Computers and hardware

Apple's Mac systems come with a basic audio controller for playing through the system's internal speakers or through the audio ports to headphones or a stereo system. However, if you would like to use a different controller such as a multi-channel USB interface for recording with GarageBand, Logic, or other use, then you can add it to the system and set it up to be used instead of Apple's controllers.

While useful to have, if you configure your system with multiple interfaces then you might run into an issue where the system could revert to its internal … Read more

An ambitious developer, Esten Hurtle, has developed a way to quickly turn any Vine video into an animated GIF using a very simple Mac app. The app, VineGifR, is free and available to download by following the download link in the ReadMe section on Esten's Github page. It's a good idea to follow this page for further app updates as development continues. As you'll see below, the current version of the app is very basic.

Originally covered by Mashable, Esten posted the app on Hacker News asking for feedback.

The first time you launch the app on … Read more

Updated at 2:27 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to further clarify the differences among the Office options.

Along with all the new features, the latest version of Microsoft Office, released today (read CNET's review), is now available as a standalone suite and by subscription. The options are tailored toward different use cases, depending on your productivity requirements.

Office 365 Home Premium, $99.99 per year, five PCs/Macs/Windows tablets: This is the "Microsoft recommended" version of Office. It comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, 20GB of SkyDrive storage, 60 … Read more

Many programs, such as Microsoft Office, support their own interfaces for various fonts you may have installed on your Mac; however, many other programs like TextEdit and Apple's Pages use Apple's central Font panel to provide font management. This panel can usually be invoked by pressing Command-T in programs that support it, where you will be presented with a column-oriented view of font collections that you can navigate through, select, and set the size for.

While convenient for quickly selecting and setting font sizes, the Font panel also contains a number of additional features that can be applied … Read more

Smartphones and tablets are often used for quick access to address book content and calculators, but there are times when you might find yourself looking up a phone number or running a quick calculation on your Mac and need to take the results with you to another location in the room. Instead of writing it down on a notepad, if you will be in view of your Mac from a different location then you can use some quick features in the Contacts and Calculator applications to be able to see the results from a distance.

Both the Calculator and Contacts … Read more

The OS X Terminal is an exceptionally useful tool for getting to the underpinnings of OS X and troubleshooting problematic aspects of the system, developing and testing code, and managing remote connections among many other details. When you launch the Terminal, the system should load the default shell in which you can execute various programs and scripts, but depending on how you have configured your system the shell may not load and instead show a blank Terminal window.

There are a couple of possible reasons why this might happen, which are that the default shell configuration for your account may … Read more

Separate user accounts in OS X allow the system to sequester data, settings, and other details for individual users. To identify user account, there are of course the long and short usernames for it, but in addition OS X includes an account picture that while not functional is aesthetically useful at the login window, in Mail and chat messages, among other aspects of the system.

The generic account picture in OS X is a gray silhouette on a darker gray background, that can be seen by enabling the Guest user account in the system, but other accounts are randomly assigned … Read more

I share a lot of calendars with friends and family members using Apple's iCloud service. Every time someone adds an event to a shared calendar, I am bombarded with alerts across multiple iOS and OS X devices. It can get annoying. I don't so much mind the alerts on my iOS device, but I do mind them on OS X. Then recently, I stumbled upon the seemingly hidden preference to turn off shared calendar alerts in iCal. Here's where you can find it:

Modifier keys for Mac systems are the Shift, Control, Option (Alt), Command, and Caps Lock keys. The commands triggered by combinations of these keys can greatly speed up how you use your computer, but it can slow you down again if you switch to a keyboard with an unfamiliar layout.

While most Mac keyboards have these keys in the same relative locations, so you don't have to change your typing habits, there are situations in which you may end up using something different, such as if you take a laptop to the office and plug in whatever keyboard you … Read more