However, permanently getting rid of the contents within the Trash isn’t always that easy and may result in errors. So if you run into any trouble, you can quickly empty the Trash in macOS using Terminal instead. You’ll find the complete procedure below.

Delete the Trash in Mac Using Terminal (macOS El Capitan and Later)

If you use a Mac running macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later (such as Big Sur or Monterey), you can quickly empty the Trash using Terminal.

1. Open the Launchpad and select Other > Terminal.

2. Type the following command:

sudo rm -r

Note: Do not run the command yet.

3. Press the Space key once to add a single space to the end of the command. It’s essential to do that. If not, the command will fail.

4. Open the Trash.

5. Select the files you want to delete while holding down the Command key. If you want to remove everything, press Command + A to highlight all files and folders instantly.

6. Drag the highlighted files into the Trash. Depending on how many items you want to delete, multiple file paths may show up in Terminal.

7. Press Enter.

8. Type in your administrator password.

9. Press Enter. Terminal will delete the specified items from the Trash. You won’t receive a confirmation, so it’s best to double-check.

If Terminal fails to delete a specific file or files, adding the f (force) option will override issues caused by conflicting permissions. Type sudo rm -rf in step 2. 

Emptying the Trash permanently deletes the files (unless you’ve set up Time Machine on your Mac). Hence, if you prefer confirmation before deleting each time, you can use the i (interactive) option—e.g., sudo rm -ri.

Delete the Trash in Mac Using Terminal (macOS Yosemite and Earlier)

On a Mac running macOS 10.10 Yosemite or earlier, emptying the Trash using Terminal is relatively uncomplicated. 

1. Open the Launchpad and select Other > Terminal.

2. Type the following command:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

3. Press Enter.

4. Type in your administrator password.

5. Press Enter.

Alternative Ways to Delete Problematic Files in Trash

Deleting the Trash using Terminal is quick. But it’s also inconvenient. If you can’t empty the Trash using the GUI (graphical user interface) in macOS due to a specific file or files, run through the pointers below the next time.

Delete Items Individually

Try deleting any problematic files or folders individually. To do that, open the Trash, control-click the offending item, and select Delete Immediately.

Unlock Files and Check Permissions

macOS may prevent you from deleting a locked file or folder. Try unlocking it. To do that, control-click the item within the Trash and select Get Info. Then, uncheck the box next to Locked.

While you’re at it, you may also want to scroll down to the Sharing & Permissions section and set Privilege to Read & Write for your user account. You may not be able to do that if you don’t have administrative privileges.

Force-Quit Relevant Programs

Try quitting any programs that might be preventing you from permanently deleting a file or folder. You can do that by control-clicking the program’s icon via the Mac’s Dock and selecting Quit. For example, if you have trouble removing a Pages document, fully exit the Pages app.

Additionally, you might want to check if the relevant program is stuck. To do that, open the Apple menu and select Force-quit. If the program appears within the list, select the item and choose Force Quit. Here are other ways to force-quit apps in macOS.

Restart Your Mac

Restarting your Mac can also help resolve bugs, glitches, and conflicts preventing you from emptying the Trash.

Just open the Apple menu and select Restart. Then, leave the box next to Reopen windows when logging back in unchecked and choose Restart.

Disable Conflicting Startup Programs

If you continue to have trouble emptying the Trash normally, you probably have a conflicting program that boots alongside macOS. 

To remove it, open the Apple menu and select System Preferences > Users & Groups. Then, select your user account on the sidebar and switch to the Login Items tab. Follow that by selecting and removing any apps that might cause issues with a specific file format.

Booting your Mac in Safe Mode can also help you identify problematic or sketchy startup programs and extensions that cause issues.

Take Out the Trash

Despite being able to empty the Trash using Terminal in macOS, it’s best to stick to the graphical user interface, if possible. Taking the time to figure out what prevents you from deleting files within Mac’s Trash rather than force-deleting its contents may help you avoid having to deal with the same problem going forward.

That being said, if you end up permanently removing files and folders you later want to recover, don’t forget to restore the lost items using Time Machine.

The problem with video or flash games not working in browsers like Safari, Firefox or Google Chrome in Mac OS X mainly revolves around a combination of settings and compatibility issues with Adobe Flash Player, the software that enables these web based videos to play. Using the following troubleshooting steps, you should be able to get flash video and games working on a Mac computer.

Note that YouTube really doesn’t use flash anymore, so no one really should be having this issue anymore. However, there are many other sites that still do rely on flash, so the steps below can help resolve issues on those sites.

1. Uninstall and Reinstall Adobe Flash Player (make sure you are installing the latest version)

This may fix the flash video issue and it may not, but it’s worth a shot. Start by jumping to the official Adobe website and downloading the flash Player uninstaller for OS X. Launch the uninstaller and simply uninstall Flash Player from your Mac and restart the computer.

Once your computer boots back up and you’re signed in, proceed to Adobe.com to download the latest version of Flash Player. Reinstall and check to see if YouTube videos are working.

2. Enable Flash in Chrome/Safari

In Chrome, click on the three dots at the top right and click on Settings. Scroll down and click on Advanced to expand it. Under Privacy & Security, click on Content Settings.

Scroll down to Flash and then toggle the control so that it says Ask First (recommended).

If you have already installed Flash for Safari, but it’s still not working, you may have to enable the plugin first. To do this, open Safari and then click on Safari at the top and click on Preferences.

Click on the Websites tab and there should be a section called Plug-ins at the bottom of the left panel. Make sure that Adobe Flash Player is checked. If it’s not listed there, make sure to go to the Adobe Flash website and download the latest version of Flash first.

By default, you’ll have to enable it on a site by site basis. You can see the list of sites it’s enabled for and at the bottom, you can choose whether Flash will be enabled or disabled for all other websites.

3. Reset Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Clear Cache

If Flash Player is still not working properly, you may want to try clearing your browser’s cache, exiting the browser, and restarting. Some people have reported that videos will work properly upon clearing cache.

In Chrome, you can click on the three dots, then click on More Tools and choose Clear Browsing Data. Make sure to check Cached images and files and then click the Clear Data button.

4. Enable Javascript and Disable Popup Blocker

A lot of Flash content requires Javascript, so if you have an extension that is blocking Javascript from running, you will need to disable it. You’ll also need to go into the browser settings and make sure Javascript is enabled.

You can also try disabling the popup blocker for the particular site you are having issues on. It’s not a good idea to disable the popup blocker completely as it’ll make your computer less secure.

5. Disable Flash hardware acceleration.

While on the screen of the blank YouTube video that is not working correctly, right-click the area where the video would normally show up to bring up the Flash Player context menu. Select the Settings option from the menu. Unselect the option Enable hardware acceleration and click the Close button.

If you are not seeing the right-click content menu, simply visit this Adobe help page and right-click on the Flash logo. If you don’t see the Flash logo, that means Flash is not installed properly.

Close out of the browser completely, relaunch and test the Flash content again to see if it plays.

6. Check HTML 5 YouTube Settings

YouTube now supports HTML 5 fully and as long as you are running a fairly recent version of your browser, all the features should be fully supported too.

If you go to this URL, https://www.youtube.com/html5, you should see check marks for all the different HTML 5 features. If something is not checked here, that means your browser is very old and needs to be updated.

