How to Prioritize Ethernet Over Wi-Fi on Mac OS X

By default, if you have an OS X device that’s connected to both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, it should prioritize the Ethernet connection over the Wi-Fi one. Sometimes it gets wonky though, in which case you’ll always be on Wi-Fi no matter what.

How do you fix such an issue? The steps are actually quite simple. First, launch System Preferences (using Spotlight is fastest), then select Network:

At the bottom left of that window, look for the gear icon with the down arrow. Click on it to open the menu, then select Set Service Order:

Here you can drag-and-drop each item to change the priority order of your internet connections. Move Ethernet to the top to get the system to always use Ethernet over Wi-Fi when both are active. Wi-Fi will be a backup.

Click OK and then Apply and you’re done!

This is especially useful for when your Wi-Fi is unstable, but it’s also a good solution when your Wi-Fi is slow in general and there’s nothing you can do to improve the speed — when even this trick won’t work!

How to Run Microsoft Edge Web Browser in Mac OS X

Microsoft Edge is the latest web browser from Microsoft, which aims to replace Internet Explorer in the latest versions of Windows for desktop PC, Surface, and Windows Phone. While most Mac users may not need to access or use the Microsoft Edge web browser, others in OS X may require using Edge to access specific websites, and it’s particularly common for web developers and web designers to need to use a wide variety of web browsers for testing purposes. Thus, we’re going to show Mac users how they can easily run Microsoft Edge directly in Mac OS X, and entirely for free.

This walkthrough will focus on using a virtual machine to run and test Microsoft Edge in OS X, which at the moment is the only way to run Edge on a Mac without using Boot Camp or a complete Windows 10 installation. Eventually Microsoft Edge will be available through Azure similar to how OS X users can run Internet Explorer 11 on the Mac through Microsoft Remote Desktop, but for now the VM approach is how we’ll be running the Edge browser on a Mac. If you’ve had an IE VM before, you’ll find this is very similar, but with differing Windows and browser versions.

How to Run Microsoft Edge in Mac OS X in a Virtual Machine for Free

System requirements are light and this is widely compatible, but for better performance you’ll want a newer Mac with a lot of RAM. The first few steps involve getting VirtualBox and the appropriate MS Edge virtual machine with Windows 10, both are free downloads:

1. Get VirtualBox for free from Oracle if you haven’t done so yet and install it on the Mac
2. Head to the official Windows VM page and go to the “Mac” tab
3. Select “MSEdge for Win10” from the dropdown menus, then choose the big “Download .zip” button, the file will be somewhere around 5GB and may take a while depending on your internet connection speed
4. When the MS Edge virtual machine zip file has finished downloading (it’ll likely be in ~/Downloads/), open the zip archive in The Unarchiver* to decompress it, then double-click the extracted virtual machine disk image to open it within VirtualBox
5. At the “Appliance Settings” screen in VirtualBox, click the “Import” button to bring the Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge virtual machine into VirtualBox, this will expand to around 11GB

   6. When finished importing, you’ll be at the general VM VirtualBox Manager screen, select the “IE        11 – Win10” option from the left side (yes it says IE 11 despite being Microsoft Edge) and click           the “Start” button

     7. Wait for the Microsoft Edge Virtual Machine to load, you’ll be greeted by a thank you message          in a virtual Windows PC with the Edge browser open, you’re now ready to use Microsoft Edge            on the Mac as need be

The Mac is now running a complete version of Microsoft Edge atop a Windows virtual machine, it’s fully featured so open up the Edge browser if you haven’t done so already and access the web as usual.

The complete Microsoft Edge Developer Tools set is available as expected, which is perhaps why many Mac users will be accessing this VM to begin with.

You can quit and shut down the virtual machine at any time which requires a normal boot, or create a saved state if you wish to return to the exact place you left off in the VM.

Running a Windows VM like this has some benefits over using the Remote Desktop approach to running Internet Explorer, including offline access, but perhaps the most obvious downside is that you’ll be using more system resources and the virtual machine takes up about 11GB of disk space. But, given this is primarily aimed at developers and designers, or those who need MS Edge to access a particular web site, that shouldn’t be much of an issue, particularly when compared to the ease of running virtual machines versus dual booting with a complete Windows 10 installation aside OS X in Boot Camp.

* You are welcome to attempt to decompress the Microsoft Edge virtual machine zip file with any other extraction app, but don’t be surprised if the zip file turns into a cpgz, thus we recommend using The Unarchiver which avoids that issue. Additionally,The Unarchiver has vast compatibility for extracting archives of all sorts and makes a great addition to any Mac users app toolkit.

