Computers and hardware

Six tips for managing your iTunes library

About the time my iTunes music library reached 5,000 tracks I knew it was time for a cleanup. While I was at it, I adjusted the volume on some tracks that I had converted from audio cassettes, made sure joined tracks play in sequence, set iTunes to fill my iPod automatically, and learned some handy playback-control keyboard shortcuts.

Now I'm spending more time listening to the tracks in my iTunes library and less time skipping, scrolling, and searching.

The semi-automatic way to remove duplicate media files iTunes provides two options for identifying duplicate files: one based on the … Read more

How to use multiple disks with Time Machine in Mountain Lion

Having a full system backup solution for any PC is a highly recommended setup, but a preferred setup is to have redundant backups either in the same location or better yet, in multiple locations. While Apple has offered its Time Machine service as a fairly robust backup solution for OS X users, the service has been limited to a single backup drive and did not support any redundancy options. In Mountain Lion this has changed and you can now use multiple drives with Time Machine for the same system.

In prior versions of OS X, users had to either use … Read more

Mac tip: SendRail makes it dead simple to share files

Granted, e-mailing someone an attachment is not difficult. Neither is sharing files via Dropbox, Google Drive, or another online repository. If you use a Mac and are on Facebook, however, there is an easier way. Free app SendRail makes sending a file to your Facebook contacts just a right-click or keyboard shortcut away.

After installing SendRail and hooking it into Facebook, you will hardly know it's there. It adds a small icon to the menu bar, along with a line to your right-click menu. To send a file via SendRail, right-click on the file and choose "Send To … Read more

This week in awesome: Twelve 4-star gadgets and apps

I'd call this week the calm before the brewing Motorola/iPhone/rumored smaller iPad/Kindle update/Surface storm, but in truth, fall gadget winds are already whipping up. This week's Microsoft Release to Manufacturing of Windows 8 signals the company's final few weeks before a hurricane of Windows 8 machines blow into the market.

Storm metaphor too heavy-handed? I'll just cut to the chase: Seth Rosenblatt took a very close look at this final version of Windows (it's the code that ships to partners installing the OS on new computers) and made a call: It'… Read more

Home networking explained, Part 2: Optimizing your Wi-Fi network

Editor's note: This post is part 2 of a series. Here are the links to part 1 and part 3.

Since my last post on the basics of home networking, which is Part 1 of this series, I've been flooded with even more e-mails than I had been before (which explains why some of you haven't heard back from me). The good news is that nobody is asking about what a router is anymore. I guess I did an OK job explaining that in my previous post.

Most of the e-mails this time asked about how to … Read more

How to set a due date for Mountain Lion Reminders

Apple's new Reminders application in Mountain Lion can be used to make a quick to-do list for various projects. One feature in previous implementations of reminders in iCal was a due date option where you could set when a specific task was to be completed. While this option is a bit redundant with the new notification options in the Reminders application, it can be implemented for tasks if needed.

When you create a reminder in the Reminders application, you can double-click it, select it and press Command-I, or click the "i" character to the right of the … Read more

Boost your Mac's volume with Boom

I'm going to resist the easy Spinal Tap reference and skip right to the part where I tell you Boom is a Mac app that can increase the volume of your Mac's speakers. The app costs $6.99, but its developer, Global Delight, offers a free, seven-day trial. If you are often underwhelmed by the audio output of your MacBook's speakers, Boom is worth taking for a spin.

The free trial is available at Global Delight's Web site. After installing, the app places an icon in the menu bar. Clicking on it reveals a simple volume … Read more

How to reset the DNS cache in OS X

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical network that resolves text-based URLs such as "www.cnet.com" to the servers' IP addresses that your computer uses for communication. While loading a single Web page or other Web-based resource, your computer may contact numerous URLs to load different components (a Web page, images on it, an application hosted on it, scripts, etc.), so a robust DNS service is a vital part of having a smooth Internet connection.

Even though a fast DNS service will optimize a connection, redundant queries to it will take time to complete. Therefore, based … Read more

Optimize and address Flash performance in OS X

Adobe's Flash player provides access to a great deal of online content, including that from popular sites like YouTube; however, there may be times when visiting sites that use the plug-in results in choppy performance or an inability to connect to the media being presented, which may happen on all installed and updated Web browsers. If this happens on your system, you have several options to optimize the plug-in's performance and get the sites working again.

Update Flash First if you are having troubles with Flash, then be sure to fully update to the latest version. This will … Read more