Mac101 Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Ask TUAW: How do I setup a Mac with both an SSD and a regular hard drive?

by TJ Luoma (Jan 20th, 2012)

Reader Mark R. Friedman wrote in to ask about setting up a Mac Pro with an SSD in the second optical drive, keeping the /Users folder on another drive; he wasn't sure how to do it. Macworld just discussed one method, using the built-in home folder path controls in System Preferences. The magic ...

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 22nd, 2011)

There's an easy way in OS X 10.7 Lion to convert video or audio from one format to another, using a fixed suite of conversion settings. One approach uses Automator and can be launched from the Finder. The other uses the Terminal application and the afconvert (for audio) or avconvert (for video) ...

Mac 101: Disable automatic uploads to Photo Stream

by Chris Rawson (Oct 17th, 2011)

It seems as though Apple is designing a lot of new Mac and iOS features from the perspective of people whose internet access is the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet. Photo Stream is a perfect example. The feature, built into Apple's new iCloud service, automatically uploads photos taken ...

Mac 101: Format choices for USB flash drives

by Chris Rawson (Sep 19th, 2011)

The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system ...

Mac 101: Easily show the user Library folder in Lion

by Michael Grothaus (Aug 25th, 2011)

More Mac 101, tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Those of you who've explored your Finder a little bit in OS X 10.6 or prior might have noticed a folder in your user folder called "Library." The Library folder houses all sorts of files needed to keep your user account running smoothly. ...

Mac 101: Creating a recovery disk using Recovery Disk Assistant

by Steven Sande (Aug 9th, 2011)

Lion's recovery partition is a wonderful idea, but doesn't really help out if your hard drive fails. That's why yesterday's announcement of the Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple was welcome news to a lot of people who were trying to figure out how they could easily create a recovery disk on ...

Lion: Deleting apps in Launchpad, and starting clean

by Michael Rose (Jul 25th, 2011)

Launchpad in Mac OS Lion shares a key behavior with its iOS counterpart: deleting an app from the launcher also uninstalls it from the computer, as long as the app was purchased from the Mac App Store. Of course, it's quick and easy to redownload the MAS apps if they're needed. While this ...

Mac 101: OS X Lion's new window resizing features

by Chris Rawson (Jul 24th, 2011)

In all versions of Mac OS X prior to Lion, re-sizing a window meant either clicking the green "traffic light" button in the upper left corner or clicking and dragging the bottom right corner. Windows switchers in particular have found this a frustrating departure from the behavior in other ...

Mac 101: Using Keynote as Motion in a bind (Updated)

by Brett Terpstra (Jun 9th, 2011)

Update: KeynoteUser.com notes that it's easy to export your Keynote animations with an alpha channel, making it much simpler to work with them in pro editing apps or in Motion. On this trip to WWDC I packed light. One backpack, a MacBook Air and a camera light. I haven't had my Air for very ...

iTunes 101: Making the most of contextual menus

by Chris Ward (Apr 28th, 2011)

I love contextual menus. In Mac OS X, you find them when you right-click, two-finger-click (on a trackpad) or when you hold down the Control key and click. They're handy in scores of applications and in the Finder; if you're looking to supercharge your iTunes usage in particular, Macworld's ...

Mac 101: Six steps for tracking down hard drive space hogs

by TJ Luoma (Mar 10th, 2011)

More Mac 101, our ongoing series of tips, tricks and helpful hints for new Mac users and curious veterans. "Your startup disk is almost full." This simple sentence can trigger all the stages of grief: denial ("That can't be right!"), anger ("This is a 500 GB drive!"), bargaining ("If I delete ...

Mac 101: Pronouncing Mac OS X

by Erica Sadun (Jan 6th, 2011)

In our Mac 101 series, TUAW introduces basic OS X concepts to new Mac users. This is going to be a quick one, because there's not too much to it -- but it's a critical note when talking to other people in your newly adopted community. Editor's Note: Please keep your comments civil and relevant. ...

How the Mac App Store works, and get Twitter for Mac free

by Michael Terretta (Jan 6th, 2011)

The new Mac App Store is online, and ready for you to use. It's an incredibly simple way to find, install, and manage your favorite software. First of all, to see the Mac App Store at all, you'll need to run your Software Updates (under the Apple menu) and get Mac OS X 10.6.6 System Update, or ...

Mac 101: Finding App Store on your Mac

by Erica Sadun (Jan 6th, 2011)

This morning it was all "Where's Waldo?" on my computer as I hunted and hunted for the new app store after spending far too much time updating my system. It turns out that I don't need to upgrade my glasses, just my recognition skills. The new App Store icon is automatically installed into your ...

iPhoto 101: How to delete photos

by David Winograd (Dec 30th, 2010)

Whether your Mac contains a mechanical hard drive or an SSD, everyone needs more space. We're all used to dumping Finder's trash frequently to reclaim drive space, but what some of you might not know is that when you delete pictures from iPhoto, they remain on your computer since iPhoto has its ...