Submit a Story!

MacOSXHints.com Latest Blog Posts

Add as Favorite Claim Blog Help

http://www.macosxhints.com/ - Macosxhints.com RSS feed

Click on the "vote it up" button to submit a story below to our homepage.

If you're the owner of MacOSXHints.com, claim your blog to unlock additional tools and reports.

10.6: Restore features on older multifunction printers
With Snow Leopard, some multifunction printers will only print, because the new drivers from Apple do not support any other functions. But you can still get some older models to work, provided they were released prior to the switch to Intel in 2006. I managed to get my HP PSC 1110 printer to ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

How to remove locally-stored Flash 'cookies'
This may be old news, but I just found out about Flash Cookies (otherwise known as Local Shared Objects ), and a way to delete them, and to prevent more from being created. You can control Flash cookies via Macromedia's Flash Player Settings Manager , which is an actual Flash application you ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

One way to use Home and End to jump to line start/end
I wanted to find a way to use the Home and End keys to go to the beginning and end of a line, as I find that more convenient than using Command-Left Arrow and Command-Right Arrow. Here's how I solved it... First, install Butler , then create two new "Keystroke" Smart Items -- click the Plus ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Change a program's menu bar name
macosxhints.com — I have both Microsoft Office 2004 and 2008 installed on my machine for compatibility reasons. However, both... versions of the application show as, for example, Microsoft Word in the menu bar when running. I wanted to change this, and found an easy way ... (more) Change a program's menu bar name
A possible solution for system hang on Safari launch
macosxhints.com — Recently, any time I tried to run Safari on 10.6 caused all apps and the Finder to... hang with the spinning beach ball. Force-quitting Safari stopped the problem, but it would occur again on the next launch. Googling around, I saw many folks reporting ... (more) A possible solution for system hang on Safari launch
Search old Skype chats via Spotlight
If you need to search for something you chatted about in Skype, but do not remember exactly who or where you chatted with, it's hard to do right now. But here's one way to do it with Spotlight. The latest version of Skype for Mac has a history button for each contact -- click the Gear icon, ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Update Navigon GPS devices from Windows in Parallels
Navigon not only produces navigation software for the iPhone; their (probably) much bigger business is selling GPS navigation units for cars. These units can currently only be updated from Windows operating systems. However, an out-of-the-box Parallels installation running Windows may not be ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Proof-of-concept code to add pinch gestures to Magic Mouse
I wrote some proof-of-concept code that allows you to use the Apple Magic Mouse to zoom in/out in the frontmost application with pinch gestures. I've detailed the process of how I got this working in this entry on my blog, including some compilable source code that implements pinch for zoom ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Preserve app preferences and settings when using FileVault
I use FileVault to encrypt the contents of my home folder. In the case of my laptop being stolen or lost, the new user should therefore be unable (or find it extremely hard at least) to access my work and personal confidential data. FileVault is very powerful, but it has a downside: FileVault ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

10.6: Batch rotate pages in Preview using thumbnail icons
I was looking for a quick way to rotate only the even numbered pages in a document that I had scanned in using my Brother MFC's scan-to-email feature in duplex mode -- I found that it had flipped every second page, and they needed to be unflipped. It turns out there's a not-so-obvious way to do ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

10.5: Find out which program/process is locking a file
Sometimes the trash won't be emptied, or a volume refuses to eject with a "file in use error." There have been hints on how to find that out in Terminal with lsof , which is not necessarily for the faint of heart. Here is a nice Automator workflow that runs some AppleScript and shell commands ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

An AppleScript to reinstall custom icons after updates
Like many people, I have customized many thing about my OS X setup, not the least of which were app and folder icons. Via programs like CandyBar or LiteIcon , or manually, any and all folder/file/app icons can be changed. Personally, I like the pure|icns set from Interfacelift. However, there ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Move forward and back in iCal with the Magic Mouse
The Magic Mouse lets you navigate forward and backward between web pages in Safari or Firefox with a two-finger swipe. The same two-finger swipe also moves you forward and back in iCal. It works just the same as clicking the forward and back arrows around the day/week/month view control at ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Back up OS X to a Windows machine on the network
macosxhints.com — I know there are plenty of back up/synchronization packages for the Mac, and I know Time Machine... is awesome. But as I have a Linux/FreeBSD background, I wanted to do it my way. And none of the software I tried was able to do it my way :-). So the ... (more) Back up OS X to a Windows machine on the network
Restore default bootloader without harming partitions
If your bootloader gets changed or corrupted, this fix will restore it without damage to your disk partitions. This hint may be a bit esoteric, but I thought I was up for a long night of reinstallation pain before stumbling upon this fix. I made the mistake of trying to use an Ubuntu 9.04 boot ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

10.6: Work around an iWeb and Pages crash issue in 10.6.2
Recently, I was asked to set up a web site for a church; since I didn't want to spend days doing it, I decided to try iWeb. Things worked well until I updated to 10.6.2. Suddenly, iWeb was crashing on startup, without fail. Fortunately, someone on the Apple forums figured out a work-around.  ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

10.5: Change a print job's scehduled print time
If you need to hold a print job for a period of time, but forget to change the settings in the Print dialog before sending the job to the printer, here's a solution. When the printer's window comes up, click the Hold button, then double-click the value under "When. For the date, you'll need ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Add a Show Desktop icon to the Dock
macosxhints.com — Wouldn't it be nice to activate Exposé's Show Desktop mode via an icon on the Dock? Here's... how to make one that does just that. However, be warned: this works only one way -- it shows the Desktop, but on clicking again, it does not bring the windows ... (more) Add a Show Desktop icon to the Dock
10.5: Sync Sunbird calendars using iSync
This hint is for Tiger only -- you'll have to modify it on Leopard or Snow Leopard, because of changes to iCal's folder structure. I've recently switched to Mozilla Sunbird because it looks a lot nicer and runs faster than iCal, although it can't directly use iSync, so I can't synchronize the ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Move BBedit 9's Documents drawer to the left side
I've been trying to move over from Smultron to BBEdit for most of my text editing needs, as Smultron isn't officially supported any longer. One thing that I found very annoying in BBEdit 9 is that the Documents drawer appears on the right, with no apparent way to move it to the right (in older ...
MacBlips: vote it up!

Page 1 of 5