Quicklook is a great feature of OS X, allowing you to press the spacebar when a file is selected in Finder and quickly look at the contents. If you’re unfamiliar with Quicklook, check out this great introductory article.
As great as this is, there are a few occasions where it would be useful to quicklook a [...]
When I moved into my new apartment I brought with me a 1TB Time Capsule that I was previously using as a network storage device because my old roommate already had a Linksys router. None of my new roommates had routers, so I decided to use the Time Capsule as both our router and network [...]
I’m rebooting my life. After 10 years at the BBC, I’m switching careers and running my own business full-time. And that’s not the only big switch going on around here — I’m also moving from Windows to Mac for just about everything. Moving everything to the Mac doesn’t just affect my business, it shapes the [...]
Apple blessed the iPhone 3G with a gorgeous, large screen. There is plenty of screen real estate, so why waste it with just a wallpaper, album cover artwork, or the date and time?
Having been a Windows Mobile user for six years, the Today Screen in Windows Mobile was the one feature I sorely missed in [...]
As reported recently all over the blogosphere, the world’s first Mac-based botnet is active after infiltrating people’s systems in January by way of a trojan hidden inside pirated iWork’09 installers. If you downloaded and installed iWork’09 from a torrent, binary newsgroup, or any other source not from Apple’s trial download links or official DVDs, you [...]
Don’t you wish there were an easier way to quickly view upcoming appointments and your task list? If you’re a fan of Google products, then follow these steps for an easy-to-use solution. In the end you will have two new items in your menu bar: one for Google Calendar and one for Google Tasks.
What You [...]
My friends over at Crossfit Virtuosity recently posted a 100-day six-pack challenge. After I committed to the program, it only took me a few minutes to set up a way to track my progress and have a new workout sent to me everyday. Oh, and it only cost me 99 cents and can all be [...]
At my desktop workstation I use an external keyboard and mouse with my Mac notebooks, and one keyboard function I really miss when I use them in actual hands-on laptop mode is the freestanding keyboard’s dedicated Forward Delete key. It’s something I’m accustomed to having, use frequently, and find annoying when it’s not available.
Apple actually [...]
I’ve been having a lot of trouble streaming video on my MacBook Air recently. No matter which site I’m on, YouTube, Hulu, or Netflix, within a few minutes the video becomes choppy and unwatchable. Fed up with my computer’s inability to complete a task it should be able to handle no problem, I brought her [...]
Disk fragmentation is an old problem that has affected every operating system throughout history. File fragmentation occurs when a single file isn’t located in the same physical location on the disk, but is scattered around. OS X does a great job at minimizing file fragmentation by rewriting files in contiguous space when a file is [...]
OS X has long been labeled the platform for “creatives,” though in recent years it’s finally becoming known for more than that. Adobe’s Creative Suite is generally regarded as the crown-jewel of digital design, and they’re priced to match.
So what if you’re a cash-strapped creative who wants to find some alternatives to Adobe’s popular suite [...]
For this tutorial we’re going to build a simple clock that is orientation-aware, meaning that when you rotate your iPhone, the time rotates with it. I’m assuming you have a basic knowledge of the iPhone SDK.
To get started, you will need a label for the time and a background image. You will also need a [...]
For corporate users, there are many apps within the iTunes App Store that enhance the default iPhone experience. Let’s take a look at the available options and see how you might be able to leverage these apps to improve the use of your iPhone within the Enterprise.
Email + Calendar
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
Although this doesn’t fall into [...]
About three weeks ago, the keyboard and trackpad on my MacBook Pro (from mid-2007) began failing randomly for no apparent reason. I would turn it on only to find its keyboard and trackpad unresponsive to any input. Rebooting sometimes helped, but many times it did not. Without a reproducible pattern I could determine, it was [...]
Sometimes it’s the little things that make your day go more smoothly. One such thing is the cool and elegant freeware utility, Search It.
With Search It installed, when you press a hot key a simple search field pops up (sort of the way the Quicksilver dialog works).
To look something up on the web, instead of [...]
As great and as easy as the OS X user interface is, sometimes it is quicker or necessary to jump into the deep dark bowels of your system on the command line. OS X ships with the very competent Terminal.app that allows easy access to this, but the default view into your machine is dull [...]
If one of your New Years Resolutions (remember those?) was to learn a new language, there are quite a few ways you can use your Mac or iPhone that will have you speaking in a foreign tongue in no time flat.
Keep Your Word
Keep Your Word is combination dictionary and flashcard trainer for the Mac [...]
There were a few additional resources that did not fit in our rundown on font management applications. So continuing our Font School series, here are a few additional apps and articles on fonts.
Some Reading
Best Practices for Managing Fonts in Mac OS X – 5th Edition — This free PDF from Extensis is a great place [...]
Who needs font management? If you have ever installed additional fonts on your Mac, then you do.
Because of the Mac’s wide adoption in the desktop publishing and design world, managing fonts in OS X has long been an important, if unpleasant, task. The Apple tools have always been meager, but Leopard has made important improvements [...]
If you are a designer, then you know the joy of having thousands and thousands of fonts available to use in your projects. You probably are also familiar with the despair of waiting for apps to launch, font menus to draw, and the horror of kernel panics when you get Font ID conflicts, the stray [...]
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