All Current Tutorials

A little-known feature of Safari on both macOS and iOS is the ability to browse in private. This allows you to keep your browsing history private as well as take advantage of some additional privacy features.

In this tip video, Don takes you through the standard usage of Private Browsing in Safari, on both the Mac and iPad, as well as pointing out issues to be aware of on iOS.

When Apple transitioned away from iTunes to a series of application in macOS Catalina, the way you manage your media changed in several ways. We briefly covered these changes and new apps in the past, but we felt it was time to take a deeper dive.

In this screencast, Todd gives you a tour of each one, beginning with Music. He also goes over the Home app, which can help you manage your audio sources, such as HomePod and AirPlay 2 speakers.

Overcast is a popular third-party podcast player, which we covered back in June of 2019.

In this tip, Rosemary revisits its Smart Playlists feature on iOS. You learn about sort orders, including and excluding specific episodes, and how to prioritise podcasts.

When it comes to editing photos or creating more elaborate compositions, there are a lot of excellent app choices for iOS and iPadOS these days.

This week, Rosemary takes you on a tour of of the latest versions of Pixelmator and Pixelmator Photo for iPad. Whether you like to enhance your existing photos using filters and repair tools, or create a composition using layers and various graphical elements, these two companion apps have got you covered.

We all know custom keyboard shortcuts are a boon to productivity, but it's such a faff to set them up via System Preferences. Time-consuming and prone to typos, the traditional way of setting up custom keyboard shortcuts can present some friction.

CustomShortcuts by Houdah Software is a free, easy-to-use utility that greatly simplifies the process. No need to navigate System Preferences, as auto-exposure of available menus per application plus auto-completion, makes the creation of custom keyboard shortcuts a breeze.

In this tip video, Don takes you through that process using CustomShortcuts, using a few practical examples.

In this video, Lee walks you through an application that he uses daily to manage meetings in his role as a Project and Programme Manager: iMeetingX.

Meetings can be a huge drain on both energy and finances, so this application helps to keep them organised and productive. You learn how to use iMeetingX to set up your project, set up document templates for Invitations, minutes and event tracking. Lee also goes over how to schedule meetings, send out minutes, assign tasks and decisions, and archive meetings for future reference.

Ghostnote 2  is a fantastic app which allows you to 'pin' formatted notes and to-do lists to many different types of objects on your Mac, including individual emails in Apple Mail.

Want to add some notes to a website? Just navigate to it in Safari and open Ghostnote. You'll be presented with a blank note where you can enter plain or formatted text, lists, even clickable to-do lists. The next time you open the website, that note will be available in Ghostnote 2.

In this week's tip, Don demonstrates different types of objects supported by Ghostnote 2, along with some practical examples. You also learn about its note browser, and how to set up keyboard shortcuts for quick access.

This week, Allison takes you on a tour of xkpasswd, a web app that helps you create long, strong, and yet memorable and easy-to-type passwords. It comes with several presets such as one for creating Apple ID passwords that are easy to type on an iOS keyboard. You can tailor this flexible password generator's settings to your exact specifications.

Even if you currently use a password manager, there are some passwords you have to frequently type or even speak to your Apple TV remote. Make those passwords easier to say and to type by using xkpasswd to create them.

In this tip show, Rosemary introduces you to Mapstr, an iOS app and web service that lets you collect and tag locations to help you in your travel plans and while on holiday.

macOS Catalina has a tremendous screen capture and screen recording utility built right in - an app called Screenshot. In fact, it is so good that it's difficult to justify using third-party apps for screen captures. However, after reading some brilliant reviews for CleanShot X, Don decided to give it a go: "Wow! I knew within a few minutes of using it that it was my new go-to tool for screen captures."

CleanShot X combines several tools into one and has some pretty unique features. Think of it as a screen capture workflow tool that is customisable to fit your particular needs. In this week's tutorial, Don takes you through all the features of this robust and extremely powerful utility, including all the capture modes, annotations, and the free CleanShot Cloud service.

