Having discussed the very basics and some of the apps which come bundled with OS X Lion in part one of Mac 101, let’s now delve in a little deeper with the aim of getting a better idea of how to properly tweak and organise the latest and arguably greatest of Apple’s OS X. We’re going to get to grips with how one navigates the OS X file system using Finder, in addition to minor tweaks like setting up a custom background, or wallpaper.
Relatively speaking, this early part of Mac 101 will still cater toward the inexperienced Mac user but, with luck, even experienced users of Apple computers will learn something new!
It seemed like 2011 was the year of lawsuits both for and against Apple however 2012 is looking to be no different. In a fresh wave of legal attacks against Apple from its restless competitors, it’s now Motorola that is suing the Cupertino-based company on 6 counts of patent infringement in a Florida-based court.
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While it’s no secret that iBooks hasn’t been a runaway success as Apple had hoped, the company is trying their hand at revolutionizing the book industry once more -but this time they’ve shifted their efforts towards the education market. Along with the new iBooks 2, Apple introduced iBooks Author, their simplistic, yet feature-rich solution for creating textbooks, cookbooks, and just about any other kind of book, for the iPad.
In making the app both user-friendly and free, Apple is clearly striving to make publishing available “for the rest of us”. Although the app is free, many will argue that the price of staying within the Apple ecosystem is too high for the budding author. So do the benefits outweigh the negatives? Read on.
Are you looking for a good way to have fun on your Mac but don’t really consider yourself a gamer? Perhaps you’re nostalgic for the days when playing a game involved a couple of dice, a colorful board and some interestingly shaped pieces to move around that board.
Well you’re in luck because there are a ton of board game apps out there for Mac. You can stick with the classics (there’s at least one version out there of every big name board game you can think of) or you can try some board games that you might not often find in physical form. Those are less common, but I’m going to take you through the classics and then point you in the direction of some you might not have seen before.
This post is part of a series that revisits some of our readers’ favorite articles from the past that still contain awesome and relevant information that you might find useful. This post was originally published on April 19th, 2010.
GeekTool is a really neat preference panel that allows widget-like functionality on a highly customizable level.
Unfortunately, if you aren’t particularly geeky, this app can be a bit confusing to get up and running. Luckily enough, here at AppStorm there’s definitely no shortage of geeks such as myself to help you out! I’ll take you step by step through finding and installing scripts to make your desktop the envy of the office.
Keeping up with music can sometimes feel like a chore, especially if you aren’t in your younger years of exploration anymore. Currently, with the Internet providing us with the opportunity to meet so many new artists from around the world, we have so much music at our disposal, and we’re bound to like some of it more than other.
That’s why there are services like Last.fm and Pandora, which use your previous history of listened music as a tool to bring you music that fits your tastes. Today we’re reviewing something similar that bundles the functionality of many music services into a simple and cool-looking Mac app called Discovr Music.
If you are searching for good apps at the Mac App Store, chances are you’d take a look at the featured app categories on display.
I’m talking about the “Apps for Writers,” “Get Stuff Done,” “Better Together,” and “Great Free Apps” categories where apps similar to one another are grouped together and given a snazzy section of their own. More importantly, these categories help you cut search time by providing unique gateways to apps that can contribute to your productivity, help you stay fit, or make work easier for you.
One of my personal favorites is the “Apps Starter Kit,” which welcomes new Mac owners with a set of 30 apps that can enhance user experience further. Although the suggestions are pretty helpful (I see a few of my favorites in there), it’s pretty limited. There are a handful of other apps at the Mac App Store that deserve a cozy spot in this category too. So in this post, I’ll share 12 apps that should be in the Apps Starter Kit as well.
Apple today has announced its Q1 earnings for the fiscal year 2012 – and the results are certainly not to be sniffed at. Q1 has been Apple’s best quarter ever with a reported $46.33 billion in revenue posted. The data, which is available for download from Apple’s corporate website, breaks down this pretty much incomprehensible sum into individual sources.
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One of the best, and perhaps most undervalued features of Mac OS X is one that was introduced in 10.5 Leopard: Time Machine. As Macintosh users, we often forget just how good we have it when it comes to matters like this. I was recently discussing backup options with a Windows using friend of mine and none of the options we could find for him came even close to the ease of use and painlessness (not to mention the system level integration) of Time Machine.
Nevertheless, after I started using Time Machine in Leopard, I quickly found one major drawback. Every hour, regardless of what you are doing, Time Machine starts a backup. It slows the system down, if you back up to a Time Capsule as I do, it slows the network down, and it’s unnecessary. I really only want one incremental backup per day, but this isn’t possible by default. This is where TimeMachineScheduler comes into play.

