Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

You probably know that you can drag a file to an app icon in the Dock to open it. But that only works if the app recognizes the file as a type it can handle. If you want to force an app to try to open a file, hold down the Option and Command keys and drag the file to the Dock icon. If the app can’t handle the file you’ll get an error message.

Many people overuse the minimize button to get applications and windows out of the way. In most cases, it is more efficient to use the Hide command to simply hide the app. Hidden apps can be quickly and easy brough back and you won't clutter your Dock with minimized windows. Today using tabs in windows and autosave to easily quit and relaunch apps means you should rarely need the minimize button.

A new feature os iPadOS (AKA iOS 13 for iPad) is the ability to use a regular bluetooth mouse as a pointing device. You can set this up through the Accessibility settings. With assistive touch, you can not use a mouse or trackpad and there are even ways to access things like the home button. While this is meant for those with disabilities, I'm sure others who particularly dislike using a touch screen all the time will get some use out of it.

If you would like to precisely position your application windows without using any third-party tool, you can build a versatile script in Automator to snap windows to portions of your screen. You can give yourself multiple options such as the Left Third, Right Two-Thirds, corners or anything you can come up with. Then you can put the workflow into the Services menu where you can quickly trigger it with a keyboard shortcut. The framework in this JavaScript/JXA script can be used to develop your own customizable window organizing tool.

When you Mac's hard drive is almost full, you can investigate and figure out what is using the space by simply using the Finder. There is no need to buy a third-party app to manage your hard drive. You start at the top and view all of your folders, digging down to see what is using the most space. Then you'll need to make some decisions about what to remove from yoru drive, being care to only remove files you don't need.

Many MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air owners want to know how to properly use and maintain their batteries. But there is a lot of bad information online. Learn what to expect from your MacBook's battery, what you should and shouldn't do to prolong battery life, how to tell if there is a problem, how to get a replacement and how much it may cost.

In addition to including normal links in email messages, you can also use links like imessage://myemail@example.com to allow someone to click and start a conversation in Messages. Just substitute your own Apple ID email address. You can also use facetime://myemail@example.com to have them start a FaceTime call to you. Web pages and social media posts can also use these, though it probably only makes sense to have a public link if you are doing sales or customer support for something and using a company Apple ID.

If you have a cluttered Desktop, you may want to occasionally hide the icons. You can do this with third-party apps or Terminal commands. You can also write a very simple shell script in Automator and save it as an app. Then you can toggle the Desktop on or off with a simple click in the Dock.

You can set up bookmarks in a Pages word processing document and then create links in other text to jump to those bookmarks in PDF readers. With a new feature in Pages 8.1, you can also create links in page layout documents to jump from text to a specific page in the document.

Updated 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models hit the Apple Store today. The new MacBook Pro includes an 8th-generation processor and is now at a lower base price of $1,299 with a Touch Bar, Touch ID, True Tone screen and T2 security chip. The new MacBook Air also has a True Tone display and a new lower base price of $1,099.

I really like Voice Control in Catalina. I don't need it, but I think it could still be useful. It definitely takes dictation to a new level. I've tried it a few times by putting my hands behind my back and I browsed the Wed and read some things, even answered an email or two, all using my voice.

The new version of Numbers makes things easier for those that use filters. You can also link text to other sheets in the same document and there is better performance and calculation precision. Numbers also gets the same text fill improvements as Pages and Keynote, as well as inline images and face recognition for image cropping.

The new versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote allow you to fill text using a gradient or an image. You can use linear or radial gradients of two or more colors, change the angle and other options. You can fill with an image stretching that image to fit the text or tiling it across the text. You can also use a new feature to outline text with a line, choosing the line color, style and size.

You can lock your Mac with a quick menu choice or keyboard shortcut. Starting with High Sierra, if you choose the Apple menu you will see Lock Screen as an option. The keyboard shortcut is Control+Command+Q. This is handy if you need to step away from your desk at a moment’s notice.

You can use the Ken Burns cropping effect to zoom in to a portion of your video in iMovie. However, this cropping effect will continue over the entire length of your clip. To zoom in starting at a certain point and then to stay at the same zoom level for a while afterwards, you need to split the clip at the right places and use a trick to keep the video zoomed out at the end.

Catalina is the name for the next version of macOS. Learn about the new features, features that will be removed from macOS, and other commonly asked questions. With iTunes being broken up into three apps, what will happen to your music library, TV shows and iPhone syncing? Can you run iOS apps on Catalina? When will it come out and how much will it cost?

Apple has produced a lot of different Macs with odd and interesting designs since 1984. Take a look at some of the most interesting, coolest and weirdest vintage Macs from 1984-2002. While some were commercial failures, most containted innovations that we still see as features in Macs today. Included are the Macinotsh XL, the Mac Portable, the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, the G4 Cube, the Titanium PowerBook and more.

Sidecar is the new feature of Catalina that allows you to use your iOS 13 (iPadOS) iPad as a secondary screen. But it is more than just a monitor as you can use touch and the Apple Pencil along with it.

You can use the Mac Photos app adjustment tools to make a blue sky in your pictures deeper and bluer. You can adjust pure blue, or select a color in the sky to make fine adjustments. You can also limit the range of the changes to keep other parts of your photo the same.

After updating to macOS Catalina, old 32-bit apps will not longer work. If you have an old 32-bit app, then before updating, you should update your app or switch to a new one. Most apps have newer versions that professionals should consider buying. If you are using the app for casual purposes, then consider getting a modern alternative to apps like Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop. These will be cheaper or free, and will probably be much better than using an old outdated pro app. You can also keep an old Mac around to run 32-bit apps. Experts can partition their drive, use an external drive, or a virtual machine to run Mojave or earlier in some situations.