Hopefully, this post will help you to troubleshoot blank video players and non-working Flash apps in OS X. If you have any other troubleshooting recommendations, feel free to leave a comment. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, I was not able to connect and it took me a little time to figure it out. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps to connect to a shared folder on Windows 10 from OS X.

Step 1 – Configure Windows 10 for Sharing

Obviously, the first thing you’ll need to do is create a shared folder on Windows 10. Right-click on the folder, go to Properties and click on the Sharing tab. Go ahead and share the folder and set the permissions to whatever you desire in terms of access.

I suggest clicking on Advanced Sharing as you have more fine-grain control over everything. Check the Share this folder box and then give the share a name. Click on Permissions and then add groups or users that you want to give access.

If you want to make it easy and the folder doesn’t have sensitive data, just add the Everyone group and give them Full Control. This way, you’ll be able to access the folder from any computer or device without having to worry about entering credentials.

The next thing you need to do is make sure that File and Printer Sharing is turned on and allowed through the Windows Firewall in Windows 10. Go to Control Panel and click on Windows Defender Firewall. Then click on Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall.

Scroll down until you see File and Printer Sharing and make sure that it is checked for the Private network. You may have to first click on the Change settings button at the top before you can select a box.

Lastly, you can decide how you want users to access the folder on Windows 10. By default, when connecting from another machine, you have to enter the username and password of an account that has access to that shared folder on Windows 10. If you setup a Windows 10 user account without adding a password, you won’t be able to connect to the shared folder.

You’ll first have to add a password and then you could connect. However, if you feel your home network is super secure, you can always turn off password protected sharing, which means anyone can connect to the shared folder without having to type in a username or password.

You can do that by going to Control Panel, Network and Sharing Center, Advanced sharing settings and then expanding All Networks. Here you will see an option called Password protected sharing, which you can turn off. I personally keep it turned on, but if you really hate having to type in a username and password to connect, this is an option.

Also, if you use Windows 10 without a password, this would save you from having to setup a password on your account. Note that even if you have a Windows account with a password, if you turn off password protected sharing, then people can still connect without typing any credentials.

Step 2 – Connect to Windows Shared Folder from OS X

Finally, on the Mac, open Finder and look under the Shared section for the Windows 10 PC. If Shared is not in the sidebar, you have to add it. With Finder open, click on Finder and then Preferences at the top. Click on Sidebar and check all the items under Shared.

Now go back to Finder and wait till your computer shows up. Note that it can take a little while until the Windows 10 PC shows up. If it doesn’t show up after 5 minutes, try restarting the PC once.

If your Windows PC refuses to show up in the Shared devices list in Finder, you can try connecting manually using SMB. To do that, open Finder and click on Go and then Connect to Server.

Now type in the following as shown, replacing the IP address below with the IP address of your Windows 10 PC.

smb://192.168.1.43

Click the Connect button and you’ll be asked to type in credentials again. If that is entered correctly, you’ll be asked which volume you want to mount.

If you’re still not able to connect using SMB, then there is some issue on your Windows PC. You have to make sure the firewall is configured properly.

Once it shows up in the sidebar, go ahead and click on it. When you click on it, it will try to connect and you may get a message saying Connection Failed or Not Connected.

That’s OK! That’s where that password protected folder setting in Windows 10 comes into play. If it’s turned on, you need to connect using the Windows 10 account credentials. You can do that by clicking the Connect As button at the top right.

Go ahead and type in your credentials and then click OK. Note that if it’s a Microsoft account you have setup on Windows 10, you’ll need to type in the full email address and the same password that you use to login to your Microsoft account.

That’s about it! Now you should see the Windows 10 shared folders in Finder on your Mac. If you have any questions about connecting to Windows 10 PC from a Mac, post a comment here and I’ll try to help out. Enjoy!

Apple loves OS X the way it is and it will probably remain the way it is for the remainder of its life. This means you’ll need to get used to some of the differences between Windows and Mac. In my view, OS X could still be made to be easier to use by default, but unfortunately, you have to manually make some changes to make things better.

In this article, I’m going to give you a couple of my favorite tips for Windows users who have to use a Mac and OS X. Once you get used to OS X, you may even like it more than Windows, which is what happened to me. There is a small learning curve, but it’s worth the effort. Also, be sure to check out my post on programs and features in OS X that are equivalent to Windows.

Tip #1 – How to Right Click

One of the most annoying things as a beginner Mac user is trying to figure out how to right click! There is no separate right-click button for Macs and this can be really annoying for some people. Luckily, the Apple method is actually kind of more intuitive and easier to use.

All you have to do to right-click is to use two fingers when you perform a normal click. When you click with two fingers, you get the right-click context menu. For me, this is way more convenient than having to move my finger all the way down to the correct button like on most Windows laptops.

You can change the settings for how right-click works by going to System Preferences – Trackpad and clicking on the Point & Click tab.

By default, the right-click option is called Secondary click in OS X. If checked, it is normally set to Click or tap with two fingers, but you can click on the small little arrow and choose from two other options also: Click in bottom right corner or Click in bottom left corner. If you just love the way you did it in Windows, you can tweak OS X to get the same behavior.

Also, another quick tip is to check the Tap to click option also. Most Windows laptops allow you to tap to click, but OS X does not have this enabled by default so you have to manually press down the button to click. If you go to Scroll & Zoom, you can also change the scroll direction to whichever is more natural for you.

Tip #2 – Add Applications to the Dock

The other major change that is most jarring for Windows users is the lack of a Start button. There simply isn’t any central button in OS X. You have the small Apple logo icon at the top left, which can do a few things like get you to System Preferences or let you restart/shutdown your computer.

The Dock is basically like the Windows taskbar, but only with shortcuts and nothing else. The other annoying thing is that it starts out completely full of default Apple apps. I almost never use more than one or two, so the first thing I do is get rid of them. You can do this by right-clicking on the icon in the dock, choosing Options and choosing Remove from Dock.

Once you have done that, you can add a kind of All Programs folder to your Dock that will let you see a list of all programs installed in OS X. To do this, you have to drag the Applications folder to your dock. In order to do that, you need to click on the icon of your hard drive that should be on the Desktop. If you don’t see it, click on Finder at the top left of your Mac and then click on Preferences. On the General tab, make sure to check the boxes for Hard disks, External disks and CDs, DVDs and iPods.

Click on the hard disk icon on your desktop and you should see the Applications folder listed along with other folders like Library, System, Users.

Go ahead and drag that folder down to your Dock. Now when click on the icon, you’ll get a full listing of all the programs installed on your Mac. It’s better than trying to add them all to your Dock or having to use Spotlight to find the program you want to run.

You can also use Launcher (the silver/grey rocket icon in the Dock), but I never find myself using that for some reason.

Tip #3 – Eject Drives using the Trash

This one has to be the best. For the longest time, Apple has confused people when it comes to ejecting devices from the system. In order to eject a flash drive or DVD, you either have to right-click and choose Eject or you have to drag the item into the Trash.

This would be like dragging your USB drive into the Recycle Bin in Windows, which basically means delete everything! So obviously, people don’t even like the idea of throwing anything that has important data on it into a trash can!

However, that’s how you have to do it in OS X and no, it won’t result in any lost data. You’ll notice, actually, that when you click and drag an external drive or disc in OS X, the icon for the trash can changes to an eject icon. I guess this is supposed to make us feel better somehow.

