Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

You can move the Dock from the bottom of your Mac’s screen to the sides by holding down the Shift key and dragging from the divider bar in the Dock. Just drag it from the bottom to the side and it moves there. You could do this in previous versions of OS X before Yosemite, but this new shortcut makes it easier to move the Dock when it is in the way of something else you are doing.

Learn how to create disk images using the Disk Utility app. Disk images can be used to archive old projects or combine sets of files to send to others. You can also encrypt disk images to keep the files inside them secure.

Files saved to iCloud Drive interact with Time Machine differently than files saved on other parts of your hard drive. In case of catastrophe, you don't need Time Machine to save your files, as they would be waiting for you on the iCloud Drive servers. Time Machine doesn't save older versions of files for most apps, but modern apps will save versions of files that you can revert to. In case you delete a file by accident, Mac users can quickly and easily recover them from the Trash. Some iCloud Drive files can also be recovered using Time Machine.

In OS X Yosemite, the green button at the top left now takes an app full-screen. In Mavericks and before, it would perform a “maximize” function where it enlarged the window to fill more of the screen depending on the content of the window. You can still do that in Yosemite. Just double-click on an empty portion of the title bar . Double-click again to revert to the previous window dimensions.

A new feature in Yosemite is a handy context menu function that lets you quickly rename multiple files. You can add some text to the beginning or end of a file name, replace text in a file name, or completely rename a set of files using text and a number. You can also easily undo changes.

With the latest versions of OS X, iOS and Keynote, you can use your iOS device as a sophisticated remote control for presentations running on your Mac. This lets you hook your Mac up to a projector or TV across the room and control it with your iPhone or iPad. You get much more than just basic buttons, as you can see the slide on your device and even draw on the slides with the results showing up on the Mac that is running the presentation.

Safari in Yosemite masks the full URL in the address field of the toolbar, just showing you the domain name. If you prefer to see the whole URL, you can just click on the field. Or, you can go to Safari, Preferences, Advanced and check “Show full website address.”

Spotlight Search has been completely redesigned in Yosemite from the old Spotlight Menu function. You can still search for files, but in addition you'll get information from the Internet such as movie times, Wikipedia, maps and recommended web pages. You can also do unit and currency conversions and math. File searches can be filtered by kind and date. You can also use logical functions like OR and - (not) to get better results. Find out all you can do with Spotlight Search in Yosemite.

With OS X Yosemite you can mark up images and PDF files right inside of the Mail composition window. This can make it easy to send notes and revisions back and forth between people working on projects. You can also add signatures to PDFs easily in a reply. The same tools are available in the Preview app outside of Mail. In the future, Apple and third-parties can add more extensions like Markup.

Yosemite has a dark side. Well, a dark mode anyway. Go to System Preferences, General and check “Use dark many bar and dock.” This changes the menu bar and dock to a dark background that some may prefer.

With Yosemite and iOS 8 you can once again use RSS feeds. The left sidebar allows you to add the feed for a web site you are viewing. You can add many feeds and see an aggregated list of items from those feeds, as well as from social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This works both in Yosemite on the Mac and iOS 8 on the iPad.

With OS X Yosemite you can use iCloud Drive as a place to store your files. iCloud Drive syncs between Macs and the files can also be accessed by the appropriate apps in iOS 8 on the iPhone and iPad. You can also create your own folders in iCloud Drive on Yosemite and access files on iOS 8 from outside of the normal app folder for that type of document. iCloud Drive can also be used to store other types of files, even if the app does not support iCloud Drive. On iOS 8, you can import media from iCloud Drive and export files to it as well.

We thought that instead of writing a beginners book on Yosemite, why not do what we do best and create videos! So we’ve created The Video Guide To Yosemite. We put together 20 videos with about 2 hours of instruction, and made it super-easy to get by putting it in the Mac App Store.

This is a great way for beginners to get to know Mac OS X, and for casual users to dig deeper into the features. The videos are unique, not something that can be found anywhere else. The app lets you jump easily from video to video and you can resize the window for better viewing, even going full screen.

Check out the major new features of Mac OS X Yosemite. There are some major new features like iCloud Drive, Notification Center widgets, app extensions and iOS 8 continuity functions. Also be sure to check out the Video Guide to Yosemite available now in the Mac App Store.

Don’t you hate it when you go to a web site and get a mobile version of the site instead of the real thing? This is especially annoying on the iPad where there is plenty of screen space. With Safari in iOS 8, you can tell the site you want to view the desktop version by tapping once in the address field at the top. A list of favorites and frequently visited site icons appears. Tap and drag down in this list and two options appear at the top: Add to Favorites and Request Desktop Site. The latter will request the web page again, but this time telling the web site that it is an OS X version of Safari, not a mobile app.

With iOS 8 you can add widgets to Notification Center for easy access to information and documents inside of apps. Learn how to add widgets and use them. You can view your recent files in DropBox, jump to a book in the Kindle app, perform calculations with PCalc, and get detailed weather and other information. One advantage to using Notification Center widgets is that you can access them without leaving your current app.

The basic search function in iOS has been expanded in iOS 8 to include useful suggestions. You'll see Wikipedia entries, movie times, map locations and items in the App and iTunes Stores. You can also adjust what you see in a Spotlight Search in the Settings app, removing items and setting their order.

You can use the address/search field at the top of Safari on your iPad or iPhone to search inside a website. To set this up, first turn on Quick Website Search in Settings, Safari. Then go to a site, like MacMost.com. Use the search field at the top of the web page to search for something on the site. Not the address field in Safari, but the search field on the page itself. After you have done this kind of search once, you can now type “macmost [search term]” in the Safari address bar and you’ll see a shortcut appear to search just that site. Works great for sites like Craigslist or IMDB.

Your iPhone and iPad can read text to you in different ways with iOS 8. With the new Speak Screen function, all of the text on the screen will be read aloud triggered with just a simple gesture. You can use this in most apps, including notes and Safari. With iBooks, the entire page will be read and then will continue automatically on the next page. There are limitations, however, as the pronunciation of words isn't always correct.

You can use third-party keyboards as alternatives to the regular iOS 8 keyboard when typing in almost any app. You install keyboards from the App Store and then need to enable them in Settings. Some keyboards offer alternative ways to type, while others bring novel features like handwriting recognition and text expansion.