Articles about "mac os x"How do I change the picture on my Mac account?
I saw your article of a few days ago about changing the Mac user account. You set up an account for "James Bond" and accidentally didn't use Daniel Craig's photo, even though you commented about "the one true Bond". Weird....
Continue reading about How do I change the picture on my Mac account? How do I rename the "home" directory on my Macbook?
Dave, I purchased a used macbook from a friend and need to change the Home Icon (House) name from his to mine, but I can't find information anywhere to do this. It is driving me crazy. Can you possibly assist?...
Continue reading about How do I rename the "home" directory on my Macbook? How do I set up Time Machine on my Mac with my new Time Capsule?
Okay, I bought a new Time Capsule from the Apple Store and it's a great wireless base station but... I want to use it for Time Machine backups too and am a tiny bit lost on how to get that...
Continue reading about How do I set up Time Machine on my Mac with my new Time Capsule? How do I get started in Mac programming?
I used to program my TRS-80 in BASIC when I was in high school, and took a class in Pascal in college. Now I want to try to write applications for my Mac but don't know where to start. Help!...
Continue reading about How do I get started in Mac programming? How do I prepare my Mac Powerbook laptop for resale?
I am going to be selling my 15" Aluminum Powerbook G4 soon. I would like to sell it with some of the programs included (Office and Adobe CS2 - I figure I should make a few extra bucks including them)...
Continue reading about How do I prepare my Mac Powerbook laptop for resale? Why won't Calculator convert currencies and units?
I read your article on the power of the Leopard X calculator but for some reason my "Convert" menu is all grey - I cannot select anything to convert!...
Continue reading about Why won't Calculator convert currencies and units? How do I change the background picture on my Mac?
How can I change the picture on the background of my Mac? I know it's probably easy, but I have no clue....
Continue reading about How do I change the background picture on my Mac? How do I convert a home movie for my Apple iPhone?
My digital camera has a cool feature: it can take little movies. They're not as good as a real video camera, but my kids love mugging for me and the results are often quite hilarious. Like "America's Funniest Home Videos"...
Continue reading about How do I convert a home movie for my Apple iPhone? How do I completely disable the Guest account on Leopard?
I thought I had turned off the "guest" account on Leopard, but was then darn surprised when a friend showed me that when he looked at the Network in our office my computer showed up. Worse, he could poke around...
Continue reading about How do I completely disable the Guest account on Leopard? How do I restore stock tickers in my Stock Dashboard widget?
Regarding the "Stocks" dashboard widget that comes with Tiger and Leopard. I deleted the Dow Jones and NASDAQ symbols from my Widget Menu (in an attempt to reinstall and fix the thing). Is there any way to successfully reinstall this...
Continue reading about How do I restore stock tickers in my Stock Dashboard widget? Can I have Mac Preview sort thumbnails by creation date?
I know this is a pretty niche question, but I use Apple's slick Preview application to look at images and when I open more than one at a time, it shows them all with a nice sidebar, but the sidebar...
Continue reading about Can I have Mac Preview sort thumbnails by creation date? How can I get songs off my Apple iPhone?
I had my old Mac laptop, an iBook, stolen and now that I have a new one, I realize that I can't get the music off my Apple iPhone which is driving me crazy! Is there some way to sync...
Continue reading about How can I get songs off my Apple iPhone? VMWare Fusion won't run on my Macbook Air?
I have no idea what happened, but I had Microsoft Windows XP running just fine within the VMWare Fusion application, as you documented (see installing Vista in VMWare Fusion) and now it crashes without an error when I try to...
Continue reading about VMWare Fusion won't run on my Macbook Air? How do I install Vista in VMWare Fusion?
I know you've written rather extensively about Parallels as a virtual machine environment for Mac OS X, but I'm wondering what you think of VMware Fusion and whether you know if it works properly with Microsoft Vista?...
Continue reading about How do I install Vista in VMWare Fusion? How to make an Apple Mighty Mouse a two-button mouse?
I have a Mac mighty mouse [ed note: actually, it's an "Apple Mighty Mouse"] device and am going crazy without my right-click capability. Is there some solution or something I can hack, or am I stuck having to buy something...
Continue reading about How to make an Apple Mighty Mouse a two-button mouse? Dave's Guide to Critical Mac Software
I just got a MacBook Air and have been enjoying having the world's lightest laptop. It's an amazing piece of engineering and while it appears to have some critical features missing (like a DVD drive or Ethernet port) the fact...
Continue reading about Dave's Guide to Critical Mac Software How do I get rid of my transparent Mac menu bar?