Tip #4 – Tweak Finder

Finder is basically like Windows Explorer. A much simpler version of Explorer in my view. However, I prefer the more detailed and cluttered view of Explorer than the streamlined Finder. It’s just too simple.

So to add more stuff into Finder, open a Finder window and then click on View and click on the Show Path Bar and Show Status Bar options. This will give Finder a more Explorer-like look.

While under View, click on Customize Toolbar to add a couple of useful icons to the default toolbar. Personally, I like to add the New Folder, Delete and Get Info buttons to my toolbar.

Lastly, click on Finder, then Preferences and then click on Sidebar. Here you can add other items to the Finder sidebar like Pictures, Music, etc. This is similar to the library folders in Windows.

On the General tab, you can also edit the New Finder window shows option and pick something other than All Files. I prefer to pick my home folder, which matches more to Windows explorer.

Tip #5 – Learn to Use Spotlight

If you’re used to the search box in the Start menu on Windows, you’ll be happy to know there is an equivalent search option in OS X called Spotlight. You can get to it in two ways: either by clicking on the magnifying glass at the top right of your screen or by pressing the Command + Spacebar keyboard shortcut.

Using Spotlight is the best way to find your files, change settings in OS X, find apps to install, find emails, find calendar events, etc. It also shows results from the web, so you could search for Apple and get suggested websites and even a map to the local Apple store.

Tip #6 – OS X Uses Spaces & Full Screen

 Another thing you have to get used to is understanding how those three buttons at the top left of every window work. In Windows, you have three buttons: a minimize button, an expand button and a close button. In OS X, you have a red close button, a yellow minimize button and a green button that expands, but differently depending on the program.

If you click on the green button for Safari, for example, it will expand to full-screen and everything else will disappear. If you move your mouse to the top of the screen, you’ll get see the toolbar, but that’s about it. So where did all your other windows go and how do you get to them?

Well, in OS X, the app has basically gone into its own space. If you scroll up with three fingers, you’ll see something called Mission Control. Basically, it shows you a thumbnail of each desktop or program that is using its own space.

They are basically virtual desktops in OS X. Most built-in apps will use up their own space when expanded using the green button. You can either click on a space to activate it or you can use the three finger swipe to the right or left to browse through the spaces. I do like this feature a lot because it lets you work in one app fully, but still allows you to get around to other apps quickly.

On some apps, however, the app will expand to full screen, but it will not go into its own space. It’ll basically remain on the original desktop, just taking up most of the screen. Most third-party apps like Microsoft Office now support the full-screen mode that go into their own space.

You can also click on the little plus icon to add a new desktop if you like. You can have specific programs open in specific desktops if you like and you can even change the background so that each desktop has a different one. It takes a bit of practice, but once you get used to it, you’ll be using it all the time. Just remember the three finger swipes.

Tip #7 – Install Programs from the Mac App Store

By default, Apple tries to protect you by only allowing you to install apps from the Mac App store and from identified developers. In one sense, it’s good because it keeps you a bit safer without having to do much on your part.

If you want to install a new program, the best place to go is the Mac App store. Whereas Windows software is usually downloaded from everywhere on the Internet, most programs you’ll ever need to install on your Mac will be available in the Mac App store. If you really need to install something from some other place, you can go to System Preferences – Security & Privacy and select Anywhere under Allow apps downloaded from.

So hopefully those are some good tips for beginner Mac users who pretty much used Windows for their entire lives. There are a lot of other differences, but if you can get through these major ones, you’ll enjoy using your Mac rather than wanting to beat it. Enjoy!

I personally never use iTunes anymore, but I know a lot of people who keep all their music and movies stored on their computer. I personally find it much easier to stream content from iCloud and to use iTunes Match or Apple Music for listening to my music.

However, if you use iTunes for managing music not in iTunes or home video files, etc., then you really have no choice but to store the content locally. In this article, I’m going to show you how you can easily move your entire iTunes library to an external drive.

Prerequisites

Before we do any moving of data, we first have to check to make sure everything is properly stored locally. Open iTunes and click on iTunes – Preferences in the navigation bar in OS X or on the small icon at the top left in Windows.

Now click on the Advanced tab and check to make sure that the iTunes Media folder location is set to the default path, which should be Users/Username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media.

If the location is different, make a note of it because that is where you will need to go when we have to move the data. Next, on a Mac, click on File from the navigation bar, then Library and choose Organize Library. In Windows, you have to press CTRL + B or press the ALT key to see the navigation menu appear first.

When you do this, it will bring up another dialog where you’ll see a checkbox for consolidating all your media files. You should do this just to make sure everything is stored there before we make the move.

Check the Consolidate files box and click OK. Now that we have completed these two tasks, we can move on to the actual process of moving the library.

Move iTunes Library

Go ahead and quit iTunes at this point and connect your external hard drive. Now navigate to the iTunes Music folder on your computer. For Mac users, open Finder and click on Music in the left-hand list of shortcuts.

In Windows, go to the location listed in the Advanced tab, which should be C:\Users\UserName\Music\. Inside, you should see a folder called iTunes. Go ahead and copy this folder to the root of your external hard drive by dragging and dropping it.

Depending on how large your iTunes library is and your network connection speed, this process will probably take up the most time. Note that you should copy the library over, not move it. At a later point, we will delete the local copy. Once the copy has been completed, we need to open iTunes in a special way.

On a Mac, hold down the Option key and then click on iTunes from the dock. On Windows, hold down the SHIFT key and then double-click to open iTunes. When you do this, you’ll get a dialog before iTunes loads.

From the two options, you want to click on Choose Library. Now navigate to the external hard drive and open the iTunes folder. There you will find an iTunes.itl file, which you want to select and then click Open.

If all went well, iTunes should load with your entire library enact! You should be able to see all your media files and play them. At this point, we can remove the local copy of the iTunes library. To do that, you should first close iTunes and then eject the external hard drive. Now delete the entire iTunes folder stored on your computer.

If you open iTunes without reconnecting the external hard, you’ll get an error message stating the library could not be found.

Click OK and then Quit. Connect the drive and then open iTunes and you should be good to go. Overall, the process is pretty straight-forward and you shouldn’t run into any major problems. The only issue I ran into was that I used a Synology NAS to store the iTunes library and if my NAS went to sleep, opening iTunes would fail. Eventually, I had to change the settings so that my NAS was on all the time.

Other than that, everything worked fine. When importing new media into my library, the files were copied to the external location and not to my local computer. If you do run into an issue where some files get copied to your local computer, just consolidate files like I mentioned above. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

It’s extremely frustrating considering Safari comes included with OS X and you expect it to just work. When it does, it’s a great browser, but when it doesn’t, you literally have to switch to a new browser.

In this article, I’ll mention all possible ways you can go about trying to speed up Safari on your Mac. If you have your own suggestions, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Also, be sure to check out our YouTube video where we cover a couple of other possible reasons for slow Internet that may have nothing to do with Safari:

Method 1 – Cache, History, Extensions

If you’re a heavy web user and you don’t have a lot of space left on your Mac, it might be worth emptying the cache, disabling extensions, and clearing up the history to ease the load on Safari. In order to do this, you first have to go to Safari and then Preferences.

Click on the Advanced tab and then check the Show Develop menu in menu bar box at the bottom of the dialog.

Exit the Preferences dialog and click on Develop in the Safari menu. Go ahead and click on Empty Caches. Once the cache is empty, click again on Develop and choose Disable Extensions.

