MacTricksAndTips.com

When you Mac doesn’t boot it can be the end of the world. Hard drives are fragile and when they fail it can stop your from starting your Mac and booting. Although your Mac has a built in recovery partition it is always worth having a USB version to boot into in case your hard disk drive is toast. Creating a bootable USB drive allows you to repair your hard drive, reinstall the OS and restore from a Time Machine backup.

New Mac laptops come with two graphics cards. One is a built in graphic card which runs the majority of the time, it is low power and allows you to save power. The second is usually a more powerful dedicated graphics card that allows you to use its horsepower to play games and graphic intensive applications. You Mac will automatically switch between the two, allowing both good battery life and good graphics. It can be interesting to see which graphics you are using.

The current iMac and Macbook range feature a cool brushed aluminium that is both simple and elegant. The problem with this is that it isn’t very unique. Today’s post is going to list some amazing and interesting accessories such as decals, cases, and little gadgets that make your Mac stand out. This allows you to make your mac that little bit more unique and interesting. This post follows on from one at the beginning of the month where I listed some must have accessories.

Stress testing your Mac is a useful way to work out if it is performing to its best and to determine if there are any faults within the various components. Stress testing your Mac is also a useful way to determine if you Mac has a fault if it is using 100% of a CPU, or if there is bad memory. Today’s post is going to describe three ways to stress test the core components of your Mac, CPU, RAM and disk. By testing each one to the ‘max’ you can determine if there is a problem and if you Mac can handle the heat.

Every time you change a files extension, for example from .jpg to .png, or .avi to .mp4 your Mac will give you are warning. This is so you don’t cause anything untoward from happening. If you have changed a file extension, the program will try and open that file extension. For instance if you change a .avi to .jpg Preview will try and open it and fail. This can cause you a bit bother since you have to force it to open in your video app. It stop this from happening your Mac gives you a warning. However, I find it annoying since it is an extra click to change a file extension. Most of the time I know that I am changing a files extension.

Data backups are very important. I always have Time Machine plugged in. If you don’t have any backup system installed I recommend you buy an external hard drive or a Time Capsule to keep your data secure. There is nothing worse than losing all of your data and then spending hours trying to recover it. To represent some of the biggest data lost the aptly named “Data Backup Battalion” have created an info-graphic. This was created by OnlineBackupGeeks.com

A lot of dock apps, such as Mail, Reminders and many more have small icons in there dock icons indicating how many unread messages you have to deal with. If there are only a couple of reminders this isn’t too bad. However, after a while these numbers can balloon and become quite annoying. Turning off the number is very simple, it is a simple preference change within System Preferences. Within one click you can remove the number and have a simple dock icon instead.

Books are a great way to learn new topics and act as a bible of knowledge to refer from. I regularly buy new books to read and retain. Although we may be going to an all digital age, having a good book to read has no substitute. I was recently asked by a reader what books I recommend to read. This list has all of my favourites, that I have read or plan on reading in the coming months. If you have any recommendations please leave a comment. I have linked to Amazon as they usually have the best price.