Mac

The Apple Key, or the Command Key I was personally familiar with these and several others, but it turns out there are 15 total combinations, thanks to a KnowledgeBase article Apple posted. I'm betting many of you don't know them all, either, so here they are. The links below point to other support documents on…

First, we have to go back to IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, one of the first real-time messaging platforms for computers. Daniel Stenberg put together a great history of IRC if you're interested in the backstory, but the key thing is that it was for real-time texting, something we take for granted today. Designed and…

Example, the three year old who accompanied her mother to work and used her iPad to place a Facetime call to her grandmother because she was bored. Or the five year old who taught his father how to work his iPad. Or the two year old who knows how to switch the TV settings to…

When resting an iPad or MacBook/Air/Pro on a desk, having it inclined at a comfortable angle is desirable for many users. The ParcSlope from Twelve South is a beautifully made steel stand that achieves this. It's especially useful for drawing with an iPad Pro. Here's a closer look. The angle from horizontal is 18 degrees.…

As you can see, that situation’s been rectified now, both because I don’t save messages as much anymore and because I finally broke down and bought a larger iPhone. Go me! But at the time, I had tons of old conversations that I really wanted to keep for sentimental reasons. If you’ve got the same…

Hewlett-Packard Z27s 27-inch IPS UHD Display 1. Introduction I spent many years of working with very nice Apple displays, culminating in a 2010 iMac. However, things changed a few years ago when Apple elected to let its 27-inch Thunderbolt display, launched in July 2011, stagnate. That resulted in my search for a suitable display for a…

_________________________ Background. Occasionally for some reason, an app that uses the FaceTime camera may fail to properly close a system process that manages it. There has even been a report of this happening in OS X El Capitan for no apparent reason. There are several ways to do this, in increasing order of complexity. 1.…

Unfortunately, it's not just your iPhone that's being overworked by Facebook. Facebook runs rampant when its website is loaded in your Mac's web browser, too, using more RAM than just about every other app – and definitely every other web page – you have open. After only being open – and left in the background…

Episode #145   Where do you store all the little bits of information that don’t fit in the usual places like Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, and such? You know what I mean—all those little bits of text, images, movies, or sounds that you hope to refer to in the future (if you can find them). Little…

The new Apple MacBook comes with with a USB-C port precluding the use of any USB-A Flash drive without an adapter. Patriot Memory has solved that problem by launching a dual port USB-C, USB-A, combo Flash drive in 32 and 64 GB sizes at good price points. It's called the Stellar-C, and I liked it.…

Episode #139   I’m a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. When I teach new Mac users, one of the first things I tell ‘em is to memorize the keyboard shortcuts for actions they perform regularly like Cut (Command + X), Copy (Command + C), Paste (Command + V), and Print (Command + P). And don’t…

I don't blame Google or Microsoft for this — this is pre-release software, after all, and I understand and accept the risk of things like this happening — but, as I searched for a temporary Chrome replacement, it got me thinking about just how much I dislike Google's browser. Chrome for OS X has of…

Black hole depiction. Image credit: Shutterstock Of course, there is the computational science that real scientists do on Macs. That could include scientific visualization tools, either commercial or developed in-house, typical computational languages, such as Fortran or Python or a host of other technical software tools. However, all that work is beyond the scope of this…

Episode #138 A reader recently asked me how long he could expect his Mac to last. To be precise, here’s exactly what he said: I have a 15 in. MacBook Pro that I purchased in 2009 and love it…I do consulting, and run some small business matters with this computer and depend on it heavily.…

Full support for Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan: As expected, Fusion 8 offers complete support for Windows 10 as a guest operating system, and for the upcoming OS X El Capitan as both a host and guest operating system, which will let Mac owners test Apple’s latest OS without having to upgrade their…

There is something magical about the story I'm going to reference below. I hope it will shake you out of your doldrums and inspire you. What's up here?  You'll see down below. Image credit: Shutterstock Having worked in astrophysics, then the aerospace industry and finally the computer industry, I am well aware of all the…

__________________________ I'll start by assuming you've launched Windows 7—which is what most people are using—as a virtual machine in, say, Parallels Desktop, VmMare Fusion or VirtualBox. (Of course, this how-to works for a straight-up Windows installation in Boot Camp on a Mac or any PC.) 1. Come back to this article in your Windows browser…

_______________________ This question and many more have been addressed in a brilliant essay by Adam Baker, previously with Google, Marketcircle, BlackBerry and Apple. The low-key title “The Post-Mac Interface” belies the amazing depth of thought and research that went into this brilliant work. The Macintosh GUI in 1984. (From the Baker article.) Exhibiting considerable insight,…

Thunderstrike could use Thunderbolt accessories to infect your Mac's firmware Where the original Thunderstrike proof of concept required physical access to victim's computers, Thunderstrike 2 can be distributed through maliciously crafted websites or phishing email scams. Both versions attach themselves to Thunderbolt accessories that use Option ROMS, like Apple's Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter, and then…

There have been vociferous complaints about Apple's new MacBook thanks to its single USB-C port. However, it turns out that having only one port helps the MacBook in a very important way. How's that? Allow me to explain. _____________________ When one is on the go, generally, the only thing that gets connected to a modern notebook…

There is now a dizzying array of power adapters, wattages, Magsafe connectors (original and version 2) and connector types (“L” and “T” shapes) that go with each MacBook Air and Pro model. John Martellaro helps sort it all out. ________________________ Apple has provided an impressive tech note, HT201700, that tells you how to match your…

Metal is coming to the Mac, but not all models Based on the driver software developers have found so far, it looks like support is there for graphics cards from Nvidia, Intel, and AMD. Here's the unofficial requirements based on netkas.org research: Nvidia GeForce GTX 400 series and newer Intel HD4000 and newer (Ivy Bridge…

Apple's new MacBook is a light, beautiful and capable notebook for general purpose work. However, compared to the other Apple MacBooks, its Retina display does have one quirk that you may notice right out of the box. ______________________ To explain the wrinkle, I need to backtrack a bit and review Retina technology. Retina Doubling There…

Skype for Mac 7.8.390 is available using Skype for Mac's built-in update function or as a manual download from Skype. Kudos to the Skype team for engineering a quick fix!