Twisted Pair: Tom’s Mac Software Pick

by Tom Nelson Twisted Pair is a simple menu applet that provides an easy way to confirm that your wired Ethernet network connection is up and running, and that the Internet is reachable, both of which are handy things to know when you’re having connection problems. Twisted Pair can also tell you the IP address [...]

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Apple’s Year in Review 2011

by Tom Nelson With 2012 quickly approaching, it seems fitting to take a look back at what transpired over the past year. Because this is a Mac site, we’ll concentrate on Mac-related events. That leaves out some of the important events of the year, such as Charlie Sheen’s meltdown and the cell phone throwing championship. [...]

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Managing the Resume Feature in OS X Lion

by Tom Nelson One of the features of OS X Lion that I looked forward to was Resume, which promised that you would be able to pick up right where you left off in any application. The idea was brilliant. You’re working on a document and decide to take a break, so you quit the [...]

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Startup Keyboard Shortcuts for the Mac

by Tom Nelson How do you start up your Mac? I usually just hit the power button and then get to work. Once in a while, however, I need to start my Mac using special shortcut keys that force the Mac to modify its startup behavior. For instance, you can hold down the option key [...]

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New to the Mac or OS X Lion? Our Tips and Tricks Will Get Lion Working for You

by Tom Nelson If you’re sitting behind a shiny new Mac as you read this, congratulations! Chances are that Mac is running OS X Lion. Lion is relatively new, having been released by Apple in the summer of this year. We’re collecting Lion tips and tricks and putting them in a single list to make [...]

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Connect Your Mac to That New HDTV

by Tom Nelson It’s the day after Christmas here, and every year around this time we see an uptick in people asking how to connect their Macs to their brand-new HDTVs. Seems big-screen TVs are once again popular this year. Even the manufacturers know that customers will be hooking up all types of multimedia components, [...]

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Apple’s Year in Review 2011: The Top 10 Apple Events of 2011

by Tom Nelson With 2011 nearly over, we stepped into our time machine and turned back the months to find the top ten Apple events of the year. We didn’t limit the list to Apple itself; we looked at anything related to Apple, the Mac, and the Apple community. Our list is in chronological order, [...]

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Apple Steals & Deals: Sunday, December 25, 2011

by Tom Nelson Merry Christmas to everyone! I’m home today, working up the energy to sit down to a tasty Christmas dinner. It’s hard work, but someone has to do it. While I wait for the turkey and the rest of the dinner to cook, I just had to check the Apple refurb store, as [...]

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Thunderbird: Tom’s Mac Software Pick

by Tom Nelson Thunderbird from Mozilla is a free email client for the Mac that lets you customize its interface to meet your specific needs. Thunderbird also has some wonderful features, such as built-in mail archiving, which lets you remove mail from your inbox and store it in special archive folders for easy access. Another [...]

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How to Share Windows 7 Files With OS X Lion

by Tom Nelson My home network contains a mixture of both Macs and PCs. The PCs run various operating systems, including Windows 7. I like to be able to access my Windows files from my Mac, so I set both systems up for file sharing. The process isn’t difficult; in fact, it takes only a [...]

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