I'm running Mac OS X Leopard and the transparent menu bar is slowly but surely driving me batty. Isn't there some way to make it opaque and white again? Man, it's darn hard to read much of the time!...
Continue reading about How do I get rid of my transparent Mac menu bar? How can I protect private folders on my Mac?
My sister and I share a Mac computer and I'm tired of her looking at my files. Is there some way I can protect or hide my folders without downloading any software she'd notice?...
Continue reading about How can I protect private folders on my Mac? Can I change the color of email from my spouse in Entourage?
I've been getting into trouble lately for not seeing email that my husband's sending me. I don't get a huge amount of email, but when a wave comes in, his mail does, well, get lost in the shuffle. Is there...
Continue reading about Can I change the color of email from my spouse in Entourage? How to recover wifi passwords?
I'm migrating from an old Mac computer to a shiny new MacBook Pro and want to be able to join my brother's network, except we don't remember the password! But my old computer can connect. Is there any way to...
Continue reading about How to recover wifi passwords? Why do Leopard printers hang around on the Dock?
I'm loving Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, but there's one "feature" that's driving me crazy: when I print anything, the printer application hangs around until I quit it. In the good old days (Panther) the printer would quit and...
Continue reading about Why do Leopard printers hang around on the Dock? Add Google calendar events without opening my browser?
I'm a big fan of Google's Calendar program, but am finding it annoying that I have to always have my Web browser running on my Mac to remember events. Is there some sort of notification system that will let me...
Continue reading about Add Google calendar events without opening my browser? How do I get photos off my Apple iPhone?
I just upgraded my G5 mac to the latest Leopard software and am leery about syncing my iPhone with my computer because I'm afraid I'll lose data. However, I really need to get the photos off the phone and don't...
Continue reading about How do I get photos off my Apple iPhone? I'm now running Leopard on my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini!
Somewhat inadvertantly, I have been thrust into the world of the latest Mac OS X system, Leopard. Some months ago, I bought a top-of-the-line Apple MacBook Pro from my friend and colleague Jeff Walker (thanks Jeff!) and have subsequently had...
Continue reading about I'm now running Leopard on my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini! How do I change the format of a Mac screen capture?
About 6 months ago I was playing around on my iBook G4 and I found the option to change the format that Apple+Shift+4 saves in. For some odd reason I choose JPG-2000 (picture.jp2). Of course, now I can't find how...
Continue reading about How do I change the format of a Mac screen capture? How do I take a screenshot on my Mac?
I want to take a picture (capture) of my screen while running certain programs on my Mac so I can email the screenshot to a friend but have no idea how to do so. Is it even possible?...
Continue reading about How do I take a screenshot on my Mac? How do I change the owner's name on my Mac?
Hopefully you can help me. i was in a divorce and the name of my laptop is x y's computer. I have a white apple laptop running os x. unfortunately, for the life of me, I can't figure out how...
Continue reading about How do I change the owner's name on my Mac? Does my PC have a DVD player?
My computer will not play dvd and I dont know if said computer has a dvd player or not....
Continue reading about Does my PC have a DVD player? How do I copy music onto my Apple iPhone from iTunes?
I'm stumped. With my iPod I simply drag and drop the music I want to take with me from my library onto the iPod on the left side of iTunes, but my Apple iPhone doesn't allow me to do that....
Continue reading about How do I copy music onto my Apple iPhone from iTunes? How do I get rid of an unnecessary firmware update?
Okay, this is driving me crazy! I applied an update a few days ago to my Mac OS X system (version 10.4.10), I think it was for a SuperDrive driver on my MacBook Pro, and it came up with an...
Continue reading about How do I get rid of an unnecessary firmware update? How do I restore the Dock "spring icon" URL shortcut?
Where do I find the @ sign on a spring Icon. It was at the bottom right of the dock. It took me to the Mac OS X website.I deleted it and would like to restore it to the dock.....
Continue reading about How do I restore the Dock "spring icon" URL shortcut? How do I install Microsoft Windows Vista in Parallels 3?
I just read about Parallels 3.0 being released which is very cool, but rather than run Windows XP in Parallels, as you've written about, I want to run Microsoft Vista on my Mac instead. I have a MacBook Pro with...
Continue reading about How do I install Microsoft Windows Vista in Parallels 3? Why doesn't Parallels see my CD/DVD-ROM drive in Windows XP?
I have Microsoft Windows XP running on my Apple MacBook, using Parallels for Mac. When I'm on my VM it does not see the CD/DVD drive. I would like to save my data to a cd. any ideas?...
