Category: Tips and Tricks

First step is to create a background layer with a desired color. I’m choosing 10% gray for the sake of this tutorial because I can easily lighten and darken colors later on.

I believe iMessage is one of the greatest things Apple has released in recent months (I’m sure many of you will disagree). However, it is not without its faults; when Apple’s iMessage servers are down, for example. Another is when an iMessage will not send because of poor signal. Sometimes in these cases sending the…

Have you ever been fast asleep only to be woken up by your computer waking itself from sleep? Ever wonder exactly why it woke up? I found a tip on the web recently that gave a great and easy way to try to determine what woke the computer up. You’ll have to dive into Terminal…

Are you one of the 425 million people in the world who have a Gmail account? If so, you’ve likely become accustomed to one of the best email experiences today that you can get for free. However, there may be some tips I can impart to improve your Gmail experience on your Mac. We all…

This past weekend a friend of mine posted a frantic status on Facebook that his phone would not power on no matter what he did. We typically have a few people come to the service desk here in South Burlington every week with a similar problem. Nearly all of these phones are brought back to…

Ahh, the new year. We all make resolutions, yet have a hard time sticking to them, amiright? Well, these really should be a no-brainer since they don’t involve the treadmill, portion control or becoming a millionaire. Excerpted from Ben’s article (we miss you, Benny!), Mac New Year’s Resolutions, this is a great list to keep…

Many of us already know of the ancient keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-3 to capture your screen to a picture file. It’s been around since System 7, and it’s still with us. We’ve made some significant progress over the years. The Command-Shift-3 trick captures a full-resolution image of your screen and places the PNG file on your…

I have been a long-time lover of organizing my apps by folder and putting them in my dock to access them more quickly. With the advent of Launchpad in Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” (you don’t get it if you’re on an earlier version of OS X), I no longer need to clutter my dock…

If you haven’t assumed it already, I’m a bit of a nutcase when it comes to searching for stuff on my Mac. I use Spotlight every few minutes, Google like a pro and also have little patience for locating relevant sections of websites I visit while doing research. Some websites are designed in a way…

In iOS 4, and presumably in iOS 5, there is an easy way to completely close any apps that are running on your iOS device. Many customers complain about their device’s battery life, and running too many apps in the background can be a major culprit of shorter lifespans. Quitting excess apps is a great…