Finally, click on Safari and instead of Preferences like we chose above, click on Clear History.

In the drop-down box, make sure to choose all history and then click the Clear History button.

Method 2 – Manually Clear Cache.DB File

The above steps should clear the cache in Safari, but if something is not working properly, it may not do so properly. In this case, you can manually do it. Open Finder, then click on Go and Go To Folder at the bottom.

Now copy and paste the following path into the text box and click Go.

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

Finally, right-click on the Cache.db file and choose Move to Trash. Make sure Safari is closed when you are doing this step.

Method 3 – Install Latest OS X Version

I’ve noticed that quite a few people who purchase Macs simply do not update their systems to the latest version of OS X. Even though we are on El Capitan right now, I have friends running on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and even Snow Leopard!

If you don’t update OS X, you won’t get the latest version of Safari either. This means you could be stuck several versions behind and will be missing out on all the improvements and optimizations of the newest version.

The simplest way to upgrade is to go to the App Store and click on the link for the latest version of OS X, which is usually on the right-hand side.

Method 4 – Turn Dashboard Off

If you’re still using an older Mac (2010 or earlier), you might have a graphics card issue. You can try something simple to see if it helps in Safari. I’m talking about disabling the Dashboard feature in Mission Control.

To do this, open System Preferences and then click on Mission Control. In the drop-down next to Dashboard, select Off.

This is not some surefire fix, but it has worked for some people, including myself. I have a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro and the dashboard was definitely slowing things down.

Method 5 – Change Search Settings

Another thing you can try is to change the search settings in Safari. Open Preferences in Safari and then click on the Search tab.

Try changing the search engine to Bing, restarting Safari, and see if there is any difference in the speed. Change it back to Google and then check again. You can also try unchecking all the options like search engine suggestions, Safari suggestions, a quick website search, preload top hit, etc. to see if that makes a difference.

Sometimes on a very slow Internet connection, all of these extra features may cause Safari to be even slower.

Method 6 – Change Network Service Order

If you have a machine that is connected to both WiFi and Ethernet, your issue could be caused by being connected to the network in two different ways. To see your connections, go to System Preferences and then click on Network.

You could try disconnecting one network source and seeing if that makes a difference or not. Switch to only the other one and test too. If you want to keep both connected, read on.

By default, one connection will get priority over the other. As you can see above, my WiFi connection was getting higher priority than the Ethernet connection. You can change this by clicking on the little settings icon (gear) at the bottom of the list box.

Click on Set Service Order and another popup will appear where you can reorder the connections by dragging and dropping.

I moved Ethernet to the top and then clicked OK. After that, make sure you click Apply to on the System Preferences dialog.

Method 7 – Delete Preferences File

This probably won’t make much of a difference, but it’s worth a shot. Go to Finder, click on Go and then Go to Folder.  Type in the following path:

~/Library/Preferences

Scroll down the list till you see com.apple.Safari.plist and delete that file.

Method 8 – Use Different DNS Settings

Sometimes it may not be Safari causing the issue, but your DNS settings. By default, you’ll be using the DNS provided by your ISP, which is fine most of the time. However, using a public DNS might result in faster browsing.

My favorite is Google Public DNS, which I use on all my computers. Check out my article on the best public DNS servers you can use for free.  To change the DNS server for your connection on OS X, you need to open System Preferences, click on Network, select the connection and then click on Advanced.

Go ahead and click on the little + icon and then type in the IP addresses of the new DNS servers. Using Google has sped up my browsing not only in Safari, but also in other browsers.

Method 9 – Log Into Another Account

Sometimes the problem is with the user account you are currently using. It’s worth creating another user account (takes 1 min), logging into that account, and then running Safari. If it’s suddenly faster, then there is a problem with your user account. You can try to fix the problem by using Disk Utility. You can go to Spotlight and type in Disk Utility to open the dialog quickly.

Click on your hard drive in the left-hand pane and then click on the First Aid tab. You’ll be asked if you want to run First Aid on your hard drive, so click Run.

Method 10 – Reinstall OS X

This may sound a little extreme, but it’s kind of similar to how you have to reinstall Windows every year or so because it becomes so bloated. Unfortunately, OS X suffers from some of the same issues, especially if you have always kept upgrading to the latest version of OS X without doing a clean install.

I upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks to Yosemite to El Capitan before doing a fresh install of El Capitan, which made things significantly faster. It’s definitely worth a shot because it also made every other app load a lot faster too.

Those are about all the possible solutions I could find to fix a slow Safari problem. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to let us know in the comments. Enjoy!

The only way to open the disk image is to enter the password. You can copy the disk image like a normal file and it will be unreadable unless unlocked on a Mac. Overall, it’s like creating your own encrypted file container.

Also, be sure to check out my article on how to securely encrypt a USB flash drive, which is another good way of storing sensitive data.

Create Encrypted Disk Image

To create the disk image (DMG) on your Mac, first create a folder that includes all the data you want to encrypt. Note that once you create the disk image, the original unencrypted folder will still remain on your system and you should delete it immediately.

To get started, go ahead and open Disk Utility by going to Applications or by clicking on the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) at the top right and typing in Disk Utility.

Once Disk Utility is open, go ahead and click on File – New Image – Image from Folder.

You’ll now have to choose the folder that you would like to encrypt as a disk image.

Click Open and you’ll get the Save As dialog where you have to give your new image a name and choose from a couple of options.

By default, it’ll save the new disk image in the same folder that you are encrypting. Under Encryption, you can choose from 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption. The latter will be slower because of the stronger encryption, but your data will be better protected. When you choose any of the encryption options, you’ll be asked to enter a password.

Make sure you enter a very long and strong password because this is the only security that protects your data. If a hacker gets a hold of your file, they can try to use a brute-force attack to determine the password. Anything over 12 characters with letters, numbers and symbols will take a very long time to crack even on a really fast computer or cluster of computers.

For Image Format, you can choose from read-only, compressed, read/write, DVD/CD master or hybrid image. For our purposes, you should choose either read-only or read/write. If you choose the latter option, you’ll be able to add more files/folders to your encrypted image at a later point.

Click Save and your new image will be created. Note that if you chose 256-bit AES encryption, it could take quite a while for your disk image to be created.

Now when you go to open the image file, you’ll get a prompt asking for the password. Make sure you do NOT check the Remember password in my keychain box.

If you enter the password correctly, the image will be mounted like a drive and if you chose read/write for the Image Format, then you can add or remove items from the encrypted image just like a normal drive. When you add something to the drive, it will automatically be encrypted and protected.

Create Blank Encrypted Image

It’s also worth noting that you don’t have to necessarily create an encrypted image from a folder. You could also open Disk Utility and then click on File – New Image – Blank Image.

Here you will see a couple of more options. Firstly, you can specify the size of the disk image and the file system format. It’s recommended you stick with OS X Extended (Journaled) so that all security features are supported.

For Partitions, you can choose from Single partition – GUID Partition Map or Single partition – Apple Partition Map. All of the other settings are the same as previously mentioned.

Overall, it’s a great way to secure data on your Mac from prying eyes without having to install any third-party software or enabling File Vault on your entire system. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

Also, since you can run a full copy of OS X on the external drive, it can be used for troubleshooting purposes on other Macs or it can be as a kind of virtual OS X. I’ve already written about how you can install OS X in VMware Fusion, but that takes up space on your Mac. Using an external drive, you can save space on your Mac, though it might be a bit slower if you are using USB 2.0.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the requirements and steps to install OS X onto an external hard drive.

