Open a Finder window (Finder > New Finder Window) and then choose View > Show Path Bar. The Path Bar appears at the bottom of all your Finder windows, showing the complete path from your computer to the current folder. At first glance, that’s all the Path Bar does. But as Sharon Zardetto points out in her article, it can do a whole lot more!
Vecte is a simple Mac OS X application switcher replacement. All the standard keyboard shortcuts still work, the only difference is how it looks and feels. It’s a great way to customize how OS X looks and works.
Sometimes I just don’t want to listen to music. I just want some nice ambient sound to wash over me while I’m working. I’ve reviewed Elsewhere for the Mac previously, a free app for OS X which lives in your menubar and provides three ambient sounds, plus rain (with an in-app purchase).
Today I point you to two more great apps, both free, that provide ambient sounds (white noise) to OS X and allow you to customize the relaxing sounds to your liking.
I first reviewed SmoothCursor last November, and it immediately found a permanent home on my Mac because it allowed me to adjust the tracking speed of my mouse and Magic Trackpad independently. Unlike most 3rd-party drivers I had tried in the past, SmoothCursor actually worked perfectly for me.
Since then, Troikalabs has updated SmoothCursor to version 2.0.5. Here’s a breakdown of what’s new.
If you manage a group of five or more Macs, OS X Server may be worth the time to invest in. The price is so low that it’s almost worth jumping in with both feet. But if you’re the type that likes a lot of research first, take a look at this 12-page article covering OS X Server.
You can send an iMessage (text message) directly from within Contacts in OS X Mountain Lion. Simply choose the card of the person you want to send it to, click the phone number, and you’ll get an option to send the person an iMessage.
You may have heard that resetting the NVRAM can fix all sorts of problems. This isn’t the case, but it can fix a few issues. NVRAM is where Mac OS X stores information like your settings for speaker volume, your screen resolution and startup disk info. So resetting your NVRAM will only fix issues like sound not working, screen resolution problems, and slow startup times.
I came across an article at ZDNet this past week that just drove me absolutely crazy. It serves me right for reading anything from ZDNet—because with little exception, they have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to Apple and the Mac. But when I saw the headline: “Is Jony Ive killing the Mac?” I just couldn’t resist clicking through.
The first thing that got my hair up about the article is that other than the headline and the summary at the top, the article makes no mention of Ive, or why the author seems to think the Mac is being systematically killed off by him. I’ve spoken to Jony Ive personally, and he assures me that he isn’t a killer.
Disclaimer: I haven’t spoken to Jony Ive, but I’m willing to bet the only thing he’s killed at his time at Apple is a mountain of bad ideas.
Even if you don’t bother to read the rest of the article, or actually believe that Mac OS X has gone to hell, most Mac users know that Jony Ive has had absolutely nothing to do with OS X up to this point. Obviously the headline is click-bait in an effort to gather more page views.
I’ve put together a few thoughts about some of the author’s touch points here.
10 commands you can type in the Terminal app to customize the look and feel of Mac OS X.
Here’s a great little OS X app to optimize folders full of images you want to use on the web, in PowerPoint or other multi-media project.
