How-tos Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Share between devices painlessly with Instashare

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (May 18th, 2013)

There will come a time when you would like to simply transfer a file from one iOS device to another or to a Mac; it's inevitable. When the time arises, you will discover as most of us already have that the process is not as straightforward as one ...

Mac 101: Upgrade to SSD

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (May 14th, 2013)

If you are looking for a way to get more out of your MacBook or MacBook Pro, consider a solid-state drive (SSD). SSDs offer faster data read and write speeds, fast file transfers, speedier boot times and will save you some battery life. In the ...

Make Chrome open iTunes store links in iTunes

by John-Michael Bond (May 9th, 2013)

If you're having a hard time getting iTunes and App Store links to launch from Google Chrome right to the app from your browser, MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci has found a nice workaround in the App Store support community. The ...

Mac 101: Beef up your spam filters in Mail (video)

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (Apr 16th, 2013)

Nobody likes spam, but if you use Apple's Mail on Mountain Lion, at least you have some tools to deal with it. Plenty of Mac users rely on Mail to read, manage and process their emails... and spam messages. If you use email, you have spam -- ...

Add a clone partition to your backup drive

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (Apr 9th, 2013)

In case you missed it, March 31st was World Backup Day, a big topic of discussion on the last few Talkcasts, which culminated in a visit by the team at Dolly Drive. Inspired by the conversation, I wanted to create a clone-sized partition to ...

Can I Stream It makes movie night simpler

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (Apr 5th, 2013)

The way we watch movies and television is evolving, as more people adopt on-demand video. But still, the old question remains: "What's on that's worth watching?" The free web service Can I Stream It can help provide an answer. It lets you ...

World Backup Day 2013: Don't be an April Fool!

by Steven Sande (Mar 31st, 2013)

Today is World Backup Day 2013, the day we (and other technology sites) try to implore our readers to make sure that they back up their data early and often. Believe it or not, as much as we hammer on the topic of backing up data, there are ...

How to spring clean "Open With" duplicates

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (Mar 25th, 2013)

If you use your Mac for any period of time, you will find the need to open a document with a different program other than the one set as default. The "Open With" menu appears in the Finder whenever you right-click or control-click on the icon of ...

Siri trick turns iBooks into audiobooks

by Steven Sande (Mar 18th, 2013)

Have you ever purchased an iBook and then wished that you had an audiobook version of it? Macworld UK's Mark Hattersley wrote a wonderful post today on how to use Siri Dictation to speak either a portion or all of the text from an iBook. To ...

Use Keyboard Maestro to get ready for podcast recording

by TJ Luoma (Mar 12th, 2013)

When you're in the middle of recording a podcast, chances are you'd like your Mac to be focused on that job -- not other network-hungry activities like syncing Dropbox, or CPU- and disk-intensive tasks like saving a Time Machine backup. Gabe ...

Tips for Troubleshooting Automator Workflows

by Ben Waldie (Mar 4th, 2013)

Automator's great for streamlining time consuming and repetitive tasks on your Mac. It's easy. Just launch it, find a few actions, and string them together to form a workflow. Then, run your workflow anytime you want to perform that series of tasks ...

Preparing high-res icon files with Automator

by Ben Waldie (Dec 31st, 2012)

This week's post is for all those Mac app developers out there. If you're not an app developer yet, it's a new year, and I'm sure becoming an app developer is at at the top of your resolution list. In any case, if you plan to develop apps, then you ...

Tips for capturing holiday light memories with your iPhone camera

by Mel Martin (Dec 25th, 2012)

The iPhone has a great little digital camera built into it. If you're thinking about getting those last photos of the neighborhood and indoor holiday lights before they all come down, here are a few hints to make sure you get a memorable ...

AppleScript Desktop Icon Race

by Ben Waldie (Dec 24th, 2012)

Scripty Claus' gift to you this Holiday Season is a fun little AppleScript that lines up your Desktop icons and races them across the screen until one of them reaches the finish line. Here's how to set it up... Note: You can download the ...

Where Automator Actions and Workflows Live

by Ben Waldie (Dec 17th, 2012)

Automator's great for streamlining some of the repetitive things you do each day on your Mac. With Automator, you can create your own custom plugins for the Services menu, Folder Action workflows that run when files are placed into a folder, ...

Send Keynote presenter notes to Evernote with AppleScript

by Ben Waldie (Dec 10th, 2012)

We've all been there before. You've prepared a Keynote presentation on the Internet phenomenon of cat videos for your local Mac user group. You've finished editing your slides. You've added presenter notes. Next, you want to extract the notes from ...