Continue reading about Why doesn't Parallels see my CD/DVD-ROM drive in Windows XP? Can I Spy on Another Mac User?
I have been an avid reader for some time but I have a question. The kids all have computers now (we all have macs) and I was wondering if there was a way to check up on them every once...
Continue reading about Can I Spy on Another Mac User? How do I enable trackpad tap clicking on my MacBook Pro?
A pal of mine showed me how she'd set up her MacBook to allow her to just gently tap on the trackpad to send a "click" to the operating system, as if she'd clicked on the mouse button. Very cool....
Continue reading about How do I enable trackpad tap clicking on my MacBook Pro? Where's my Desktop on a Windows file system?
Now that I have Windows XP running within Boot Camp, I'm just curious: where in the folder hierarchy do I find my Windows Desktop? I know where it is in Mac OS X......
Continue reading about Where's my Desktop on a Windows file system? How do I turn on Fast User Switching on my new MacBook Pro?
My wife and I share the same laptop and I just learned that we can both be logged in at the same time, yet have separate preference files, separate mailboxes in Apple Mail, separate bookmarks in Safari and even keep...
Continue reading about How do I turn on Fast User Switching on my new MacBook Pro? Can I add a Boot Camp partition as a secondary drive in Parallels?
I saw your earlier article about how to use a Boot Camp partition as the virtual machine in Parallels on my Mac (see Booting off Boot Camp in Parallels) but I don't want to risk having the same Windows install...
Continue reading about Can I add a Boot Camp partition as a secondary drive in Parallels? How do I use a WinXP Boot Camp partition with Parallels?
Now that I have Windows XP installed on my Mac via Boot Camp, I'm wondering if there's any way I can use that same partition for a virtual machine in Parallels? I have read your article about how to install...
Continue reading about How do I use a WinXP Boot Camp partition with Parallels? Where is Microsoft Word saving my email attachments?
Every so often I get an email attachment and double-click it to open it up on my Mac. It opens up fine, I make edits and save the document, but then when I quit Word I can't find the $#@$#...
Continue reading about Where is Microsoft Word saving my email attachments? How can I copy music and videos from an Apple iPod?
Through some stupid moves on my part, I now have a trashed Mac and an iPod that is full of music. Problem is, every time I hook up the iPod to any other computer, iTunes promptly wants to empty it...
Continue reading about How can I copy music and videos from an Apple iPod? How can I simulate "My Computer" on a Mac OS X System?
Hey Dave is there anyway we can have the "Computer" icon show up on the desktop, and the Hardsisks mounted within this folder. Much like Windows? Coz I have too many partitions (3 Harddisks with almost 5-6 partitions on each...
Continue reading about How can I simulate "My Computer" on a Mac OS X System? Can I disable "wake on lid open" on my MacBook?
My Mac has a rather flaky lid catch and I'd love to figure out a way that I can disable the "wake on lid open" capability of the MacBook. I understand that there is some sort of solution, but for...
Continue reading about Can I disable "wake on lid open" on my MacBook? How do I disable guest access on my Mac OS X 10.4 system?
Dave, I saw your older article on how to disable guest access to your computer (see how to disable guest access on your Mac for wireless users) but it no longer works as the plutil file appears to be in...
Continue reading about How do I disable guest access on my Mac OS X 10.4 system? How do I move the harddrive icon onto my Dock?
Dear Dave, how the heck do I copy the harddrive icon onto the taskbar of my mac?...
Continue reading about How do I move the harddrive icon onto my Dock? How do I erase and reburn a CDRW on my Mac OS X system?
I have been using CD-RW disks on my Apple MacBook Pro, and while I have figured out how to use a Burn Folder to create the disk in the first place, how do I rewrite the disk with newer content...
Continue reading about How do I erase and reburn a CDRW on my Mac OS X system? Why doesn't ImageCapture let me specify a destination folder?
Here's a weird one for you, Dave: How come ImageCapture on my Mac system won't let me specify a destination directory when I'm uploading photographs? I've tried everything, but nothing seems to help?...
Continue reading about Why doesn't ImageCapture let me specify a destination folder? How do I set GraphicConverter to open images in window size zoom?
I'm a big fan of GraphicConverter and love just about everything about it, except that it drives me crazy how I double-click an image and it always opens up at 100% zoom, even if the image is far, far larger...
Continue reading about How do I set GraphicConverter to open images in window size zoom? Can I move print jobs from one printer to another?
I have multiple printers that I use, depending on my location (it's on my Mac laptop) and sometimes I forget to check printing devices before I queue up a print job. Usually I just leave the job to print when...
