Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

f you use an Apple Magic Mouse with your Mac you should check out all of the customization settings. Even if you don't change anything, there are probably gestures you aren't aware of that you could be using.

A new System Settings panel in macOS Ventura gives you control over when your Mac locks and what appears on the Lock Screen. It is important to review these settings and set them up to be as secure as possible for your situation.

Seems like you should be able to schedule Shortcuts on your Mac to run at specific times or when an event occurs. But you can't. A third-party app to the rescue! Shortery: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shortery/id1594183810" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shortery/id1594183810</a> 

The rumors are getting stronger about an upcoming VR/AR headset from Apple. And it may be here soon. I'll break down the important parts of an article and tell you what I think about potential features. Here's a link to the actual article: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-23/apple-reality-pro-details-eye-hand-tracking-app-store-3d-ios-like-interface" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-23/apple-reality-pro-details-eye-hand-tracking-app-store-3d-ios-like-interface</a> 

Learn how to use the cropping tools in the Photos app. You can crop to any part of the photo, or stick with specific aspect ratios. You can also rotate and adjust the perspective of a photo.

Another choice for doing calculations on your Mac is to use the Basic Calculator app inside the Terminal. It has some features that neither the Calculator app, Spotlight nor Siri have like variables, history, customization and more.

Hot Corners allow you to assign functions to the four corners of your Mac's screen. Just move your mouse pointer to one of those corners to activate Mission Control, Notification Center, lock the screen and more.

If you take a lot of screenshots, check out these productivity tips to make your captures go to the folder you want, save to a different location each time, go straight to the clipboard, go into the Photos app, and more.

You can't use Pages or TextEdit to select non-contiguous text on a Mac. But you can use a variety of other apps to do it. Plus, some reasons why you would want to do this in Pages are better served by using Character Styles instead. CotEditor: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coteditor/id1024640650" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coteditor/id1024640650</a>  LibreOffice: <a href="https://www.libreoffice.org" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.libreoffice.org</a> (free download from official site). ClipTools: <a href="https://macmost.com/cliptools" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://macmost.com/cliptools</a> 

When you buy a new external drive for your Mac, it is not going to be formatted for your Mac. You should use Disk Utility to set the drive up right before using it.

Apple dropped some major new product updates this week. Here are my thoughts on the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, the new M2 Mac mini and the return of the HomePod.

ClipTools is a free clipboard manager and text selection utility for Mac from MacMost. With it you can access your clipboard history, save clips, use programmable Smart Clips, paste the date or time, insert example text, perform calculations and paste the result or replace the selection, convert numbers to words, sorts lines and so much more. Check out https://macmost.com/cliptools for a full list of features and an App Store link.

If you use a Trackpad with your Mac you should check out all of the customization settings. Even if you don't change anything, there are probably gestures you aren't aware of that you could be using.

The normal way to delete files on your Mac is to use the Trash or Bin folder. There are several shortcuts and advanced techniques that you should know about.

While doing a video on Hot Corners I began to wonder if you can use a Terminal command, and thus a Shortcut, to change what each Hot Corner does. Turns out you can. Here's the basic Terminal command: <strong>defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-XX-corner -int Y</strong> XX would be <strong>tr</strong>, <strong>tl</strong>, <strong>br</strong>, <strong>bl</strong> depending on each corner (top/bottom, right/left). Y would be one of these: 0=nothing, 2=Mission Control, 3=Show App Windows, 4=Show Desktop, 5=Start Screen Saver, 6=Disable Screen Saver, 10=Display Sleep, 11=Launchpad, 12=Notification Center, 13=Lock Screen. Then you need to use this to restart the Desktop and have it take affect: <strong>killall Dock</strong> You can also use this to set a modifier key for the Hot Corner: <strong>defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-XX-modifier -int Z</strong> Z would be: 0=nothing, 131072=Shift, 262144=Control, 524288=Option, 1048576=Command

I thought it would be neat to be able to put a message where you can see it all day. But not just A message, but a message that can easily be changed. I started using image editing and Terminal commands, but it turns out this can be done in a much better way with a Shortcut.

Your Mac shows the date and time at the top right. You can customize this to only show the time and whether to include things like AM/PM, seconds, and the day of the week. This is more than just a display as it acts as a button for Notifications Center and Do No Disturb.

Lists replace Groups in the Contacts app and since you can now manage them on the iPhone and iPad they are much more useful.

How long can Mac filenames be? What characters can you use and which should you avoid? What about if you want to use the files on other systems too? How can you get numbered or dated files to sort properly?

Your Mac comes with a variety of interesting screen savers. Most use your photos, but some show patterns or information.