OS X

Get a taste of Siri on your Mac right now with this neat trick

Ever since Siri was announced in 2011, Apple users have been excited about the prospect of the digital assistant coming to OS X. More recently, rumors have indicated that a Mac version of Siri will ship with OS X 10.12 this fall. September is quite a long way off, but it's possible to get a taste of Siri-like voice commands on your Mac right now, thanks to the accessibility features baked in OS X.

How to restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup in Recovery Mode

Suppose a software update or an app you installed has corrupted system files and as a result your Mac refuses to start up properly, what do you do?

Those who have planned ahead and created a bootable USB install disk for El Capitan can do a clean install of macOS, and then restore their Mac from the most recent Time Machine backup.

But there's a better way to deal with such situations. In this tutorial, we'll educate you on booting into macOS' Recovery Mode and using the built-in recovery tools to restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup.

Transmission for Mac gets its first major update in nearly two years

The popular open-source, cross-platform BitTorrent client, Transmission, today received its first major update in more than a year and a half. As first noted by Softpedia, the surprise update makes the free of charge app fully compatible with the user interface on Macs running OS X 10.9 Mavericks and later.

Transmission can now trim potential URIs from clipboard and supports downloading from HTTP servers on OS X El Capitan. Transmission's daemon, web client, Qt client and GTK+ client have also received various fixes. All told, there are over 50 changes in this release of Transmission.

New Microsoft ads for Windows 10 focus on things Macs can’t do

Microsoft this weekend published four new commercials for its Windows 10 operating system that showcase things “Macs can't do”. The ads feature Kristie and Jess, AKA The Bug Chicks, the two women who are apparently trying to change the way kids think about bugs.

The two characters, one of whom is a Mac fan jealous of Windows 10 features, explore competitive advantages of Microsoft's operating system like the built-in Cortana personal assistant, support for inking and drawing on notebooks with built-in touchscreens, the ability to log in to Windows 10 with one's face and more.

As each Windows 10 feature is highlighted, the other woman responds with a variation of the “I don’t have a touchscreen on my Mac, I’m jealous of that” theme.

How to fix Ethernet problems after a recent Mac security update

As my colleague Christian reported on Saturday, some Mac models have been plagued by non-working Ethernet ports after installing a new security update outed by Apple. Although a lot of modern Macs don't even have an Ethernet port, many models still carry it and many people still love using a wired internet connection because it's faster, more reliable, and more secure than a wireless network.

The security update, known as "031-51913 Incompatible Kernel Extension Configuration Data 3.28.1," reportedly blacklists the Broadcom BCM5701 driver used by the Ethernet port that comes standard on many Mac machines.

Fortunately, there's a light at the end of the tunnel for anyone experiencing issues with their Ethernet ports after installing this security update. Apple has issued a support document on Sunday that notes how to fix the problem. In this tutorial, we'll go over the steps to fix the problem yourself.

Recent OS X security update has disabled Ethernet port on some iMacs and MacBook Pros

In squashing software bugs, you inevitably introduce new ones—that's a fact of life. According to a thread on Reddit, Apple's recent OS X security update has inadvertently disabled the Ethernet port for some owners of Apple's all-in-one desktop and the MacBook Pro notebook.

Making matter worse is the fact that Apple pushed this security update via the silent updating mechanism, according to a poster on Reddit who probably enabled the option in System Preferences → App Store that prompts OS X to automatically install system data files and security updates.

How to repair Mac disk errors in macOS Recovery Mode

macOS on your Mac includes a disk-repairing app, called Disk Utility, which you can use to scan your connected drives for errors, erase a disk, repair disk permissions, check the disk's structure for physical errors and more.

But what can you do, if anything, should your Mac experience issues preventing it from starting up properly? Not to worry, our friends, because macOS lets you launch a standalone version of Disk Utility from your Mac's built in recovery partition.

In other words, macOS' Recovery Mode gives you a chance to repair a malfunctioning startup disk that prevents your Mac from booting properly.

Rumor: Photos app in iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 should be on par in terms of features with iPhoto

A report yesterday by the fairly accurate Japanese blog Mac Otakara claims insider knowledge of an improved Photos app in Apple's upcoming iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 operating system refreshes that, as per sources, should gain new features putting it on par with the discontinued iPhoto app.

Apple was somewhat criticized for its decision to discontinue Aperture and iPhoto in favor of the new Photos app, which took almost a year to gain support for third-party image editing filter and effects on the Mac.