Are you retiring an older Mac that has a mechanical, spinning hard drive in it? If your Mac is running OS X 10.11 then continue reading this article. Below are instructions on how you can securely erase the Mac’s hard drive before you donate your Mac or sell it.
Read moreHave you noticed that once Apple releases a new version of the Mac operating system (macOS) that previous versions vanish from the App Store? Have you ever needed to reinstall one of these older versions of the Mac operating system (macOS)? It can be challenging to do this since Apple does not make older versions readily available … Read more
Do you want to completely erase a Mac and reinstall its operating system? Perhaps you are about to give away this Mac. Or, perhaps your Mac is acting up and you want to start with a clean slate. Here are instructions on how you can erase the hard drive and reinstall OS X, recently renamed … Read more
Here’s an overview of how to install a major upgrade to OS X. For example, if you would like to upgrade from OS X Yosemite (aka OS X 10.10) to OS X El Capitan (aka OS X 10.11) then you could follow the instructions below. (These instructions assume you have at least OS X 10.6.8 or … Read more
Have you ever had problems locating your Library folder on your Mac? If so, let me help you locate it. There are two complicating factors. First, there are typically three Library folders on the Mac so locating the correct one can be tough. Second, Apple made one of these three Library folders invisible starting with OS X Lion … Read more
Do you use Pandora, the music streaming service? To listen to Pandora do you open a web browser and visit the Pandora website? If so, consider using Hermes instead. Hermes is a free application which you would install on your Mac. Hermes works with both free and paid Pandora accounts. While Pandora offers their own Mac app, … Read more
If you have a relatively new Mac running OS X Yosemite (OS X version 10.10) and an iPhone running iOS 8 you may have noticed that your Mac rings when you receive a call on your iPhone and the two devices are close to each other. This feature is part of Continuity, which is a … Read more
Do you miss how Labels used to work? Do you miss having colorful shortcuts in your Sidebar? If so, then consider using XtraFinder. Starting with OS X Mavericks (OS X 10.9) Apple changed how Labels work. In fact, they renamed the feature from Labels to Tags. Labels used to add a background color to a … Read more
Did you know that Apple’s built-in search tool called Spotlight doesn’t search the entire hard drive? There are good reasons why Apple does this (which I won’t go into now), but there are also times when you want to be able to search the entire hard drive. When I’m troubleshooting a problem on a client’s … Read more
Are you retiring an older Mac that has a mechanical, spinning hard drive and its running macOS version 10.7 or higher? If so, here are instructions on how you can securely erase the Mac’s hard drive before you donate your Mac or sell it.
Read moreBelow are instructions on how to change your OS X user account picture. When you took your new Mac out of the box and turned it on initially, you were lead through creating a user account and either had one of the built-in photos randomly assigned to your User Account or you were offered the choice of … Read more
A few weeks ago Apple released an update which addresses the bash security vulnerability found in OS X during the last week of September 2014. The security vulnerability was nicknamed shellshock or the bash bug and reportedly affects all versions of OS X as well as many versions of Linux and Unix released over the past … Read more
Does your Mac get stuck during the startup process? If so, then you might want to try Safe Boot to see if you can get your Mac to startup successfully. Safe Boot is the process of making your Mac start up with a bare minimum of system software. It also forces an inspection of the hard drive.
Read moreIf you use Time Machine to backup your Mac to an external hard drive, here are some basics that you can check if backups are no longer occurring.
Read moreMost of us tend to simultaneously keep many applications open. Consequently, we sometimes get lost or overwhelmed by having too many windows open. Would you like to quickly hide all windows so you can see your Desktop? Here are two ways to accomplish this:
Read moreDo you type the same information into email messages or Word documents? If so, you would benefit from using a text expander. Text expanders let you create abbreviations then whenever the abbreviation is typed it inserts a word, phrase, sentence or paragraph that you designated. For example, you could create the abbreviation ‘addr. When you type ‘addr … Read more
When Apple releases a major update to the Mac operating system, called macOS, or the operating system used on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, called iOS, clients often ask me when or if they should install these updates.
Read moreThere are many ways to rename a file in Mac OS X. It seems that the easiest way is not necessarily well known, since I regularly find myself sharing the following information. Simply click on a file or folder icon in the Finder, then press the Return key. The file or folder’s name will be … Read more
Do you use your iPhone’s Notes application? Would you like to view those notes on your Mac? If your Mac is running OS X Mountain Lion, you can view them easily. In Mountain Lion Apple added a new Notes application. You can sync your iPhone notes to the Mac Notes application using your iCloud account. … Read more
Do you want to remotely access your Mac so you can open applications and edit files on it? This is an increasingly common request. Here’s a quick overview of a few ways to remotely access your Mac.
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