Howto Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Mac 101: Restricting Web Access

by TJ Luoma (Sep 17th, 2012)

TUAW reader Adam wrote in with the following question: Today, I am in the process of upgrading our iMac for another product, likely a MacBook Pro with external display this time. I am wrestling with the idea of putting the old iMac in my daughter's study area for use. My question is this: ...

Mac 101: Battery not charging? Recalibration may be the answer

by TJ Luoma (Aug 20th, 2012)

If your MacBook (any model) is not charging to 100%, it may need to be recalibrated. Apple explains how to do this, but basically it comes down to three steps: Fully charge your MacBook (and leave it charged for about 2 hours) Fully drain your MacBook (by using it on battery until it ...

Mountain Lion 101: Silencing Notification Center alerts

by Dave Caolo (Aug 7th, 2012)

Mountain Lion's Notification Center is handy. It displays banners and alerts from notification-aware apps to keep you informed of changes, like a new Twitter mention, Calendar event or email message. That last one can get distracting, depending on how much email you receive. Here are some ways to ...

Building an OS X Mountain Lion installer thumb drive

by Erica Sadun (Jul 25th, 2012)

Last year, I posted about creating a standalone Lion USB installer thumb drive. This year, I update those instructions for Mountain Lion. You'll need a copy of the OS X Mountain Lion installer. If you saved a copy when you first installed Mountain Lion, great. If not, you'll need to re-download ...

iPhone 101: Switching sound off (or down)

by Erica Sadun (Jul 23rd, 2012)

Today's iPhone 101 is all about audio volume. You may think that the volume toggle and the mute switch on the side of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch are the beginning and end of noise control, but it turns out there's more to the iOS sound story. You can get some volume management by ...

Getting ready for Mountain Lion: Clean up your Mac

by Steven Sande (Jun 13th, 2012)

It's not too early to start thinking about getting your Mac prepared for Mountain Lion. By the way, I'm going on record as saying that Mountain Lion will be released to the public on July 18, 2012 -- if history repeats itself, Apple will hold its third-quarter financial call on July 17th and ...

How to control Apple TV with a third-party remote

by Chris Rawson (Mar 30th, 2012)

Here's a cool Apple TV feature that you probably didn't know about, particularly if you're like me and the third-generation Apple TV is your first foray into Apple's "hobby" device. In addition to the pre-packaged and somewhat spartan remote and Apple's more full-featured Remote app for iOS ...

Use Messages to send files from Mac to iPhone

by Steven Sande (Feb 20th, 2012)

Now that the Messages app is available a beta for OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, there's a way that you can quickly send files from any Mac to an iPhone. Lifehacker tested the capability, and sure enough it works splendidly for zapping files to iPhones in the field. Here's how to do it: open ...

A very handy 1Password tip

by Steven Sande (Feb 14th, 2012)

I can't vouch for everyone out there, but at least amongst the blogging tribe here at TUAW, 1Password (from Agile Bits) is an indispensable piece of utility software. Now former TUAW blogger and current Evernote expert Brett Kelly has documented a cool 1Password tip that I'd like to pass along. ...

Unofficial "Look Up in 1Password" bookmarklet for iOS 5

by TJ Luoma (Jan 29th, 2012)

1Password is one of my most-used iOS apps, since I need it to log in to any site which requires a password. Since the introduction of 1Password on iOS, Agile has provided a bookmarklet which will open 1Password and then search for the current domain. That helps the fact that 1Password can't be ...

One trick for getting iTunes Match to recognize older tracks

by Michael Rose (Nov 20th, 2011)

Welcome, iTunes Match users. After you've coughed over your 25 bucks and waited all night for your music library to reconcile with the great iCloud in the sky, you may have noticed those mysterious cloud status icons scattered through your tracks. Apple's tech note summarizes the icons; ...

Split large movie files quickly on 10.6 with QuickTime Player 7

by Michael Rose (Nov 15th, 2011)

Updated to clarify that a split clip feature exists in 10.7's version of QuickTime X. Say what you will about the QuickTime X framework and player introduced in Mac OS X 10.6 -- it's crazy speedy on multicore machines, it provides the foundation for next-generation features, it lets you ...

Tidying up location contacts for Siri and Reminders

by Erica Sadun (Oct 24th, 2011)

My personal address book has no shame. I have contacts for people I haven't spoken to in years, contacts for people who I met at tech conferences, contacts for schools, for local stores, for repairmen, and so forth. It's one big old happy jumbled mess. I'm cool with that. When I want Siri and ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me iMessage my wife

by Erica Sadun (Oct 12th, 2011)

Dear Aunt TUAW, One iMessage "feature" is that messaging can be started on one device and picked up from another device, like from iPhone to iPad. My wife and I share an iTunes account so that we don't have to pay for apps twice, or worry about signing into different accounts. Will sharing an ...

Emulate Lion's Versions in Microsoft Word

by TJ Luoma (Sep 25th, 2011)

Microsoft Word does not support Lion's "Versions" feature yet, but there's no reason to panic. There are a few options that you can use to cobble together a work- around until the Mac BU team updates the Office suite. Also worth mentioning: although I am focusing on Microsoft Word, the same ...