Continue reading about Can I move print jobs from one printer to another? How do I delete Mac Dashboard widgets?
On my iMac running Mac OS X i downloaded some widgets for the dashboard but i dont like 4 of them i wondered if you know how to delets them not just disable them?...
Continue reading about How do I delete Mac Dashboard widgets? How do I shrink photos using GraphicConverter?
Dave, I have been trying to upload photos to MySpace, however, I keep receiveing an error message saying that the photos are too large. The program recommended for resizing is for Windows... so how can I resize my photos? Thanks!...
Continue reading about How do I shrink photos using GraphicConverter? Setting up a wifi network for Mac and PC?
My family has a two story house and just recieved a new computer to put in the downstairs and want to put internet on it. We have a computer upstairs that is a Mac OS X with a mediacom cable...
Continue reading about Setting up a wifi network for Mac and PC? Can I play Neverwinter Nights in Parallels Desktop?
I'm completely ignorant of mac systems but I'm learning quickly that macs are cool, and mac os x is excellent, but it seems I have to use Windows for a few things (less so over time as I buy mac...
Continue reading about Can I play Neverwinter Nights in Parallels Desktop? How do I get "vi" shell edit mode in Mac OS X Terminal?
I just finished Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger, and think it is an excellent little resource. I'm recently out of school, a school where we weren't taught anything about Unix, just enough to get by. I started work...
Continue reading about How do I get "vi" shell edit mode in Mac OS X Terminal? How do I stop my hard disk icon from wandering?
I am an experienced Mac user but really haven't learned some basic stuff. I need to know about desktop icon management in Mac OS X. I am using OS X.3 on my desktop and OS X.4 on my laptop. How...
Continue reading about How do I stop my hard disk icon from wandering? How do I resize photographs for my Motorola RAZR?
I keep trying to download pictures into my RAZR V3 from my Apple Mac but all my pictures are too large. How do I reduce the size and/or quality of the picture so that the phone will accept it?...
Continue reading about How do I resize photographs for my Motorola RAZR? Can I shrink the nav buttons in Microsoft Entourage?
I've been using Microsoft's Entourage program for a while and like it, but just noticed recently that my friend's Entourage looks totally different: instead of having these six huge buttons on the top left of my main view window. How...
Continue reading about Can I shrink the nav buttons in Microsoft Entourage? How do I install a root certificate with Microsoft Entourage?
I'm trying to get Microsoft Entourage on my Mac to work with an SSL-based mail server, but every time I try to use it, I get errors about "unverified root certificate" or uninstalled root certificates. I've dug around on my...
Continue reading about How do I install a root certificate with Microsoft Entourage? How do I get dashboard to run on my Mac?
Can you please help me? I was told by a friend that if you hit 'F12' on your Mac you will get widgets pop-up. I have pressed 'F12' but nothing is happening. Are the widgets already loaded into your computer,...
Continue reading about How do I get dashboard to run on my Mac? How do I recover a Mac wifi password?
Last month I was visiting a friend's office and was given the password to access their wireless wifi network. I want to use it again, but they've changed the access point (base station) name and now I don't have the...
Continue reading about How do I recover a Mac wifi password? How do I install Parallels Tools on my Mac OS X Intel system?
I've been running with Parallels for a while on my new Mac Intel system, and am really happy with it. But I really wish I could cut and paste between the Windows apps and the Mac apps, wish it would...
Continue reading about How do I install Parallels Tools on my Mac OS X Intel system? How do I disable unknown wifi access on my Mac PowerBook?
I've become paranoid about security on my Mac laptop and just bumped into a story about some hackers who claim that they can break into a Mac laptop via the wifi connection. Yikes! How do I disable the hole so...
Continue reading about How do I disable unknown wifi access on my Mac PowerBook? What is Apple's Time Machine?
Can you offer up a better explanation of the new Time Machine capability that Apple has unveiled for its upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 operating system? I've read that it's some sort of automatically backup system, but don't see how...
Continue reading about What is Apple's Time Machine? How can I stop Spotlight searching my email?
I like Spotlight well enough that I find myself using it a few times a week to help dig files out of my huge archives, but it always bugs me that it sees and indexes all my mail messages too....
Continue reading about How can I stop Spotlight searching my email? How do I find files on my WinXP disk with Boot Camp?
Just read your tutorial on installing and configuring Boot Camp (see Installing Boot Camp and Windows XP on your Intel Mac) and it's great. I notice that at the end you comment about your PC partition showing up on the...
