How-to Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

How to make sure you're charging your iPad correctly

by Matt Tinsley (Jul 8th, 2011)

Recently I noticed that my iPad was not charging as quickly as it used to. Only a month or so ago I was impressed at how my iPad's battery would easily charge up to the 80% range in a couple short hours, but more recently the same charge time would produce a meager 10% if I was lucky. It was ...

How to create a unique iOS home screen icon for your website

by Matt Tinsley (Jul 8th, 2011)

GIGAOM has put together a nifty article detailing the process for creating a unique iOS home screen icon for your website. When iOS users visit your website and create a home screen icon shortcut to easily access your site again, you want that icon to stand out and be easily identifiable ...

iPhone: What is DFU mode, and what's the difference from recovery mode?

by Matt Tinsley (May 25th, 2011)

In the past couple of days, we've seen reports here and there of iPhones getting stuck in a restart loop. The black screen with the Apple logo shows up, holds for a while, and then disappears again; repeat ad infinitum. While it's not clear yet exactly what's triggering the issue (the ...

Removing Flash from your Mac

by Dana Franklin (May 12th, 2011)

Back in October, Apple shipped its first MacBook Air models without the Adobe Flash plug-in pre-installed. In the ensuing brouhaha, Ars Technica discovered Flash cut battery life by up to 33 percent on the MacBook Air and possibly other MacBook models. Personally, my MacBook often sounds like it's ...

How to make a custom wooden 'antique' iPad case

by Chris Rawson (Apr 6th, 2011)

Gary Katz, the same DIY guy behind this cool iPhone shoebox theater, has crafted a delightfully retro-looking case for his iPad 2 out of "about $20 worth of materials." Calling it "An iPad Case from 1945," Katz used a bill of materials that just about anyone might find in their garage or ...

Use AppleScript to open current Safari URL in Google Chrome

by TJ Luoma (Mar 14th, 2011)

I've been using John Gruber's suggestions from Going Flash-Free on Mac OS X, and How to Cheat When You Need It to avoid installing Adobe Flash by using Google Chrome (which includes its own version of Flash) whenever I run into a page that has Flash I want to see. To make this easier, John ...

Ask TUAW Video Edition: working with Stacks

by Justin Esgar (Feb 1st, 2011)

This week Matt asks how to have a dock stack with specific applications in it. In the video we show the three easy steps to make it happen. Remember, you can leave us questions in the comments! The video is on the next page. Update: as Brian pointed out - you can use Command and Option-Key ...

iOS devices filling up? Try deleting some apps

by Erica Sadun (Jan 19th, 2011)

This morning, my Apps runneth-ed over. This afternoon, after a brutal once-over, not so much. I just deleted over a hundred applications from my iTunes library, and storage-wise, my iOS devices are breathing a little easier for it. To delete an app in iTunes, you can select one in Apps, press ...

iPad 101: Downloading and installing iTunes on Windows

by Michael Rose (Dec 25th, 2010)

Did you find a shiny new iPod touch, iPhone or iPad under the tree this morning? Congratulations -- we're sure you're going to enjoy it. First things first, though: if you don't own a Mac, and you haven't been using Apple's tools to manage your music, you're going to have to download and install ...

How to get Verizon's UML290 4G USB modem to work on the Mac

by Steven Sande (Dec 20th, 2010)

Verizon Wireless launched its 4G LTE network across the United States on December 5, 2010 and left many Mac users unhappy when they found that the two 4G USB modems that are currently available, the Pantech UML290 and LG VL600, were both listed as compatible only with Windows XP, Vista and ...

Five Dropbox tips for Mac Unix nerds

by TJ Luoma (Dec 14th, 2010)

Dropbox is already a very powerful utility for Mac OS X, but if you're knowledgable in Unix, you can make it even better. Here are five ways that you can use Unix to get more out of Dropbox. 1. I wanted to update my copy of the HTML processing tool Tidy today. I was happy to find instructions for ...

AirPrint: how to make it work for shared printers

by Chris Rawson (Nov 11th, 2010)

Update: The clever fellows over at Netputing bundled the files together with a snazzy install/uninstall button to produce AirPrint Hactivator, which takes care of all the under the hood business for you. The same caveats apply: remember that you are installing obsolete/beta system files, use at your ...

Terminal Tips: bash cron script to keep an app running

by TJ Luoma (Oct 21st, 2010)

Do you have some apps that you want to keep running all the time? If so, and if you're not afraid of the Terminal or the command line, I have a script for you. When I come home at the end of the day, Dropbox has stopped running on my iMac. I'm running the latest version, and it works fine on my ...

iTunes bankruptcy, step one: The Great Purge

by TJ Luoma (Oct 8th, 2010)

I'll admit it was a problem that I had created myself: I had moved my iTunes library from one computer to another. Then I tried syncing it across two computers. Add in a bunch of music from SXSW, along with other music given to me along the way, and before I knew it, my iTunes library was a 160GB ...

Mac 101: Open new tabs to reveal browsing history in Safari

by TJ Luoma (Sep 26th, 2010)

Safari's Top Sites feature is nifty and all, but what I've really wanted to do is have new Safari tabs open showing me my recent browsing history. I couldn't figure out a way to do this until just now. Maybe if you're an experienced Safari user this is obvious, but I'm still a fairly recent Safari ...