
Apple outlines that it is very important to understand the difference between “update” and “restore.” Failing to do this may result in losing all your songs, or whatever data you have stored on your iPod shuffle. Update does not affect your settings or songs, but only installs the software that controls iPod shuffle.
However, the restore action erases the disk and restores iPod shuffle to its original factory condition. According to the iPod maker, you should use the computer where music is normally synced, if you only need to update iPod shuffle. “Updating on another computer will result in all songs being removed from the iPod shuffle,” the company warns. Additionally, users should make sure to back up the contents of their iPod shuffle. Everything can be synced back to the device, if the items are part of your iTunes Library. Read More»
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By default, Mac OS X has an interface that will always offer its users very high degrees of usability and eye candy. Although it is already a standard that users of other OSes still dream of, Mac users will always try to give it a little more bang.
If you do not think that the OS X GUI is one of the best-looking OS interface designs out there, just think about the high number of Windows and/or Linux users that will do anything in their power to make their OS look and act as closely as OS X.
If you are a Mac user that is not completely satisfied with how their Mac’s interface looks like and you want to achieve the full OS customization nirvana, you should know that, although you can also do this by hand (this is possible because OS X has an incredible high degree of ease personalization, if you know how to do it), you will need a set of tools to help you in your enterprise.
The tools of this trade are mostly free, with a couple of them still trying to get sold to people that still don’t trust free software or have not yet found the best free alternative. Such solutions will allow you to change almost anything you have ever dreamed of changing in OS X, and more. Read More»
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October 23, 2008 by
Jason Many people find that synching a new iPhone with their contact and calendar data from applications like Microsoft Outlook just doesn’t work easily.
Fortunately, there are techniques you can use to make sure that your devices are sharing data smoothly.
If you’re having trouble using iTunes to sync your contact data from Outlook or other sources with your iPhone or iPod Touch, follow these steps to get your data where it needs to be.
Step 1. With your phone connected to your computer, make sure iTunes is running. If necessary, select your phone under the Devices category in iTunes’ left pane.
Step 2. With iTunes’ Summary tab in front, make sure the Options at the bottom are set the way you want them. I like to control which files are moved and when, so I uncheck Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected. I also select Manually manage music and videos. Read More»
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October 19, 2008 by
Jason While Apple’s older iMacs (Late-2006) boast an impressive pair of stereo speakers (considering the all-in-one design and their small size), the same thing cannot be said about the company’s 20-inch and 24-inch aluminum iMac (Mid-2007).
However, both Apple’s Late-2006 and Mid-2007 computers have their speakers placed at the bottom of the system, facing down. This leads to a considerable loss in sound quality, as the sound hits your desk and bounces off in all directions. Given this, some high pitched sounds (but not only) barely make it to your ears. There is a way to capture all the sound coming from your Mac’s speakers, and direct it all towards your ears.
Buy a pair of headphones! Just kidding. No headphones. You do, however, need two extra items on your desk to make this happen. A couple of ashtrays, for instance. Just place them underneath each of your iMac’s speakers. What happens is this: Read More»
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September 14, 2008 by
Jason Some quick tips to get your iPhone skills slicker than the guy or girl next door. To rearrange the icons on the home page, tap and hold any icon until all the icons start to giggle. Now you can drag icons about, including on and off the Dock or between pages. Click the Home button to lock the icons again. The Dock is limited to four icons but, if you set the Home button’s double-click to call up your Contact favourites, you can remove the Phone icon from the Dock.
If you manage to crash your iPhone 3G playing with third-party apps, hold both the power and home buttons for 10 seconds to reboot the phone. Recalcitrant apps can be uninstalled using Installer.
Apple originally charged for custom ringtones but now you can create your own in GarageBand, while Windows users can follow the video tutorial at . SendSong supposedly lets you add any track in your iPod playlist to the custom ringtone list under Settings/Sounds/Ringtone, but we couldn’t get any love from it. Read More»
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