Hot Mac OS Tips Posts

How To: Close All Open Apps on Your Mac with a Single Click

Normally, if you want to close all of the open apps on your Mac, you'd have to either quit them all one by one or restart, shut down, or log out while making sure to deselect “Reopen windows when logging back in." The latter option is great, but it doesn't always work in Mac OS X, and what if you don't want to restart, shut down, or log out?

How To: Run Any Android App on Your Mac

One of the best features of Android is the fact that it's open-source, giving developers the ability to use it on pretty much any device they can think of, like on a Windows PC using Andy. That's what drove the creators behind the Android-x86 project to port over the mobile OS to any computer running an Intel processor.

News: Automatically Manage and Sort Files Using Hazel [Mac]

In many of my articles, I will refer to applications designed to empower Mac users to automate various tasks on their computer. One such application is called Hazel. Like smart folders, smart playlists, and smart albums found in Mac OS X and iPhoto, Hazel can automate the task of moving, copying, or deleting files in folders on your Mac. I recommend Hazel as one of the most essential applications for any Mac user. Let's explore how it works.

How To: 9 Ways to Get by Without Photoshop on Your Mac

In 1987, two brothers, Thomas and John Kroll, began work on an image editing software, which was eventually acquired in 1988 and released to the world in 1990 by Adobe. That software was Photoshop 1.0, initially exclusive for the Macintosh platform. Over the years, Photoshop became a great wizard of image editing and gained application rockstar status.

How To: Increase the Sound & Quality of Your Mac's Speakers

During a power outage at my apartment this year, I watched movies on my MacBook Pro instead of on my television. While I had no complaints about the screen size, I did have an issue with how low the audio coming from my speakers was. External speakers would help, but I don't want to buy them or lug them around every time I want to watch a movie.

How To: Completely Trick Out Finder on Your Mac with XtraFinder

For the most part, Finder has had the same basic functionality through the various releases of OS X. But Apple's lack of interest in adding new bells and whistles to the backbone of their operating system simply means that 3rd-party developers get to shine, and Tran Ky Nam is one such developer. He created his own extension for Finder that adds tabbed browsing, dual pane mode, cut & paste functionality, and much, much more.

How To: Every Mac Is Vulnerable to the Shellshock Bash Exploit: Here's How to Patch OS X

Heartbleed, move over. There's a new bug in town, and this time it's also affecting Mac and Linux computers. It's called Shellshock (its original official title is CVE-2014-6271), and it's currently got a 10 out of 10 severity rating over at the National Cyber Awareness System. While some updates have been issued to fix this bug, they were incomplete, and your system is probably still vulnerable, as it has been for the last probably 20 years.

How To: Sync Your Google Contacts with Your iOS Device Using CardDAV

If you have an iPhone or iPad, but use a Google account for most of your communication, syncing your contacts just got a lot easier. Google recently announced that they added CardDAV support, an open protocol that lets you seamlessly integrate Google Contacts into other services. Google states that "Syncing via CardDAV is only available over SSL for Apple devices on iOS version 5.0 and above." So, if you're running an older iOS version, you'll have to use Google Sync instead.

Camera Plus Pro: The iPhone Camera App That Does it All

Even with Apple's forthcoming iOS 5 updates to its default camera application, those upcoming features can't match what already exists in Global Delight's Camera Plus Pro. For $1.99, Camera Plus Pro provides users with over 100 tools for every part of the picture taking process, including video recording. It works with all versions of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad 2 with iOS 4.1 or the later update. Let's examine what it can do, and why you will want to replace Apple's default camera with ...

Atomic Web: The BEST Web Browser for iOS Devices

Over the past few years, I have downloaded several third-party web browsers for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and the one I have found most advanced and feature rich is Atomic Web. While many mobile browsers have their unique features, Atomic Web could well be considered the professional browser for advanced web users. With each version of the app, the developer has included features that make navigating the browser more user friendly and useful for bookmarking, managing and saving website...

How To: Mute Your Mac's Microphone Automatically When Typing During Zoom Meeting Calls

You're in a Zoom meeting, and you're click-clacking away at your keyboard, typing important notes from the call. More realistically, you're doing something unrelated to the meeting, such as browsing the web, playing a game, or messaging friends. Whatever it is you're typing, if your microphone is on, everyone on the Zoom call will be able to hear the sound of you typing.

How To: Protect Yourself from macOS High Sierra's Glaring Empty-Password Security Flaw

There's a new macOS vulnerability that hackers within physical reach of your computer can use to gain root access to your system and accounts. Just by using "root" as the username and a blank password on a privilege escalation prompt, someone can install malware on your computer, access hidden files, reset your passwords, and more. Root access gives them the ability to do anything they want.