OS X

Add some protection to your MacBook Pro with the Incipio Feather case

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 22, 2016

If you travel abroad with your MacBook Pro and don't want to scuff up the factory aluminum finish as you go through every day wear and tear, you should consider adding some protection to it.

Although the slimness of modern MacBook Pro models is one of the nicest features of the notebook, Incipio's Feather cases are beautifully crafted to not only give it a splash of color, but also to protect all of its most sensitive edges from friction and shock that might occur when a notebook is stored in a laptop bag or backpack.

In this review, we'll be taking you through the case's features and show you how it looks on a 15-inch MacBook Pro with retina display from every angle.

AirDrop not working? Here’s how to fix it

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 28, 2025

In this article, we cover the most common AirDrop issues and how to fix them on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

5 third-party Mac apps I use every day

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Although there are plenty of great apps already built into OS X, I use a lot of third-party apps on my Mac to give it more functionality tailored to my needs, as I'm sure many other Mac users do too. In this piece, I'll be sharing what my five favorite third-party apps to use on my Mac on a daily basis are, and I'll also share why I love using them.

How to quickly get your answers from a website you’ve searched before in Safari

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 8, 2018

In addition to finding all occurrences of a word within any webpage, Apple's Safari browser for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac includes a nifty little feature called Quick Website Search which lets you get your answers from within a specific website as long as you've used its search box before.

Safari keeps tracks of the webpages as you surf the web so you can later find anything within a previously visited website, right from the Smart Search field.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to leverage Safari's Quick Website Search feature to search within a website.

Here are two Caffeine alternatives for keeping your Mac awake

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Yesterday, my colleague Anthony ran an informative tutorial that does a good job covering two ways to keep your Mac from sleeping, dimming or showing a screensaver: one is based on a little bit of Terminal magic and the other involves using a free of charge utility, called Caffeine.

As easy to use as Caffeine is, it suffers from not having been updated in years so it has some issues with OS X Yosemite and El Capitan.

Its icon, for example, is not Retina-compatible and looks odd in Yosemite's dark mode. That said, I want to share with you a pair of apps that one-up Caffeine at its own game.

Private Internet Access review: a great VPN at a great price

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 6, 2022

The quest for internet privacy and security is no game these days; hackers with malicious intent are really out there and they want your valuable personal information.

One way to protect yourself is with a virtual private network (VPN), but there are lots of VPN options out there to choose from – both free and paid. Picking a VPN that's right for you can be tough, and many people are concerned about their privacy while online.

In this piece, we'll be giving you our opinion on the Private Internet Access VPN; a paid VPN service that holds a solid reputation among its many users.

How to share iCloud calendars

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2020

Apple's Calendar application for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac and iCloud.com makes it simple to share events and to-dos with select people, or let anyone with a link subscribe to a read-only calendar.

For example, you could share a “To Do” calendar with your significant other, create a calendar for your entire family so every member can put errands on it, invite your wife to a shared “Kids” calendar to keep parents in the loop about school activities and more.

Not only do shared calendars increase your productivity in the workplace, they help those who use them become more organized in everyday life. You can assign edit privileges to invitees, adjust how participants access the calendar and more.

Invitees have a myriad of options at their disposal to view shared calendars, including the iCloud Calendar web app, the stock Calendar app on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac or Microsoft Outlook on a Windows computer.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to share a calendar privately or publicly on iPhone, iPad, Mac and iCloud.com. You will also learn how to manage calendar sharing by adding or removing participants, changing privileges, adjusting calendar notifications, and more.

Using Gatekeeper to help secure your Mac

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 23, 2019

macOS comes with a security feature known as Gatekeeper, which can help prevent unwanted apps from launching on your Mac without your permission. It can also prevent potentially malicious apps from launching because it can be used to limit the kinds of apps that are allowed to open on your Mac.

In lieu of the recent Sparkle updater framework vulnerability having been uncovered in a variety of popular macOS apps, now is a great time to set up your Gatekeeper settings to prevent potential issues with malware on your Mac in the future.

In this tutorial, we'll be showing you how Gatekeeper works and how you can configure it to keep your Mac just as secure as you want it to be.

Some of the Mac apps known to be affected by the Sparkle vulnerability

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 10, 2016

A vulnerability discovered in an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework that many third-party OS X apps depend on for serving the user with regular updates has been getting a lot of attention recently.

As we reported on Tuesday, the security problem affects a number of third-party Mac apps downloaded from the internet, and not apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. The vulnerability roots from the lack of an encrypted connection and gives a malicious hacker the ability to perform a man-in-the-middle attack.

But what OS X apps are affected? This is the information you need to know as soon as possible to keep your Mac safe from potential malware threats.

Latest El Capitan beta has fixed Safari’s mishandling of shortened Twitter “t.co” links

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 10, 2016

An annoying issue pertaining to broken Twitter links, which has persisted in Safari for Mac since November 2015, has been fixed in the third beta of the forthcoming OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan software update, according to user reports on the Apple Support Communities forums.

The “Safari can’t open the page because the server where this page is located is not responding” error page no longer appears when clicking shortened “t.co” Twitter links with the secure HTTPS protocol in Safari and third-party apps like Tweetbot.

Why and how to use a VPN on your iOS device or Mac

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated August 1, 2018

A virtual private network, commonly referred to as a VPN, is a type of connection you can use over the internet that helps to secure your identity as you surf the web.

Often times, they're used to improve your security and privacy on public Wi-Fi networks, but they're also used for a wide variety of other reasons. If you've been considering using a VPN on your iOS device(s) or Mac(s), then you've come to the right place. We're going to tell you all about why you should consider using one and how to use a VPN on iPhone, iPad, or Mac to your advantage.

What you need to know about the Sparkle vulnerability affecting some OS X apps

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 9, 2016

A new vulnerability has been discovered to affect a wide variety of third-party apps for OS X that have been downloaded from the internet and use an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework.

The new vulnerability puts a number of users of affected third-party apps at risk of being hijacked when those apps attempt to use the outdated framework to alert users of new app updates.