Some people aren't comfortable around a Unix terminal, which can make things difficult if you're trying to change the read, write, and execute permissions on a file or set of files. The chmod command can, after all, be a little intimidating if you haven't used it before… not to mention that it can really mess up your system if you don't use it quite right.

When it comes to uploading images to a website you always want to try and make sure the file sizes are as low as possible without compromising on quality. Sometimes that is easier said than done, but with the free ImageOptim for the Mac it's a breeze. 

I've found that most Mac users I talk with find the Spotlight search to be sufficient when it comes to launching apps from the keyboard, but there are also some power users that yearn for a little more. Alfred is a powerhouse for keyboard junkies, but if all you want to do is launch some apps the free Chuck (that's a Mac App Store link) might be exactly what you need.

Making changes to the HOSTS file is generally something users either do regularly, or they've never touched it. For those of you not familiar with the HOSTS file it is basically a way to override the IP address that a domain/address resolves to. This is a great way to test out DNS changes on your machine before you make any updates at your DNS provider.

Apple has released a lot of hardware and software over the years, but it's easy to forget how they got to where they are. A free app on the Mac App Store called Mactracker can take you on a walk down memory lane. When you fire up the app you are presented with 500+ items that Apple has released in a variety of different categories including desktops, notebooks, servers, devices, and software.

I have a pretty even mix of Windows and Mac computers in my house, and from time to time I find myself wanting to remotely connect to one of my Windows machines from a Mac. That's not a problem since Microsoft makes their own Remote Desktop client for Mac OS X, but it's not exactly the best utility to use if you are doing this on a semi-regular basis.

I know some people who are casual Linux users that periodically fire up new releases of popular distributions to see how things are going in the world of Linux. One of the things I've had a lot of comments on is how several Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and most others) have stopped shipping OpenOffice.org with their operating systems and have switched to LibreOffice.

A couple months ago we explained how you can disable the GoogleUpdate.exe process on your Windows machine, and today we are showing you how to do the same thing on a Mac. It's definitely a little easier on the Mac side because there is just a single line of code that you need to execute in a Terminal window.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about.

Over a month ago I wrote about a Beta version of Dexpot that was packed with some very polished features that emulated the Spaces and Exposé features from the Mac OS.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about.

One of the things that I use all of the time on Windows is the built-in calendar that appears when you click on the time in the Taskbar. Apple, for some reason, hasn't implemented something similar for when you click on the menu bar clock, but a free little app called Day-O is able to do exactly that.

I'm not a huge fan of Adobe Air apps as I have stated countless times in the past, but it seems as though some of the best Twitter clients are all powered by it. The one I am talking about this time around is called DestroyTwitter, and while the interface looks extremely simplistic there are actually a fair number of options that you can customize.

There are times when your Mac may not want to go to sleep, and it's probably because of something that is running in the background preventing the OS from wanting to go to into the standby mode. If you've come across a similar situation the free PleaseSleep app might be exactly what you need.

The built-in Mac OS X Preview app is designed to handle a lot of different kinds of files ranging from images to PDFs. If you happen to be using it with a PDF file it has a lot of nice features for marking up the document, but one feature that tends to get overlooked the most is its ability to capture/digitize your signature using the iSight camera included on your Mac.

If you are a distraction-prone Mac user the Isolator app might be exactly what you need. This free app will let you dim, blur, or completely blackout windows that are in the background. As you switch between windows the effect changes to provide a strong focus to the frontmost window.

When setting up my XBMC instances, I wanted to have a central machine in my house serve up all my media, and for that I chose to use my Mac OS X Lion machine. Since my XBMC machines are being powered by Windows 7 I ran into a bit of a predicament. In Mac OS X Lion, Apple started using the SMB2 protocol that Microsoft introduced in Vista back in 2006.

There are some good Twitter clients out there for desktop operating systems, such as MetroTwit on Windows, but there is always room for more. If you haven't found one that you've liked you may want to take a look at Janetter. This free app is packed with features including real-time timeline updates. As your friends post their tweets they will instantly appear in the application.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about.

I don't write about scripts too often, but when I saw the webkit2png Python script I thought it could be really helpful to Mac users that were looking for an easy way to snag a screenshot of a webpage using only the Mac terminal. Sure there are plenty of browser extensions that are capable of doing the same sort of thing, but those are more for one-off screenshots.