Author: Christopher Breen

PDF is a wonderful format for reading documents, but once you move beyond reading, things can get complicated in a hurry. Thankfully, useful tools for working with PDF files are built into Automator, OS X’s built-in workflow tool. Let’s run thr…

Last week, for the sake of completeness, I took you on a tour of Safari—an application that you likely used to read the lesson. This week we’ll dig deeper and explore some of Safari’s most important preferences. To begin, choose Safari > …

A reader who prefers to remain anonymous has some movies that he’d like to turn into an entirely different kind of media file. He writes:

I have some MPEG-4 music video files and all I want to do is lift the soundtrack from them and burn that …

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous is curious about the structure of DVDs. He or she writes:

A friend has a DVD that he needs to turn into a QuickTime movie. He’s used a program that copies the contents of the DVD to a folder on his Mac. …

Throughout these lessons I’ve casually thrown around such phrases as “launch Safari” and “when you do this, Safari will open and take you to….” And I’ve felt reasonably confident in doing so because, after all, if you’re currently s…

Reader Andrew Ainsbury can’t seem to wait for the future. He writes:

I watched Apple’s WWDC keynote address the other day and loved the idea of adding tags to my files. Is there a way I can do something similar with Mountain Lion?

Sort o…

Reader Jack Burns is a bit disconcerted by some recent news. He writes:

After reading stories about the U.S. government’s program to collect phone and Internet data I’m a little concerned about my email privacy. What can I do to encrypt my e…

For a while, Apple has been selling two generations of iPod touch side by side: the 16GB and 32GB, 3.5-inch, Retina display fourth-generation versions and the 32GB and 64GB, 4-inch, Retina fifth-generation models. That confusion finally ended when…

Many Mac users whose relationship with the Mac predates Mac OS X retain an affection for macro utilities—applications that let you string together a series of actions, and summon those macros with a click or a key press to automate repetitive ta…

Reader Patricia Whitney has done the Bad Thing to her iPad and wonders if there’s a way to make it Good. She writes:

I dropped my first-generation iPad and now the screen’s colors are all wrong. Blacks are green and there’s a lot of “st…

In weeks past we’ve talked about configuring the Mail and Calendar applications. Without the third leg of this personal information trio—Contacts—using the first two could be a lonely proposition. In this lesson we’ll look at the cans and c…

Faithful reader Dick Fiddler has a question regarding cordless phones and Wi-Fi interference. He writes:

I’m having interference issues with my AirPort network and cordless phone. Repositioning has helped some, but I’d like to pursue restric…

Much as we depend on text, a lot of us deal with images, audio files, and movies as part of our workaday world. And it’s not unusual that when working with such files you need to perform a minor tweak—rotate a picture, convert a music track to…

Reader Michael Burke dutifully accepted my counsel but came up with unexpected results. He writes:

I followed your advice in How to Sign Digital Documents for capturing my signature in Preview, but it came out 90 degrees from horizontal. I would…

Reader Pete Curry has come thiiis close to stumping Mac 911 with a question concerning contacts and Calendar. He writes:

I read your recent Mac 101 column, Introduction to Calendar, and it reminded me to ask a question that’s been bugging me …

Mountain Lion can help you do more than organize your music library, compose and receive email, and work out the complex equations necessary to design a hamster capable of sustained flight. With the aid of a bundled application, it can ensure that …