MacTricksAndTips.com

If you want a high speed Mac, you could buy the latest quad core iMac with plenty of RAM, you could speed it up even further with a SSD drive, this allows really fast read and write speeds, allowing a speed increase. However, these tend to be a bit expensive. The solution to this is build a RAM Disk. This is a temporary solution which allows you to use a part of your RAM as a virtual disk. Excellent if you have a program that takes ages to write to disk and you need to output right away. It isn’t a solution for every day use, and it does come with some problems, however if you briefly need the speed increase and your hard drive won’t cut it, its a great solution. Its also a fun to mess around with.

If you develop a website or have to move png image around over slow networks you want to get png files as small as possible. Although Photoshop and other apps can compress and optimise the png files to some extent, to get them as small as possible it is best to use a compression tool that removes other data and optimises the image to be as small as possible without losing image quality. One of the best tools out there is pngcrush. Its a command line program run in Terminal that can compress an image to around 70% of the original size. This post will show you all of the different methods you can use to install the binary file and how to use the app.

Yesterday I posted a video about iTunes U, and all of the free awesome content you can find. After having a poke around the various different quick links Apple provide I came across a rather neat little function for setting up a monthly allowance to an iTunes account each month. It similar to a Direct Debit or Automated Clearing House process where you can set up a monthly transfer of money to one account. Its a great way for family members to receive a fixed amount to their iTunes account without having to bug Mum or Dad every time they want to buy a tune.

Having spent the last three and a half years in higher education, I am soon about to graduate. One thing university has taught me is the amount of stuff I don’t know. Today’s post is going to be about introducing and using iTunes U to learn, for free, from some of the best university courses around the world. Although the selection doesn’t have every course on every topic, there are some really useful topics. I am going to list some of my favourite courses. If you have an iTunes U course, you love to use, please leave a comment.

Today’s post is going to be something slightly different that I think is rather cool. When you start your browser you either load your favourite website or a popular search engine, or in the case Safari it shows you your top sites. Today’s featured product is called ‘eight’. Its a customizable start page featuring some of the worlds most popular websites. Although it takes its styling from Windows 8, which is a naught word for some hard core Mac fans, I think it looks really cool and has a lot of interesting features.

With numerous digital cameras attached to most electronic devices and the ability to share those images over the world wide web, making those images unique and different can be a difficult experience. Applying that vintage, distressed or Polaroid look can be a little difficult. However, today’s app, Photostyler takes the problem out of adjusting images and makes it fun in the process. The outputted result aren’t to bad either.

This is a quick tip I stumbled upon while randomly messing around with my Mac. It is to do with hiding applications / windows on your Mac. Normally if you press Command + H with the current application open it will hide the windows for that app. However this can also be achieved if you press alt (or option key if you prefer to call it that) and click the dock icon of the app you want to hide. In the blink of an eye your Mac will hide every window for that selected application. This tip can also be extended if you press alt and select a different application. This will hide the application windows you are currently using and switch to the dock app you just selected.

This is a rather cool quick tip that can save you a lot of time. Most modern search boxes now a days have a drop down auto-complete feature to help you complete words a lot quicker, this is generally useful and can save you some time and effort. Wouldn’t it be useful if you could expand this auto-complete feature to more text boxes around your operating system. Thankfully you can. Simply press Command + Period (or full stop) and your Mac will bring up a list of words which you can use to complete the word you are typing.