Well recommended.

In this video, Lee continues the current theme of examining the core OS functionality of our devices in more detail, with another look at Spotlight on macOS. Spotlight is much more than an application launcher. Lee shows you how it can be used to convert units, get calendar and contact information, find specific files and folders, as well as get information about your favourite sports teams!

In this episode, Rosemary introduces you to Integromat, an online automation service which allows you to connect multiple apps and services.

As well as getting an overview of the system and its various options, you learn how to create scenarios and use the companion Integromat iOS app, which allows you to receive notifications.

In this tip show, Rosemary introduces you to the concept of webhooks and ways you can trigger and use them. From learning the different kinds of hooks, to making the calls yourself, there's a lot that can be done with webhooks!

There are a number of options to choose from when backing up your Mac, from Time Machine to clone backup and more. When it comes to iOS devices there is not as much flexibility. You can choose back up to iCloud or to your Mac but you can't access incremental backups or specific folders on your iOS devices. iMazing 2 is a utility for macOS that brings that flexibility to the iOS platform and give you a lot more control on your backups, their frequency, and the information you can access from those backups.

In this screencast, Todd begins with a quick refresher on what is available as part of the operating system. He then dives into the options that iMazing 2 offers to help you configure and manage your iOS backups, and shows you how to transfer information to and from your device.

When working with videos, we don't always have time to fire iMovie or Final Cut Pro to edit and export our home movies. Whilst Photos gives you a few bits of functionality, QuickTime Player offers quite a bit more.

In this tip, Don shows you how to string together several movies using the QuickTime app on your Mac. You also learn useful single-key shortcuts (the same ones pro video editors use!) to play and trim your movies, or watch a ScreenCastsOnline tutorial.

Loopback from Rogue Amoeba allows you to combine application audio and physical audio input devices together to be used within other applications. For example, combining the Music app with your microphone for a video call. You don't need a complicated mixer if you learn to use Loopback.

Allison also revisits Audio Hijack and shows you new features that enable you to capture the audio from special sources like Siri, Text to Speech, and VoiceOver. She also takes a very brief look at the new capabilities to broadcast Internet radio using Audio Hijack's Broadcast and Live Streaming options.

Lee shows you an application in this week's tip that has helped him discover new music from his favourite artists, track upcoming releases as well as find out about concerts taking place close to home. MusicHarbor includes all of this and more.

This week, Lee shows you two applications that expand on the Dock and Application Switcher functionality in macOS: uBar and SuperTab.

uBar replaces the Dock on your Mac with a horizontal bar that is reminiscent of the one in Windows, and that provides additional options to interact with your open apps, as well as quick access useful tools, like Activity Monitor and any you System Preferences panes.

SuperTab can be configured to launch files, folders and applications, and take screenshots. This flexible utility can also open websites and automatically type text and keystrokes for you, and includes a great feature called Meta-Folder.

It's so easy to build up a collection of hundreds and hundreds of bookmarks in Safari, and so easy to fall into bad habits of not organising them properly. By using a combination of Safari Bookmark folders and some clever tricks with descriptions, you'll soon be able to navigate your bookmarks in a flash and find any bookmark in an instant.

In this tip video, Don gives a refresher on creating bookmarks in Safari for Mac, along with some invaluable tips on organising and searching.

Creating and managing passwords is an important aspect of online life today. With the many data breaches issues and passwords being exposed, having a solid system that can manage all of your passwords while making them easily accessible is something we all should implement. 1Password is a password management system that helps you create, store, and access your passwords, as well as other sensitive information such as credit cards, passports, and even wills, trusts, and other important documents.

This is all stored in an encrypted database that stays in sync with all of your devices. Once you've created a master password, you can open what 1Password calls your vaults to access all your stored information.

This week, Todd walks through the setup and installation of the application on the Mac, and shows you its many useful features which make managing sensitive information a lot more flexible and secure.