What goes on under the surface of your Mac's pretty graphical interface? Is it working hard or idling, is it downloading or uploading, is it getting hot or running cool? Monitor all this and more, and detect when things go wrong.
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 Renaming files on the disk drive in OS X has always been easy and you could just select a file, press Enter and type in a new name. There didn’t used to be a simple way of renaming a group of files and renaming them one by one is exceedingly tedious where there were a lot of them. However, OS X Yosemite has a bulk file renaming facility.
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 Many websites are frequently updated and some are updated several times a day. News based websites are among the most updated and as news stories break, they appear on the site. If you want to keep up with all the changes on your favourite websites, you should subscribe to their RSS feeds in Safari.
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 Which is your favourite app for storing notes? Google Keep? Microsoft OneNote? Evernote? There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of notes apps so you have to be brave to launch yet another, but here we have Simplenote from Automattic, the company that produces the blogging and website software, WordPress.
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 It is hard to imagine using a web browser that does not have tabs and they are an essential feature necessary for using the internet. As you open tabs in Safari on your Apple Mac, do you realise that other people might be able to see them? Yes, it is true and it is an important issue that you need to be aware of.
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 Pages is Apple’s word processor and is part of the iWork suite of office applications. It is a useful tool with some good features, but at times it can be irritating in the way that it handles spelling and languages. You need to know where the settings are to remove these irritations and make your work more productive.
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 Spotlight is a useful tool for finding apps, documents and other files on your Apple Mac’s disk drive and it is even better in OS X Yosemite, but sometimes problems occur. One is where Spotlight only gives web results and Spotlight does not index the disk drive. These indexing problems can be fixed and Spotlight restored to full health.
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 A brand new Mac works brilliantly and it is a joy to use. It is fast, responsive and works a like a dream. Later on though, it might become more like a nightmare. The fact is that computers slow down over time and the older they are, the slower they become.
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Go to the Mac App Store, go to Categories, select Utilities and among the free and paid apps are several memory cleaners. They are very popular apps, but do you really need a memory cleaner? What does it do?
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 Do you know the answer to these questions off the top of your head: How many days are there until the end of the month? Your next holiday? Your birthday or anniversary? Even if you are good with dates, these questions are hard to answer. Would you like to know?
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 Preview has had the ability to capture your signature and insert it into documents for some time. You could sign your name on paper, then hold it up to the camera and it would scan it in. Now in the OS X Yosemite version of Preview, you can sign your name on the trackpad. It is an interesting alternative and one that is worth experimenting with. Let's see how to add a signature.
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There is still a belief that Apple Macs do not get malware, but this simply is not true. OK, viruses are rare, but adware is common. Improve Safari security and privacy with these tips.
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 If you are still undecided about upgrading OS X your Apple Mac to the new Yosemite, one feature that might change your mind is the ability to send and receive text messages from the desktop without touching your phone. This is a great new feature that makes texting a lot easier. There is just one caveat, you must have an iPhone with iOS 8 and the new iPhone 6 is perfect for the job.
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 After installing a new version of OS X, there are always lots of essential tasks to perform to get it running exactly the way you prefer. OS X Yosemite for the Apple Mac comes with predefined settings that are mostly OK, but everyone has their own preferences and it takes a few tweaks here and there to get the Mac just the way you like it. Here are some of the changes I made to Yosemite after installing it.
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OS X Yosemite is here and it is in the Mac App Store. Just fire up the App Store from the Dock and you can download it free of charge and upgrade your Mac. Before you do though, take a minute to consider your options. Is it best to upgrade or should you perform a clean install? How do you actually carry out a clean install from the download in the App Store?
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 I like to keep an eye on what is happening on my Mac and a utility that I have used for a long time is MenuMeters. This is a menu bar utility that shows processor usage, disk usage, upload and download speed, and free and used memory. This utility makes it easy to spot problems that might otherwise be missed and it highlighted an issue with ksfetch.
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 Could your your Mac part of a malware botnet? There is a new type of malicious software infecting Apple Macs and there is a chance that your computer could already be compromised. Reports say that only 17 - 18,000 Macs have been infected, so it is nowhere near as widespread as the Flashback worm that infected 600,000+ Macs a couple fo years ago, but it is still a worry. Here's how to check whether your Mac is OK.
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 Disk drives come in a variety of sizes and some Apple Macs have quite small drives. If you have an SSD (solid state disk), it is likely to have quite a limited capacity for storing files. Older Macs have small disk drives, even if they are traditional mechanical models. Anyone that has a small disk drive, or even a big disk with lots of files, will need to keep an eye on the space used and the remaining free space.
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Start an Apple Mac and when you get to the desktop, that’s Finder. It is more than the desktop though and it enables you to open windows to explore the disk contents. A finder window has a toolbar at the top that contains some useful functions and a sidebar on the left with folders and views. There are two ways to make Finder windows more useful and you can customise both the sidebar and the toolbar.
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 Apple’s battery technology is better than most rivals and MacBooks last longer than almost any other laptop. However, batteries do deteriorate over time and after a year or two, it may not be working as well as it did when it was new. Battery monitors can show the charge status, life left, recharge cycles and general health. Replace the OS X menu bar battery status with a more powerful version.
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