Mac

A cold splash of water on Mac App Store sales

Sam Soffes released his new product, Redacted for Mac. He never expected his product to quickly become the #8 top paid app in the US and #1 top paid app in Graphics. Break out the champagne, right?

Read on.

AnandTech’s highly detailed 2015 MacBook review

Ryan Smith, writing for AnandTech, digs in to the new MacBook as only AnandTech can. And the new MacBook brings Apple towards the muddy product waters of Apple just before Steve Jobs’ return.

How to exclude files from Time Machine backups

Peter Cohen, writing for iMore, talks you through the Time Machine interface. It’s not difficult, perhaps obvious, but well worth the read and the thinking that goes with it.

Apple releases security update 2015-003

The update involves iCloud Keychain and the IOSurface framework (for sharing graphics surfaces between applications) and is for Yosemite 10.10.2.

Some incredibly useful option-key Mac tips

A nice little treasure trove of Mac tips, all of them making use of the option key. As always, you may know most of these, but take a look, there might be a gem in here that’s new to you.

Protecting your files from a thief

Spoiler alert, best bet is to make a reliable backup of your Mac, enable FileVault encryption, use a password everywhere you can and use a different password at every opportunity. This is worth reading.

Photos for Mac: an FAQ

Two good reads if you are interested in learning about Photos for OS X, Apple’s coming replacement for iPhoto.

Be your own Genius

the best repairs are the ones you do yourself. To that end, spend a few minutes reading Joe Caiati’s Mac troubleshooting guide, posted on 512 Pixels.

Joe is a former Apple Genius and writes from hard-won experience.

Getting Apple to call you

Apple has inserted an immediate callback option in the path to scheduling a Genius Bar appointment. Also, a tip on fixing a wonky trackpad.

On leaving the Mac App Store

Last May, Cabel Sasser, co-founder of Panic, announced that the team was pulling Coda, their highly regarded web development tool, from the Mac App Store, primarily due to sandboxing issues.

Yesterday, they published the results of this experiment.

Breathe life into an old Mac

Joe Caiati, a long time IT pro, shares some tips for breathing new life into your old Mac.

Andy Ihnatko: I laugh at your piddling “5K” display

Andy Ihnatko had the chance to visit the war room at NASA Goddard’s space weather lab. Take a look at this picture he snapped of what he calls “the single greatest browser tab ever rendered”. Then read on.

Autocorrect canceling gesture

I am a fan of autocorrect. And I hate it, too.

I love autocorrect when it helps me properly spell a difficult or mis-typed word or when it speeds up my typing by properly predicting the next word I’d like to type.

Here’s a proposal to make autocorrect a bit better.