Mac
Upgrade Your MacBook Pro's Hard Drive
Matt Cone June 2, 2012
Upgrading the hard drive is a cost-effective way to increase your storage space and speed up your MacBook Pro, especially if you purchase a solid-state drive. Hard drives are like processors and other electronic components - their capacity doubles approximately every two years. If you plan on keeping your MacBook Pro for longer than two years, you’ll want to consider upgrading your hard drive at least once. Finding a New Hard Drive There are two different types of drives available: Hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD).
How to Upgrade Your MacBook's Hard Drive
Matt Cone June 2, 2012
Tip: Do you own a MacBook Pro? Check out two of our other articles: How to Upgrade Your MacBook Pro’s Hard Drive, and How to Upgrade Your MacBook Pro’s RAM. Upgrading your MacBook’s internal hard drive is a simple way to store more documents, music, movies, applications and other files on your new Apple portable. Hard drives (or hard disk drives) are large capacity storage devices which store all of your data - everything from Mac OS X to your latest iTunes music album.
How to Upgrade Your MacBook Pro's RAM
Matt Cone June 2, 2012
Upgrading the RAM is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to boost your computer’s overall performance. RAM, or random access memory, stores the code and instructions for OS X and any applications open on your Mac. Installing larger RAM modules in your MacBook Pro will allow you have more applications open at once and perform more tasks simultaneously. For example, you could open a bunch of memory-hogging applications while ripping a CD, watching a DVD, and uploading photos to the Internet - all at the same time.
Create a Keyboard Shortcut for any Menu Item
Matt Cone June 1, 2012
Keyboard shortcuts are an integral part of Mac OS X, but you may have noticed that not every menu item has one. This can pose a real problem for those of us who like to work fast and efficiently. To access menu items that don’t have shortcuts, you’ll have to use the mouse - a big annoyance that’ll slow you down! Fortunately, Mac OS X allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to a menu item that doesn’t have one.
How to Minimize Windows in Slow Motion
Eric Buczynski May 18, 2012
Ready to learn a fun trick that has absolutely no practical value whatsoever? A trick that you can use to impress your friends and show off your Mac skills? Then you’ve come to the right tutorial! We’re about to teach you how to minimize windows to the Dock in slow motion. In other words, we’re going to take the default minimize window action and slow it way down by a factor of 100 or so.
Change the Background of Finder Windows
Eric Buczynski May 16, 2012
Are you tired of seeing the boring white background of the Finder windows? Change it! You can spice up your Desktop by setting a folder’s background to a picture or a solid color. Note that this only works when the layout of the folder’s window is set to the icon view. You won’t see the background if you view the items in the list, column, or cover flow views. Setting a Solid Color Background Here’s how to change the background of a Finder window:
Getting Started with Perl on Mac OS X
Richard Myers April 25, 2012
Perl is a widely used programming language developed by Larry Wall in the late 1980’s. Since being originally written as a scripting language to assist in system administration tasks, it has taken off as a popular language for doing everything from low-level systems programming to website scripting. If you have ever thought about getting into programming on your Mac, Perl is a great place to start! Preparing for Perl All you will need for this primer is a text editor, the terminal, and Perl (of course!
Speed Up Safari: Lose the Previews
Ric Getter April 23, 2012
One of the first things most of us learned back when Safari 4 appeared was how to turn off the “Top Sites” feature (via the General tab of Safari’s Preferences) and return to our normal home page. Safari does a lot of work to collect those cute little thumbnails of the web pages, store them in a hard-to-find folder and organize them in a way they can be quickly retrieved. In fact, if you click over to the History view in the Top Sites window, you’ll see that Safari has industriously captured a thumbnail image of seemingly every page you ever visited.
How to Use Your Mac as a Wireless Router
Matt Cone February 29, 2012
Did you know that you can turn your Mac into a wireless router for your home or office? This is a great option if you have cable or DSL service, but have yet to purchase a wireless router! These instructions will show you how to connect several computers or devices - such as an iPhone or iPad - to the Internet via your Mac’s wireless network. The best part is that you can save big money on expensive devices like the AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express by setting up your Mac to do the same thing!
How to Monitor Your Mac's Memory Usage
Matt Cone January 2, 2012
Imagine driving a vehicle with no gauges on the dashboard. You wouldn’t know how fast the car was going, how much fuel it had left, or whether or not the engine was about to overheat. In short, you’d be driving blind - hoping, by chance, that everything would just work out okay. As ludicrous as this scenario sounds, millions of Mac users do essentially the same thing every day. Most people have no idea how much RAM is installed in their Mac, or how much memory it is currently using.