How-Tos

I've actually lost track of all the iOS devices I have. From iPhones to iPads and iPods, there are a few generations of mobile Apple gadgets populating my home that are occasionally adopted or abandoned by my wife and kid.

For the most part, today's iOS devices are self-supporting. They get their updates directly, and purchased media can be downloaded and redownloaded without hassles that used to come with Apple's iTunes-focused, obnoxiously DRM-wrapped early days of iOS.

But what do you do when your kid wants you to load your Led Zeppelin bootlegs onto his iPad? Or … Read more

If your kid is using an iPhone, iPod, or iPad to blast music at unsafe levels, you should consider setting a limit on their maximum volume. I mean, they'll hate you for it -- but they'll also hate having tinnitus in their 20s, right?

In the above video, I'll walk you through the steps of lowering the maximum volume limit on any iOS device, as well as locking that setting in place using a password of your choosing.

If the video doesn't appear above, try going directly to the video on CNET TV or pay a … Read more

OS X supports the option to read NTFS-formatted drives, but has not supported writing to these drives. Therefore, the use of a third-party driver such as Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS has been required for those seeking full NTFS support; however, OS X does support writing to NTFS, but this feature is just not enabled by default.

To enable this feature, you have to do so on a per-volume basis, by editing the system's hidden fstab file to adjust the way the drive is automatically handled when attached and mounted.

First ensure that your NTFS drive has a simple … Read more

The new Gmail features a tabbed interface that sorts e-mail into Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. While this does make your in-box look a bit tidier, it can make the transition to the new style frustrating when it comes e-mail alerts.

Thankfully, you can set alerts for each category, and even disable them for others. When you get an alert on your Android device, you'll know what kind of e-mail you're receiving, and whether you need to read it right now.

Before you set the individual alerts, you need to make sure that notifications for your Gmail … Read more

When sharing a post from the previous version of Facebook for Android, you may have forgotten to tap the itsy-bitsy people-sharing icon before you sent it off to the Interwebs. This icon controls the settings for who can see your post, be it Public, Friends, or other groups you're part of on Facebook. Fortunately, this icon hasn't gone anywhere, but in case you forget to use it, there's a fix -- and it doesn't involve logging in on the desktop Web site.

First, make sure you have the most recent version of Facebook for Android. Just … Read more

Back in the days before Mac OS X Lion (not to mention Mountain Lion), I used a handy trackpad gesture when I found myself mired in a particularly lengthy web page that would let me jump back to the top. I just swiped upward on the trackpad with three fingers and I was right back at the top of the page.

When OS X Lion hit, one of the many features it introduced was Mission Control, which you accessed by swiping up with three fingers (or all four, if you tweaked a setting in System Preferences). Mission Control is great … Read more

Once you commit to the Task Switcher in Mac OS X, it quickly becomes an essential tool in your workflow. With it, you can easily switch among open apps.

To call up the Task Switcher, hit Command-Tab and then while still holding down the Command key, you can hit the Tab key repeatedly to cycle through the icons in a rightward direction. If you have many apps open, however, it might be quicker to move to the left to make you desired app switch. Moving to the left is also useful if you overshot your intended app and want to … Read more

After learning a few keyboard shortcuts, my embrace of Mission Control has tightened. Because my 13.3-inch MacBook Pro has only so much screen real estate, I spread out the applications I use most frequently across a handful of virtual desktops in Mission Control in an effort to avoid feeling cramped when multitasking. I have come to rely on it and its virtual workspaces throughout the workday, and I get in and out of it more quickly now than when I relied solely on my MacBook's trackpad to navigate my way around it.

Without further ado, I present a … Read more

When you use your new Mac for the first time, the fresh OS installation and new configuration will have the responsiveness and speed that's intended by Apple. For the most part, this should continue throughout the life of the system. However, as with any system, there are times when you may experience slowdowns.

These can happen either from running low on resources like RAM or hard drive space, from software incompatibilities, or even from errors with your system.

While you can tackle these problems if they arise, there are several things you can do to keep your system running … Read more