Tips

In Apple's Mail program, there are options for flagging and coloring messages that you might find important, but in order to automatically do so, you have to set up a special rule to identify the message and then perform an action on it. With the version of Mail that Apple ships in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has changed this to a degree by adding a VIP list.

Unlike rules that require that you set up conditions that act on incoming messages once, the VIP option in Mail is a dynamic filter that provides an easy way to locate … Read more

Although the mobile Outlook.com Web site is gorgeous, it's hardly efficient to access the browser each time you want to check your mail, especially if you have other accounts already synced with your iOS device.

But more than that, getting your Outlook.com e-mail in the official Mail app gives you access to a very coveted feature: Push.

Since Outlook.com is still in beta, and Hotmail is still very much alive, it will be some time before Apple replaces Mail's "Hotmail" setup option with "Outlook.com."

Until then, here's the embarrassingly … Read more

A new setting added to OS X in Mountain Lion restores a classic Expose behavior for viewing all windows on the screen.

Apple's Missions Control feature in OS X is an evolution (or perhaps devolution, depending on your perspective) of the Expose and Spaces feature that was introduced in OS X 10.5 Leopard. While options for multiple desktops are great for organizing work, in some of Apple's decisions with the move to Mission Control it left out some of the simple approaches to Spaces that users became accustomed to.

One of these features is the ability to … Read more

In past versions of Safari, you had to navigate to a new tab to view its contents; however, with Safari 6 in Mountain Lion, Apple has added a new feature that allows you to preview all of the open tabs in a window.

When you create tabs in the browser either by clicking the plus button to the right of the toolbar or by pressing Command-T, you will now see a button appear next to the plus that looks like a small rectangle with margins. Clicking this (or selecting "Show All Tabs" in the View menu) will shrink … Read more

A new feature that Apple has included in Mountain Lion offers a convenient way to encrypt secondary volumes on your Mac, making data security far more convenient.

Recently discovered by Mac OS X Hints contributor "kirkmc," if you right-click a nonboot volume in the Finder, the contextual menu that appears now contains an option to encrypt the disk. Selecting this will bring up a window requesting that you supply a password and a password hint for the drive, and upon doing this, the system will wait a short while (the length of which depends on the amount of … Read more

Apple's introduction of Auto Save and Versions in OS X Lion was one of the more controversial modifications made to the operating system, partially because as part of the changes Apple removed with the age-old Save As command and replaced it with an unfamiliar "Duplicate" option. While applications such as Office that include their own document-handling routines maintained the Save As option, those that rely on Apple's central document-handling libraries lost this function.

The inconsistency of the Save As and Duplicate features between programs confused and disappointed a number of OS X Lion users. Even though … Read more

Apple has released its OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (see CNET's full review) and it's available for download from the Mac App Store on systems running OS X 10.6.6 or later. If you're interested in the new OS, then be sure to read our guide on preparing your Mac for installing the upgrade, which includes information on the OS requirements, backing up, and clearing up resolvable issues before performing the upgrade.

You also might be interested in creating a standalone install drive for Mountain Lion. As with OS X Lion, Apple will likely release … Read more

A new procedure has surfaced that may allow owners of the older and unsupported Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 machines to run Mountain Lion natively on their systems.

When Apple initially released OS X Mountain Lion developer previews to testers and its development community, word spread that the OS would leave out some of Apple's earlier Intel-based Macs, including the first Mac Pro systems that still pack a decent amount of computing power. Apple made these requirements official more recently on its OS X up-to-date Web page for Mountain Lion.

The reason for these limitations revolved around … Read more

Ouch.

Is there a worse feeling than seeing your iPod Touch smack the ground and hearing the unmistakable crack of glass?

Just one: picking up the iPod and realizing the screen is shattered top-to-bottom. That was one expensive attack of gravity.

This happened to my daughter not long ago, resulting in a fourth-gen iPod Touch that, remarkably, still worked, but really wasn't usable anymore owing to the spider web of cracked glass.

As the household cheapskate, I figured it would be cheaper to repair the unit than buy a new one. After all, a current 32GB iPod Touch sells … Read more