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It's a sad occasion when a laptop is stolen. All that money, time, and personal data just disappear into the night. This is the Tumblr story of a boy and his stolen laptop. Dom Deltorto lives in London. In early February, he says, someone broke into his flat and made off with his MacBook Pro and his iPad.

Deltorto was prepared for just such an incident. He had installed Hidden App on his laptop, a program that tracks the laptop's location and sends back images of the thief. However, Hidden App still needs to be connected to the Internet to work. After more than a month of radio silence, Deltorto reports that his MacBook suddenly came online, but it wasn't in a place where he could just call the London police and have them recover it.… Read more

The number of options available in the Mac OS and its applications can be difficult to manage for all but expert users. With MacPilot for Mac, users can track and change settings in a number of areas from one program.

The free trial version of MacPilot for Mac comes with a 15-day usage limit, while the full program requires a payment of $19.95 to activate. The program's native installer set the program up quickly, but a lengthy user agreement must be accepted to use the program. Upon startup, the user is prompted to purchase the full version or … Read more

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If you like high-tech cars, the Audi A7 is very high on your list. It's just about the techiest ride out there and far from the most expensive. Add the hot sauce of S trim and the 2013 Audi S7 becomes a favorite of ours. I'll take you for a ride in this episode.

I've never received more sustained e-mail on a single topic than I have on EPA mileage ratings lately. Many of you are actively wondering … Read more

From day one of iOS, users have looked for different ways to hide or get rid of the default Apple apps they will never use. Jailbreak users have been able to accomplish this task through tweaks for years, but users who don't jailbreak have been left with a lone folder tucked away somewhere full of apps that'll never be touched.

For some reason, Apple has approved HiddenApps, and it's currently available in the App Store, as first reported by 9to5Mac. It's unknown how long it will be available, so download it while you can.

Update, 7:… Read more

Advanced Mac users, including developers, often have to enter commands to display hidden files. Show Hidden Files for Mac allows this to be accomplished with the click of a button, although this may not be necessary for experienced developers.

Show Hidden Files for Mac is available as freeware with advertisements for other programs displayed initially, but these can be disabled or enabled easily from the main drop down menu. Easy to download, the application installs and runs quickly. Its interface is simple, with buttons to hide and show files, although some advanced features could be less intuitive to the average … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions on hiding specific file types in the Finder, managing a program opening numerous documents when launched, dealing with "file in use" warnings in the Finder, resetting a Mac to factory default settings, and concerns about memory leaks in Apple's Dashboard feature. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Hiding files of a specific type in the Finder MacFixIt … Read more

iOS 6 became available for download today, and if you want to get up to speed on what exactly is included with the update, check out my review here. Some of the major highlights are the completely redesigned Maps app, upgrades to Siri, and several other new features. But with iOS 6 there are more than 200 new features, and clearly I couldn't cover them all in my review.

Part of what makes this update a must-have for Apple's mobile devices are the numerous smaller tweaks that make using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch easier. I'm … Read more

When Clear was first released, it quickly became the No. 1 paid app in the App Store, helping iOS users everywhere become more organized. Immediately after release, it was discovered there was three hidden themes in the app. We covered how to unlock the themes shortly after, and then began to wait patiently for an update with new themes.

With today's update, our wish has been granted, and thanks to Touch Arcade, we already know the hidden themes and how to unlock them. In total, there are seven new themes you can potentially unlock.

Path Similar to the theme … Read more

When migrating or restoring your Mac using Apple's Migration Assistant utility, if you have cancelled the migration operation or experienced an error such as a power outage or crash, then you may find some odd behavior. Changes made to some system resources might not be recognized.

For instance, if you have third-party utilities installed on your system that use launch agents or daemons to keep them running, if you decide to disable these agents by removing them from your system, you might find the programs continue to launch.

Recently I ran into such a situation. When migrating to a … Read more