Format External Hard Disk

The first thing you’re going to need to do is format the external hard drive properly. The file format has to be Mac OS X Journaled and you have to use the GUID partition map. To do this, open Disk Utility and connect the drive to your Mac.

Under External in the left hand menu, click on your external hard drive and then click on the Erase button. Make sure you backup any data before you erase the drive. When you click Erase, a dialog will pop up where you can configure some options.

Give your drive a name, choose OS X Extended (Journaled) for Format and GUID Partition Map for Scheme. It should only take a minute or two for the drive to be erased and reformatted. Now your drive is ready for OS X.

Install OS X

There are two ways you can install OS X on to your external hard disk: by reinstalling OS X from the OS X Utilities repair screen or by downloading OS X from the App Store and running the installer. I’ll show you both methods in case one isn’t working for you.

The easiest way is to download OS X from the App Store. Once you open the App Store, you’ll see a link on the right for the latest version of OS X (El Capitan as of this writing).

Go ahead and click the Download button to start downloading the installer. Note that if you already have that version of OS X installed, you’ll see a popup message appear asking if you still want to continue or not. Just click Continue.

Once it has been downloaded, just double-click the installer, which will be located in the Applications folder.

Keep clicking past the license agreement, etc., until you get to the screen that asks you which disk to install OS X on. By default, it is set to MacBook.

Click on the Show All Disks button and you’ll see an icon for the different disks and partitions on the Mac. I named my external hard drive OS X and that shows up in the middle.

You can also tell it’s an external hard disk because it uses the icon with the orange hard drive. Click Continue and then follow the instructions to complete the installation. Note that your computer may restart during the install and you don’t have to do anything. OS X will automatically continue installing onto the external hard drive rather than booting up to your internal version of OS X.

At the end of this article, I’ll show you how to boot up to the external hard drive, so skip down if you ended up using the App Store method. Note that by default, the Mac will start booting up directly to the external hard drive until you change it.

The second method to install OS X is to restart the Mac and press and hold the COMMAND + R keys. This will load up OS X Recovery.

The OS X Utilities screen will appear and here you want to click on Reinstall OS X. Again, you’ll go through some basic screens, but when you get to the hard disk screen, click on Show All Disks again.

Using this method, you’ll have to login using your Apple ID and password so that the entire OS X installer can be downloaded off of Apple’s servers. Whichever method you choose, it will take anywhere from 15 to 30+ minutes to install OS X onto your external hard drive.

While OS X is installing, your computer will restart a couple of times. Note that when it finally boots into OS X, that is the version running off your external drive. To switch back and forth between the internal and external drive, you have to restart your computer and hold down the OPTION key.

When you do that, you should see at least four icons. In my case, I have five because I have Windows installed using Boot Camp. Anyway, the grey MacBook and Recovery 10.11.2 icons are for my internal OS X and the orange OS X and Recovery 10.11.3 are for the version installed on my external drive.

Use the arrow keys to select which drive to boot from and then simply press Enter. If you have a newer Mac and a USB drive that supports USB 3.0, everything should run fairly fast. Overall, it’s a fairly straight-forward process and took me less than an hour to get everything working. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

In this article, I’m going to talk about the different ways you can install Windows on a Mac and the advantages/disadvantages to each method. Most people assume that we are only talking about installing a full copy of Windows on OS X, but that’s not necessarily the only option.

For example, using special software, you can run certain Windows apps on a Mac without actually having to install a full copy of Windows. Also, if you already have a Windows PC on your network, you could simply remote desktop into the Windows machine and not have to install anything! Let’s talk about the different options.

Boot Camp

The most common solution you will read about online is using Boot Camp. It’s a free tool included with all versions of OS X and it allows you to install a single copy of Windows alongside OS X on your Mac. I’ve actually already written an article on how to install Windows using Boot Camp.

The process of installing Windows using Boot Camp is straight-forward, but not something I think most consumers would be able to do unless they have a technical background. If you have a Windows CD/DVD with you, that makes it much easier. If not, you have to download an ISO version of Windows and install that onto a USB flash drive.

The advantages of using Boot Camp are two-fold: you get an entire copy of Windows installed and it is running directly on the Mac hardware. This means it’ll be faster than any other method mentioned below. With a full copy of Windows, you can install any and all programs without limitation.

You’ll also need to have about 50 to 100 GB of free space available on your Mac in order to install Windows. Overall, if you need a full copy of Windows and want to fully utilize the specs of your Mac, I suggest using Boot Camp.

Virtual Machine Software

The second best choice in my opinion if you need Windows installed locally on the machine is to use a virtual machine. I’ve already written several articles on virtual machines because they are a great way to keep you safe from viruses and increase your privacy.

In addition, you can try out other operating systems on your current machine without having to create dual boot or triple boot systems. Virtual machines run inside software, so they are a bit slower, but they have some huge advantages.

Firstly, everything inside the virtual machine stays inside the virtual machine. From a privacy standpoint, it’s great. Secondly, if the virtual machine gets a virus or crashes or anything else happens, you just reset it and you’re back to a pristine copy of your operating system.

For Mac, there are a couple of virtual machine vendors that you can use:

VMware Fusion

Parallels

VirtualBox

These are really the only three good options. The first two, Fusion and Parallels, are paid programs and VirtualBox is free. If you’re just doing this as a test, I suggest trying VirtualBox since it’s free. If you really want Windows to run well on your Mac with full 3D graphics support, you should spend the money on VMware Fusion or Parallels.

I personally use VMware Workstation and VMWare Fusion on my Windows and Mac machines to run virtual copies of Windows and OS X. It’s fast and still allows you to have a full copy of Windows installed on your system. The only downside is that you won’t be able to do anything too graphics intensive, even when using the paid programs.

Check out my articles on how to install OS X using VMware Fusion and how to install Windows in a virtual machine. Another big advantage to virtual machines is that they are much easier to setup than Boot Camp is, for example.

You can also store the virtual machine file anywhere you like, so an external hard drive or even a NAS (network attached storage device) would work fine.

Remote Desktop

Another good option is to use remote desktop from your Mac to another Windows PC. This method obviously means you won’t have Windows installed locally and you’ll need to have a network connection in order to connect to the other machine.

In addition, it’s more complicated because you have to properly configure Windows to accept remote desktop connections. On top of that, if you want to connect to your Windows machine from outside of your local network, you have to forward ports on your router and  setup dynamic DNS too, which is a lot more complicated.

However, if you only need to connect to Windows while on your local LAN, then it’s not terribly hard to do. Once Windows is configured, you just download the Microsoft Remote Desktop client from the Mac App Store and you’re good to go.

The big advantage to this method is that you literally don’t have to install anything on any machine. If you already have a Windows PC, just enable remote desktop connections and connect from your Mac! It requires just one small app on your Mac and that’s it.

In addition, Windows will run smoothly since that depends on the hardware of the PC. You can run into issues if your network connection is slow, so it’s best to use an Ethernet cable for both the Mac and PC if possible. If you’re trying to connect over WiFi, just make sure you’re using at least wireless N or AC.

