Submitted by rwaddilove on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 08:56
Privacy on computers and the internet is a hot topic and there seems to be no end to the ways in which your personal information can be accessed by third parties. The Apple Mac is not immunue to privacy issues and you may be surprised to learn that by default, it passes on personal information. It must be configured not to if you prefer to maintain your privacy.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 07:16
OS X Yosemite has an enhanced notifications panel at the right side of the screen and it is able to display widgets - mini applications. If you are a fan of 2048 games, you can add a 2048 widget to the Today pane in the notifications panel and have a quick play any time you like.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 03:14
The increasing use of mobile phones for photography and the ease with which they can be backed up online means that lost photos are less of a problem for most people than it used to be. However, if you prefer to use a traditional camera and store your photos offline, you will be well aware of how frustrating it can be when photos go missing, are corrupted and will not load or transfer to the computer. Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery might be able to help.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Tue, 01/06/2015 - 03:24
The 11in and 13in MacBook Air and the Retina 13in MacBook pro all have a tiny 128GB solid state disk drive. That is a very small amount of storage for a modern computer that works with digital photos, movies and music. Even if you pay extra for a 256GB disk, you will soon run out of space. OmniDiskSweeper will tell you where all the space is being used.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Wed, 12/31/2014 - 09:39
How do you delete a file in OS X on the Apple Mac? You might think that it is silly to ask such a simple question, of course, everyone knows how to delete a file and you drag it to the Trash. That is not deleting it, it simply moves it to another folder on the disk. You empty the Trash of course, but that deletes all files in the Trash, which still leaves the question, how do you delete one file?
Submitted by rwaddilove on Sun, 12/28/2014 - 09:35
There was a time when Apple Macs were immune from malware and viruses simply did not exist for OS X. One of the Mac’s selling points is that it could not get viruses. Sadly this is no longer true and if you have not yet installed security software on your Mac, you should do so soon. Avast is a free antivirus app for OS X that will keep your Mac safe.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Wed, 12/24/2014 - 07:29
Security threats are a new concept for Apple Mac users and their once impregnable and uninfectable computer is now looking increasingly like an attractive target for malware authors and hackers. No longer is it possible to ignore security issues and the Mac and OS X are vulnerable in ways we are only beginning to see. The latest threat is an NTP hack.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Mon, 12/22/2014 - 07:59
How fast can you type? How fast can you speak? There is no contest and speech wins every time. In fact, most people will find that even speaking slowly is much faster than they can type. It is really hard for even an expert typist to keep up with someone dictating, so why type when you can talk? OS X has dictation built in and it is asy to use.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Fri, 12/19/2014 - 02:54
Sometimes the Mac runs slowly, sometimes you want to download a big file, but keep an eye on the download speed without having Safari on the screen. You might want to see what is using all the processing power, check the CPU temperature, see how many times a MacBook battery has been charged, and so on. All these items can be monitored using a menu bar utility called MiniUsage.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Tue, 12/16/2014 - 10:53
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Sat, 12/13/2014 - 10:03
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Tue, 12/09/2014 - 11:31
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Sun, 12/07/2014 - 10:13
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Wed, 12/03/2014 - 10:35
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Tue, 12/02/2014 - 05:03
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Wed, 11/26/2014 - 11:21
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Mon, 11/17/2014 - 02:43
Go to the Mac App Store, go to Categories, select Utilities and the number two app in the free chart is Memory Clean. It is second only to OS X Yosemite. It is a very popular app, but do you really need a memory cleaner? What does it do?
Submitted by rwaddilove on Sat, 11/08/2014 - 08:59
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? The Countdowns widget shows the answer to these and more in the Today view in OS X Yosemite notifications on the Apple Mac.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Thu, 11/06/2014 - 11:37
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.
Submitted by rwaddilove on Mon, 11/03/2014 - 08:37
There is still a widespread believe that Apple Macs do not get viruses, Trojans, spyware and other types of malware, but this simply is not true. It is much safer to access the internet with a Mac running OS X than a Windows PC, but it is not completely safe and some types of malware target Apple users. After installing OS X Yosemite you should open Safari and fix the security and privacy issues that afflict it.
Privacy on computers and the internet is a hot topic and there seems to be no end to the ways in which your personal information can be accessed by third parties. The Apple Mac is not immunue to privacy issues and you may be surprised to learn that by default, it passes on personal information. It must be configured not to if you prefer to maintain your privacy.
OS X Yosemite has an enhanced notifications panel at the right side of the screen and it is able to display widgets - mini applications. If you are a fan of 2048 games, you can add a 2048 widget to the Today pane in the notifications panel and have a quick play any time you like.
The increasing use of mobile phones for photography and the ease with which they can be backed up online means that lost photos are less of a problem for most people than it used to be. However, if you prefer to use a traditional camera and store your photos offline, you will be well aware of how frustrating it can be when photos go missing, are corrupted and will not load or transfer to the computer. 
The 11in and 13in MacBook Air and the Retina 13in MacBook pro all have a tiny 128GB solid state disk drive. That is a very small amount of storage for a modern computer that works with digital photos, movies and music. Even if you pay extra for a 256GB disk, you will soon run out of space. OmniDiskSweeper will tell you where all the space is being used.
How do you delete a file in OS X on the Apple Mac? You might think that it is silly to ask such a simple question, of course, everyone knows how to delete a file and you drag it to the Trash. That is not deleting it, it simply moves it to another folder on the disk. You empty the Trash of course, but that deletes all files in the Trash, which still leaves the question, how do you delete one file?
There was a time when Apple Macs were immune from malware and viruses simply did not exist for OS X. One of the Mac’s selling points is that it could not get viruses. Sadly this is no longer true and if you have not yet installed security software on your Mac, you should do so soon. Avast is a free antivirus app for OS X that will keep your Mac safe.
Security threats are a new concept for Apple Mac users and their once impregnable and uninfectable computer is now looking increasingly like an attractive target for malware authors and hackers. No longer is it possible to ignore security issues and the Mac and OS X are vulnerable in ways we are only beginning to see. The latest threat is an NTP hack.
How fast can you type? How fast can you speak? There is no contest and speech wins every time. In fact, most people will find that even speaking slowly is much faster than they can type. It is really hard for even an expert typist to keep up with someone dictating, so why type when you can talk? OS X has dictation built in and it is asy to use.
Sometimes the Mac runs slowly, sometimes you want to download a big file, but keep an eye on the download speed without having Safari on the screen. You might want to see what is using all the processing power, check the CPU temperature, see how many times a MacBook battery has been charged, and so on. All these items can be monitored using a menu bar utility called MiniUsage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Go to the Mac App Store, go to Categories, select Utilities and the number two app in the free chart is Memory Clean. It is second only to OS X Yosemite. It is a very popular app, but do you really need a memory cleaner? What does it do?
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? The 
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.