Continue reading about How do I find files on my WinXP disk with Boot Camp? How do I install Windows XP on my Mac with Parallels Desktop?
I read through your splendid tutorial on installing Windows XP with Apple's Boot Camp product (see boot camp help) but that's not for me. I don't want to have to reboot each time I want to try something out with...
Continue reading about How do I install Windows XP on my Mac with Parallels Desktop? How do I get Spotlight to reindex my hard disk?
I've been running Mac OS X Tiger for quite a while now and have only recently begun to explore the capabilities of the Spotlight feature in the OS. It's pretty cool, but sometimes I find that its index of my...
Continue reading about How do I get Spotlight to reindex my hard disk? How do I install Windows XP on my Mac using Boot Camp?
I'm thrilled to learn that I can now dual-boot my new Intel-based Mac so that I can live in the warm fuzzy world of Mac OS X or flip over to the business world of Windows XP. I have a...
Continue reading about How do I install Windows XP on my Mac using Boot Camp? How do I read system mail on my Mac OS X system?
Every now and then I log in to terminal (in OS X) to mess around and stuff but I logged in this time and I got this message to start... Last login: Fri Apr 21 19:15:30 on console Welcome to...
Continue reading about How do I read system mail on my Mac OS X system? Why don't my pictures have image icons on my Mac?
I'm jealous: my buddy has a Mac and when he downloads pictures from his camera onto his computer, they all end up with nifty little preview icons that make it easy to pick out which pictures to view. When I...
Continue reading about Why don't my pictures have image icons on my Mac? Can I run Windows XP on my Mac with Boot Camp?
I have a pretty new Mac G5 desktop system and just read all the news about Boot Camp. Wow! I would be so psyched if I could actually dual boot Windows XP and Mac OS X on this computer. Can...
Continue reading about Can I run Windows XP on my Mac with Boot Camp? Why is my browser showing a page differently to my wife's browser?
I have a Dual 2Gig G5 running the latest version of Mac OS X. I'm having difficulty getting all of the "buttons" on a certain webpage from showing up in Safari. They show up fine when I log in to...
Continue reading about Why is my browser showing a page differently to my wife's browser? Why is my Mac hard drive suddenly read-only?
Hi Dave, I am running Mac OS X 10.3.9 and recently encountered a strange occurrence. Instead of the usual tag under my main hard drive(74.4 GB, 24.75 GB used) it shows (74.4 GB). After I used "Get Info" it says...
Continue reading about Why is my Mac hard drive suddenly read-only? Find the DNS servers on your Mac?
Dave, I'm a bit puzzled. How do i find what DNS servers my emac is using at any given time?...
Continue reading about Find the DNS servers on your Mac? How do I change my account password in Mac OS X?
How do i change my password on my Mac OS X system, Dave? I looked when I was logging in and didn't see any sort of button or configuration option!...
Continue reading about How do I change my account password in Mac OS X? How do I clear recent searches from Safari and Google?
I'm darn concerned! Every time I start up my Apple Safari browser, I find that the program has remembered every search I've done, whether from the Google search box or when I'm actually on the Google home page. What the...
Continue reading about How do I clear recent searches from Safari and Google? Convert Mac WMA audio files to MP3?
I have a bunch of WMA format audio files on my Mac and really want to put them on my RCA Lyra MP3 player but it only supports MP3 format. Somehow, I need to convert the audio from WMA to...
Continue reading about Convert Mac WMA audio files to MP3? Renaming my home directory trashed my Mac?
I have a Mac OS X iBook G4 ver. 10.3.9. Recently, I don't know what came over me, but I wanted to change my "name" on my computer. So, what I did was open Finder, click on my name...
Continue reading about Renaming my home directory trashed my Mac? How do I associate a file with an application?
I recently backed up my files on USB flash drive for my iMac computer. I had to get system updated. My tech support reformatted drive and put system 10.2.2 on my computer . I went to load my files back...
Continue reading about How do I associate a file with an application? What is a "Universal Application" on a Mac?
Dave, I just heard that Apple released some new computers and is touting that its latest release of some of the cool Apple software is built around "Universal Applications" technology, or something like that. I've been a long-time Mac user:...
Continue reading about What is a "Universal Application" on a Mac? Can I transfer music from my iPod onto my Mac?
I'm running iTunes v 4.9 on my Mac (running Mac OS X 10.2.8). I screwed up somehow and deleted my old music library trying to fix a diiferent problem. I learned my lesson on that. I have on older v...
Continue reading about Can I transfer music from my iPod onto my Mac? |
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