CrossOver/Wine for Mac

The last option you have is to use a program called CrossOver. This program will allow you to run specific Windows applications on your Mac computer without the need for installing Windows or even having a Windows license.

The major limitation is that this program only works with a subset of all Windows programs. The subset is fairly large: around 13,000 programs according to their website. These are programs that have been tested with CrossOver. You can still install unknown programs, but you might run into issues.

The program also supports a lot of the big software applications you might be using like Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, etc. They also support a whole bunch of games like Star Wars, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, The Elder Scrolls, etc. So if you want to play Windows games on your Mac, this is a good choice.

Again, this program only runs certain Windows applications. There is no Start Menu or Windows Explorer or anything else related to Windows.

There is another program called Wine that was originally developed for Linux, but now can be used on Macs too. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of technical skill and use of the command line, etc. I only recommend this option for very tech-savvy folk.

Conclusion

As you can there, you have several options when it comes to getting Windows or Windows applications running on your Mac. Each solution has its pluses and minuses, along with varying levels of difficulty and prices.

The best options will require you to purchase an extra license for Windows and purchase virtual machine software, so it’s not cheap by any means to do this. However, if you’re a heavy user of both operating systems, it’s totally worth the cost. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

As I mentioned earlier, running another copy of the operating system in a virtual machine can help you in two ways: protect your privacy and keep your safe from viruses/malware. Starting with OS X Lion (10.7), you can install the operating system as many times as you like into a virtual machine as long as it is on the same hardware.

So if you have a MacBook Pro with OS X El Capitan installed, you can install as many copies of El Capitan into virtual machines on that same machine. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps to get OS X installed using VMware Fusion. There is a free program called VirtualBox, but it has some drawbacks.

VMware Fusion is not free, but has more features and is generally more powerful and easier to use than VirtualBox. VirtualBox requires using Terminal commands to get OS X installed. In addition, it doesn’t even work properly for the latest version of OS X.

Note that there are two ways to install OS X on VMware fusion: download OS X from the App Store and use that for installing or to use the recovery partition to reinstall OS X. I’ll explain both methods in this post.

Download OS X

You can install OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, or El Capitan into a virtual machine on your Mac computer. Before you get started with the download method, you need to grab a copy of the OS X installer from the App Store.

To do this, open the App Store and download your version of OS X. In my example, I am running El Capitan, so that is what I will download. It’s listed on the right hand side in the list of links.

Click the Download button and the install app will be downloaded to your Applications folder in OS X. The download will be several GBs in size, so it could take a while for the download to complete.

Install OS X in VMware Fusion

Note that you will need VMware Fusion 8 installed if you want to install El Capitan. You can always check the Compatibility Guide to see which operating systems are supported by different versions of VMware software. Simply scroll down the Product Release Version list box and choose your version of VMware Fusion.

Now open VMware Fusion and then click on File and New to start creating a new virtual machine.

A window will pop up where you can either install from a disc or image or you can choose from a couple of other options.

Here is where we can go either of two ways. If you downloaded OS X from the App Store, you’re going to choose Install from disc or image. If you simply want to use the recovery partition on your Mac, you’re going to choose Install OS X from the recovery partition.

Install from Disc or Image

Select this option and then click Continue. You’ll now need to choose the disc or image to continue the install. Go ahead and click on the Use another disc or disc image button at the bottom of the screen and browse to the location of the OS X install app, which should be located under the Applications folder.

Click Open and it should now show up in the list. You can now select it and click Continue to start the installation.

The last screen of the wizard will give you a summary of all the settings.

If everything looks good, go ahead and click Finish to start the virtual machine. You’ll be asked to save the virtual machine so give it a name and pick a location. Click Save and the virtual machine should start up after a few minutes. You’ll then see the Apple logo appear and the progress bar.

Once this finishes, you’ll get the screen where you choose your language. Click the arrow and you’ll see the OS X Utilities screen.

Choose Install OS X and click Continue. Now you’ll get the installation screen for your version of OS X. Click Continue to start the installation.

Agree to the license agreement and then choose the hard drive you want to install OS X to. It should say Macintosh HD and be the size you setup for the virtual machine.

Click Install and OS X will now be installed. The virtual machine will restart and you’ll get the Apple logo again with a progress bar. Once the installation is complete, OS X should load up and you should be able to log into the desktop. Whew! Kind of a long process, but pretty straight-forward.

Install from Recovery Partition

If you choose the Install from recovery partition option, the procedure is pretty much the same. First, it will load a screen where it will look for the recovery partition and if it finds it, it will bring up a dialog to save your virtual machine. Give the virtual machine a name and location and click Save.

Next, you’ll get the same Finish configuration screen like shown above where it gives you a summary of the virtual machine settings. Click Finish and the virtual machine window will load up.

Next, the Apple logo will appear with the progress bar. Again, you’ll get the screen where you have to choose your language and then the OS X Utilities screen. The only difference here is that you choose Reinstall OS X instead of Install OS X, which is the option in the previous method.

Now you’ll get the same OS X install screen, so click the Install button to continue. For this method, however, you have to download OS X off Apple’s servers. So you’ll get a message stating that your eligibility has to be verified. Click Continue.

Accept the license agreement and then choose the hard disk you want to install OS X onto. Click install and then you’ll get a screen where you have to sign into the Apple store.

At this point, OS X will be downloaded and it could take a while depending on your Internet connection.

After it finishes, the virtual machine will restart and the Apple logo and progress bar will appear. OS X will install and you’ll be able to login once the installation is complete. It does take quite a bit of time to setup OS X in a virtual machine, but it works well.

After you are done and your virtual machine is loaded, you need to click on Virtual Machine and then Install VMware Tools. This will install the OS X virtual machine tools, which allows you to increase the resolution to HD and allows the virtual machine to run more smoothly.

Hopefully, this article will help you get OS X running properly in a virtual machine on your Mac. It’s possible to install OS X on a PC, but it’s not legal and it’s much more difficult, especially with the latest versions of OS X. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

Well, luckily, recent Macs running the latest versions of OS X are not wildly different than the current versions of Windows. The biggest difference in my opinion is the lack of any kind of Start button on OS X. That’s pretty much what Microsoft did with Windows 8 and probably why everybody hated it.

There simply is no Mac equivalent of the Windows Start button or Start Menu in OS X. The only thing you can do is get a list of all your applications in the OS X Dock, which is like the Windows taskbar. In this article, I’ll go through all the Mac equivalents of Windows programs and hopefully you’ll find using a Mac just as easy as a Windows machine.

Windows Taskbar – OS X Dock

Even though you’ll miss the Start button, OS X at least has the equivalent of the taskbar called the Dock. It shows you currently open programs and you can add or remove icons for any other applications installed on your Mac.

The recycle bin is also located on the Dock and in order to eject any device connected to your Mac, you drag and drop it into the trash. You can also go to System Preferences and adjust the settings for the Dock: allow it to remain visible at all times, increase the size, change the position on the screen, etc.

To get all the applications as an icon on your Dock, open Finder and drag Applications from the sidebar and drop it onto the Dock.

Windows Explorer – Mac Finder

Next up is Windows Explorer. The Mac equivalent is the Finder. Windows Explorer is pretty good, but I actually like the Mac Finder more. For one thing, it allows you to have multiple tabs open in the same Finder window, making it easy to drag and drop files to a different location without having to open multiple Finder windows.

