macOS Sierra

For the first time since Apple released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in July 2012, Apple has dropped support for a number of older Macs that had supported OS X 10.8 through 10.11 El Capitan. No MacBook and iMac models prior to Late 2009 and no MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and Mac Pro […]

Parallels 11, Fusion 8 and VirtualBox 5 – Oh My!

Time for another look at virtualization software, letting Macintosh users run PC operating system such as Windows or Ubuntu on their Macs. There are three competitors in the Mac emulation market – Parallels Desktop (US$79 or as an annual $99 subscription Pro version), VMware Fusion (also US$79), and Oracle’s (free and open source) VirtualBox.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan

WARNING: If you have updated boot.efi on a MacPro1,1 or MacPro2,1 so you can run Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, DO NOT INSTALL SECURITY UPDATE 2018-001. According to Greg Hrutkay of Hrutkay Mods (see warning video), it breaks boot.efi on the 2006 and 2007 Mac Pros that have been thus updated. With OS X […]

OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Apple previewed OS X 10.10 Yosemite on June 2, 2014, at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). In addition to a lot of new features and a whole new level of integration with iOS devices, Yosemite looks like the most beautiful version of the Mac OS to date.

Stainless Browser: Light and Efficient, But…

Since I have made the Dual 1.8 MHz Power Mac G5 my primary machine, I have been on the hunt looking for an alternative to Safari 5.0.6 . This has lead me to Stainless 0.8, a Chrome influenced browser that, while no longer in active development, is still available for download. (Source code is available […]

Virtually Yours: New Versions of Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion Open Windows for Mac Users

Imagine if you could seamlessly open any document and run any program on your computer. Wouldn’t that be great? Read and edit old word processor files – MacWord, anyone? WordStar? Run PC games on your Mac, Super Nintendo games on your Windows PC? Like the peaceful utopia in John Lennon’s Imagine, we’re not there yet. […]

OS X 10.9 Mavericks

Apple previewed OS X 10.9 Mavericks at the June 2013 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and it appears to be a big step forward for OS X – perhaps the biggest since Apple made the transition from the “classic” Mac OS 9 to OS X 10.0 way back in March 2001.

World Book Encyclopedia 2012 DVD

In schools, libraries and homes across America, World Book Encyclopedia has always been considered the go-to reference for general knowledge in a clear, easy-to-understand format. World Book Encyclopedia has been in print since 1917, and within the last couple of decades it has expanded to digital formats such as CDs, DVDs, and the internet. The […]

Avoid Password Insanity with LastPass

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had lots of different email addresses over the years – and lots of different websites you log into. The Mac’s password manager does a good job if you have a single Mac, but things gets messy when you use multiple Macs (or multiple versions of OS X on the […]

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Apple announced a developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (Mac App Store link) in mid-February 2012, and it became available on July 25, 2012. As expected, it makes Macs even more iOS-like, continuing the trend begun with OS X 10.7 Lion in July 2011.

Memory Cleaner for Intel Macs: It Works

Memory Cleaner is an app designed to make more system memory available and thus speed up your Mac by reducing dependence on slow virtual memory. I’ve been using Memory Cleaner on my 2007 Mac mini for quite a while now, and it’s about time I reported my results.

OS X 10.7 Lion

OS X 10.7 Lion was released on July 20, 2011 and made some huge changes to the Mac. Some of these changes were to make it easier for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users to adapt to the Mac, some to make the two platforms work better together, and some to keep making the Mac […]

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was billed as primarily under-the-hood changes to OS X 10.5 Leopard, but it was much more significant than that.

Seashore: A Free, Basic Image Editor for Mac OS X

Open source high-end image-editing software is an unlikely concept when you think about it. For one thing, anyone who really needs an industrial strength image editing application for professional purposes can probably afford and will more often than not have the undisputed king-of-the-hill in bitmap graphics software, Adobe’s Photoshop CS, and most users – professional […]

Superior Dithered Images with HyperDither

Some programs seem to do a thousand different things. Others are one trick ponies. HyperDither falls in the second category, and compared to image editing powerhouses like Photoshop and even Photoshop Elements, its feature-set is incredibly sparse. In fact, it only does one thing – it dithers images.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released on October 26, 2007, was the biggest change to Mac OS X since Apple first released OS X 10.0 in March 2001. For the first time, a version of OS X was certified as Unix, and the new unified appearance makes Leopard friendlier and less confusing for users.