Secondly, it shows you more useful stuff in the sidebar than Windows like shared servers, other computers, connected devices, etc. You can also click on Finder and then Preferences and configure what items show on the sidebar, which you can’t do in Windows either.

Windows Control Panel – Mac System Preferences

The Control Panel is the place to go in Windows to control how Windows operates. You can manage pretty much everything from here including backups, encryption, default programs, audio, fonts, Java, Flash, languages, mouse and keyboard settings, user accounts, firewall settings, and lots more.

Though not exactly the same, you can manage all the settings for your Mac from System Preferences.

Windows Notepad – OS X Text Edit

If you use Notepad in Windows, then you’ll be happy to know there is an equivalent in Mac known as TextEdit. It ships with all Macs and it’s a basic text editor that lets you work with plain text too. That’s really the only reason I use Notepad and it’ll probably be the only reason you use TextEdit on your Mac.

The only thing you have to do in TextEdit is click on Format and then click on Make Plain Text. It is basically WordPad and Notepad combined into one, which is nice.

Windows Task Manager – Mac Activity Monitor

The Task Manager in Windows is one of my favorite features and I use it all the time to check which process is eating up memory or the CPU. You can also get a lot of extra information about your system from the Task Manager.

Like the Task Manager, the Activity Monitor (open Spotlight and search for activity monitor) is broken into several tabs: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk and Network.

The Energy tab is unique to Macs and is useful for laptops so that you can see which processes consume the most power. Otherwise, you can use Activity Monitor to end a process or to run system diagnostics.

Windows Command Prompt – OS X Terminal

The Command Prompt in Windows is the tool you have to use when you have to do something technical to fix your computer or change an obscure setting that you can’t get to any other way. The same applies to the Mac equivalent, which is called Terminal.

The Terminal is a very powerful tool that allows you to control the underlying UNIX system that OS X runs on top of. So if you are familiar with Linux commands, Terminal is a piece of cake. One task I have to use the Terminal occasionally for is showing hidden files. You open Terminal and paste in the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Now you can see hidden files in Finder. Again, you’ll probably only use Terminal in these rare instances where you simply have to copy and paste the command.

Windows Paint – OS X Preview

If you use Paint in Windows, the closest tool in OS X is Preview. It can’t match everything that Paint can do, but it allows for basic drawing.

You can also use it to make basic edits to images like cropping, removing backgrounds, adding outlines, adding text, adjusting colors, etc. You can also use it to add signatures to your PDF files and fill in forms.

Windows Disk Management – OS X Disk Utility

The Disk Management tool allows you to format and partition hard drives in Windows easily. You can do other stuff, but those are the main functions. The Disk Utility tool on Macs allows you to do pretty much the same thing.

You can use Disk Utility to repair a hard drive if OS X is not booting properly, partition a hard drive, erase a drive and see what kind of data is taking up space on the hard drive.

Windows Netstat, Ping, Tracert – OS X Network Utility

The Network Utility in OS X is one place where Apple does a much better job than Windows. The Network Utility lets you quickly get information about your network connection and lets you easily run tests like netstat, ping, traceroute, Whois, Finger, and port scans.

You can use the Netstat tab to quickly see all the connections your computer has made. To do any of this in Windows, you have to open a command prompt and type in commands! It’s way more technical and not nearly as nicely implemented as it is in OS X.

Windows Event Viewer – Mac Console

Lastly, the Event Viewer program in Windows allows you to see a log of everything that is happening on your computer. It’s really useful for debugging hard to fix problems.

The Console is pretty much exactly the same as Event Viewer and allows you to see pretty much everything that happens in the background of your computer.

You really only look at the log files when you are looking for something specific, otherwise, there are just way too many messages generated by the operating system.

There are other equivalents that I could mention here, but I think these are the basics and enough for most people who are just starting to use a Mac after being on Windows for a long time. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

This really isn’t a big deal because most Windows computers don’t have Blu-ray burners either and most people still burn DVDs and CDs. Also, judging by how Apple completely removed the optical drive from the new MacBook and MacBook Air, burning CDs and DVDs on Macs is probably going to be a thing of the past pretty soon whether you like it or not.

Now when it comes to burning discs on a Mac, there are usually a couple of scenarios: burn a data disc or ISO image, burn an audio CD or burn a video DVD playable in a DVD player. Depending on what type task you need to complete, you may have to use different software.

In this article, I’ll talk about how you can burn a disc in OS X for multiple purposes. I’ll also mention some alternatives for Mac that you can use to burn CDs and DVDs. Unfortunately, with Macs, you just have fewer choices. For example, Apple has iMovie for making awesome edited movies, but you can’t use iMovie to burn a DVD!

Burn a Data Disc or ISO Image

Let’s start with the easy stuff first: burning a simple data disc or an ISO image file. For an ISO image, check out my previous post on burning ISO images using OS X. Burning a data disc is also really easy.

The first thing you need to do is copy all the data you want to burn into a folder. It really doesn’t matter where the folder is located or what name you give the folder; it should just all be in one place.

Now just right-click on the folder and choose Burn “Folder Name” to Disc. If you don’t already have a disc in the optical drive, you’ll get a message asking you to insert one.

Next, you can give your disc a name and choose the burning speed, which should automatically be set to the max speed.

Click Burn and the CD or DVD will begin to be burned. For data discs, it’s as simple as that.

Burn Audio CD

In Windows, you can burn an audio CD using Windows Media Player. On a Mac, you can burn audio CDs using iTunes. Open iTunes and add all your music to your library. Once you have added your music, you need to create a playlist.

Go ahead and select the songs you want on your audio CD, right-click and choose New Playlist from Selection. Note that if you are going to burn an audio CD, you can only have up to 72 minutes of audio. If you are burning an MP3 CD, you can add up to 700 MB worth of MP3 files.

Now you should see your new playlist in the left hand side under Playlists. Click on the playlist to select it. Now click on File and choose Burn Playlist to Disc.

The Burn Settings dialog will appear where you can choose how you want to create your audio CD.

The main section is Disc Format, where you can choose from an Audio CD (72 minutes), an MP3 CD (700 MB) or a Data CD/DVD. For an audio CD, you can choose how long the gap between songs should be, use Sound Check to make sure the volume is consistent across all songs and include CD text so that the song name, artist, etc. are displayed on disc players.

Burn Video DVD

In Windows, you can burn a DVD using Windows DVD Maker or a third-party program if you don’t have Windows 7, but on Mac there is no official software from Apple for burning DVDs. There used to be iDVD Author, but that was part of iLife 11, which you can still buy, but it’s old and probably not worth the money.

For Macs, you don’t have a lot of options. The only free program I can recommend is Burn, which also hasn’t been updated since 2011, but works well enough for most people. First, go ahead and download the software and then run the application. If you get a message stating the program is blocked because of your security settings, then go to System Preferences, click on Security and Privacy and click on Open Anyway.

Once the program is open, you’ll want to click on the DVD tab. Give your DVD a title and then click on the drop-down box and change the format from VCD to DVD-Video. Next, click on the little plus icon at the bottom left to add video to your project.

Note that if you video is not in the correct format, you will get a message saying it is incompatible and asking if you would like to convert it to the proper format. You need to have videos in MPG format in order to use this program.

Click the Convert button and the file will be converted for you automatically. If you can’t convert using this program, use a program like HandBrake to convert the files for you.

Once you have added all your files, go ahead and click the Burn button to start the burn process.

That’s about it! It’s not fancy and the navigation controls for the DVD are pretty basic, but it gets the job done for free. If you are interested in creating custom themes for your DVD, customizing text and buttons, etc., then you’ll need to shell out some money for a DVD authoring program.

The most popular ones for Mac are Roxio MyDVD for $49.99 and Voilabits DVDCreator for $39.99. Roxio has been around for ages and their software is excellent.

For $10 less, DVDCreator is also an excellent choice for authoring DVDs. You can purchase MyDVD from here and DVDCreator from here. Both programs are also priced fairly considering they are pretty feature-rich.

Troubleshooting

A quick frustration I wanted to mention was if you run into problems when burning a disc on your Mac. For whatever reason, the SuperDrive is a super piece of crap on most Macs and doesn’t burn discs properly a lot of times.

The most common error you’ll get is the following:

The disc can't be burned because an unexpected error occurred (error: 0x8002006E)

The only solution according to folks in the Apple forums is to buy an external DVD writer and use that instead. It’s pretty sad, but it’s not a top priority for Apple and that’s why they are removing the drives from their computers anyway.

If you can’t get another drive, try recording at a slower speed (maybe 1x or 2x) and try a different type of DVD. The drive is supposed to support +R and -R, but I sometimes find one format works better and doesn’t fail as often as the other. It’s a lot of trial and error.

Hopefully, this article will help you burn what you need on OS X. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

There are a couple of different ways you can burn an ISO image in OS X and it really depends on what version you have installed. For the last several years, you could use Disk Utility to mount the ISO image and then burn it to a disc.

However, with the latest release of OS X, 10.11 El Capitan, Apple has removed the burning functionality from Disk Utility. You can still burn ISO images in El Capitan, but you have to use Finder instead. The Finder method also works on older versions of OS X too.

Lastly, you can use Terminal and the hdiutil command to burn an ISO image to disc if you are comfortable using that tool. In this article, I’ll show you all three methods for burning ISO images in OS X.

Finder Method

The Finder method is now the most universal method for burning ISO images in OS X since it’s supported on pretty much all versions. It’s also extremely easy to do. First, open a new Finder window, navigate to the location of your ISO file and then single click on it to select it.

Now go ahead and click on File and click on Burn Disk Image at the bottom of the list.

If you don’t already have a disc in your drive, you’ll be asked to insert one. Then just click the Burn button to start the burn process.

Another quick way to burn the ISO image file is to just right-click on the file and choose Burn Disk Image. As long as you have a disc in the drive, the burn process will start immediately.

Disk Utility Method

If you are running OS X 10.10 or lower, you can also use the Disk Utility method to burn your ISO image. Open Disk Utility by clicking on the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) at the top right of your screen and type in disk utility.

Now click on File and then Open Disk Image.

The ISO image will show up in the left-hand side along with the list of hard drives, etc. Click on the ISO file and then click on the Burn button at the top.

Pop your disc into the drive and click the Burn button to start the process. As mentioned earlier, this no longer works on OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Terminal Method

Lastly, if you love using the Terminal, you can type a simple command to burn the ISO image file.

hdiutil burn ~/PathToYourISO/filename.iso

I would suggest copying the file to an easy location like your desktop and renaming the file to something short too. In my case, I copied the file to my desktop and renamed it to just ubuntu.iso. I navigated to the desktop by typing in CD Desktop and then typed in hdiutil burn ubuntu.iso.

If you have a disc in the drive before you run the command, the burn process will start automatically. Otherwise, it’ll ask you to insert a disc. Those are all the ways you can burn your ISO image on a Mac without third-party software! If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

However, there are times when I need to know the password for the Wifi network, usually because I have to connect another device like my iPhone or iPad to the network. There is no way I ever remember that password any Wifi network other than my own, so I have to get it from somewhere else. If your computer is already connected to the network, it makes perfect sense to just find the key from there.

Luckily, it’s very easy to do this in OS X. All passwords, certificates and other security information is stored in the Keychain program. This is where all your saved passwords for websites, connections to network devices, etc are stored.

Find Stored WiFi Password using Keychain

First, open Keychain by either searching for it in Spotlight or going to Applications – Utilities.

When Keychain Access opens, you’ll see the list of login items by default selected in the left hand column. This list includes application passwords, Internet passwords, network passwords and web form passwords.

To find the passwords for wireless networks, you have to click on System in the top left-hand menu. These should all be categorized as AirPort network password.

Now to view the actual password, go ahead and double-click on the wireless network of your choice. You’ll get a pop up window that’ll list the name of the network and some other details. At the bottom, you’ll see the Show password check box. Go ahead and check that.

Before you get to see the password, you’ll have to type in your OS X password at which point another dialog will pop up saying OS X wants to make changes. Type an administrator’s name and password to allow this.

You’ll have to type in your username and password for OS X again. I’m not sure why it required twice, but that’s how it’s working on Mavericks at this point. Once you do this, you’ll finally get the saved Wifi password!

Can’t install the software for the HP Officejet Pro 8550 printer because it is currently not available from the Software Update server.

After doing some research online, it seemed I had to perform a Software Update since the driver for my HP printer was supported by Apple. I performed a software update, but there was nothing to update! So now I was pretty confused as to what I should do. Luckily, I was able to figure it out, but it does take a few steps to get your printer properly installed on OS X.

Firstly, you have to manually download the printer driver package for your printer brand from Apple. You can see a list of all the printers supported by Apple on this page:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669

First make sure your printer is actually listed there because if it isn’t, then you won’t be able to install the printer on OS X no matter how hard you try. Your only other option at this point is to check the manufacturer’s website and see if they have a Mac driver you can download that maybe isn’t included in the Apple driver package yet.

If your printer is listed there, then you need to download the driver package and install it. It would have been nice if they had links directly from that page to the driver packages, but they don’t. If you want the driver package for HP, go to Google and search “HP printer drivers mac” and the first link will bring you here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL907

Here are the links for a couple of more, but to find any other brand, just put the brand name followed by “printer drivers mac” and you’ll find them. Make sure to look for a URL that says “support.apple.com”.

Canon – http://support.apple.com/kb/dl899

Brother – http://support.apple.com/kb/dl894

Lexmark – http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1397

Epson – http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1398

Samsung – http://support.apple.com/kb/DL905

Fuji-Xerox – http://support.apple.com/kb/dl904

Download the DMG and install it on your Mac. Once you have installed it, go ahead and restart your computer. Now we have to reset the printing system and then reinstall the printers. To reset the printing system, click on the Apple logo and then click on System Preferences.

Now click on Print & Scan under the Hardware sub-heading:

Now in a white area in the list of printers box, go ahead and right-click. A menu will pop up and the only option is to Reset Printing System.

Note that resetting the printing system will remove all the printers from your computer. However, for the ones that were already there, don’t worry because you can add them back without needing to reinstall the drivers or use the CD or anything else. When the printing system is reset, the list box will be empty. Now go ahead and click on the + sign at the bottom of the list box.

It should automatically detect all the printers connected via USB or wired or wireless. First go ahead and add back the ones that were not causing the problem. Then go ahead and add the one that was giving you the error message.

Hopefully, now when you choose the printer, it should install automatically without any errors because you downloaded and installed the driver package manually. If you’re still having trouble, post a comment here and I’ll try to help. Enjoy!