How to Add a Location to Pictures in Photos for Mac

The latest versions of Photos app for Mac allow users to add geographic location data to any pictures stored within the image browser. This can be helpful for organizing photos, sharing with others where a picture was taken, and for later recollection purposes too. Additionally, you can edit the location of pictures as well, so if a photo was incorrectly assigned a location, you can change that in the OS X Photos app.

You’ll need Photos for OS X running on at least OS X 10.11 or later to have the location adjustment features.

How to Add a Location to a Picture in Photos for OS X

You can add locations to single pictures or multiple images, depending on what you select in Photos app:

1. Open Photos app and double-click on the photo you wish to add a location to (alternatively, you can select multiple pictures from the Albums or Photos view if you wish to apply the location to all selected images)
2. Click on the (i) button in the Photos menu bar to bring up the image info inspector window

    3. Click in “Assign a Location” and start typing the name of the location – this uses a location    

       search based on the Maps application to find* and assign locations, so select a matching location        from the search and hit “Return” to assign that location to the picture when satisfied

Once assigned, the location data appears in the Image Information panel on a map, as you can see here with a picture from the Grand Canyon:

*At the moment there does not appear to be a way to assign locations based on maps and dropping pins alone, you must use the location search feature within Photos

Once the image has been assigned a location and saved, if you export the picture the new GPS geolocation data is stored as part of the images EXIF data, meaning you can find the exact location in Preview, another Mac with Photos, or any other image viewer capable of reading location data (which is most nowadays).

This is a nice feature if you want to selectively add locations to pictures yourself rather than having the iPhone assign them though GPS, particularly if you’re one of us whodisabled iPhone GPS automatically adding geotagged locations to photos taken with the camera, or if you manually strip out GPS EXIF data of image files, which is sometimes desirable for user privacy purposes.

How to Start Dictation by Voice Command in Mac OS X

The Dictation feature of OS X has let Mac users speak to their computers and have the speech converted accurately into text for quite some time, and now with the newest versions of OS X you can improve Dictation even further by starting the speech to text conversion with a voice command.

You can think of this as a Mac specific speech to text version of “Hey Siri” on the iPhone, except that you issue a voice command to start the Dictation speech translations rather than making requests through a virtual assistant. It works quite well, we’ll show you how to enable the feature, and how to activate it by voice.

You’ll need OS X 10.11 or later to have this option on the Mac.

Enabling Voice Activated Dictation on Mac OS X

1. Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and go to “Dictation & Speech”
2. Choose to enable Dictation by turning the feature on, then check the box or “Use Enhanced Dictation” then return to the system preference panel screen

    3. Now go to “Accessibility” and scroll through the left menu to “Dictation”.

 

    4. Check the box next to “Enable the dictation keyword phrase” and enter a phrase to have the Mac listen         for and identify to start dictation, using something obvious but unique to the experience like “Hey Mac”         or “Initiate Dictation” is probably a good idea.

   

  5. Optional but recommended, enable “Play sound when command is recognized” to give an auditory signal       that dictation is ready, and also “Mute audio output while dictating” to avoid any on computer sound or         audio from interfering

Now that both Dictation and voice activated Dictation are enabled, you can test it out just about anywhere that allows for text input, including any text editor, word processor, text input form, Spotlight, web inputs in Safari and Chrome, and more.

Initiating Dictation by Voice Command on the Mac

1. Place the Mac cursor in a text input region on screen, then use the voice command you set in the prior step, for example “Hey Mac”
2. Start using Dictation as usual after you hear the chime recognition sound. Stop speaking to finish

Very easy, and once Dictation is activated, all dictation commands work, including punctuation and line breaks.

Whether or not this is preferable or any easier than issuing a key sequence to start Dictation as you typically would in OS X depends on a variety of things, but for many users it’s great to be able to just start talking and, assuming the Mac has a text editor open, have it start recording what they’re saying, without having to interact much with the keyboard or mouse. I

By the way, as you may have noticed when enabling Enhanced Dictation, the feature also allows for offline usage which is quite handy, since the speech to text translation is handled entirely on the Mac without sending the requests to Apple servers for translation.

This is one of those features which is useful enough that you hope it spreads to the iOS platform as well, since surely many iPhone and iPad users would appreciate the same ability to start dictation with a simple voice command sequence.

How to Use Internet Explorer 11 in Mac OS X the Easy Way

Internet Explorer 11 is a Windows web browser from Microsoft, but those running OS X on a Mac can also use Internet Explorer 11 through a great free service called ModernIE from Microsoft. Being able to run Internet Explorer 11 directly on the Mac without having to access a Windows machine or boot a VM is incredibly useful for web developers and web designers in particular, but some Mac users may find it necessary to use IE 11 in order to access a particular web service or website as well.


Whatever the reason, if you want touse Internet Explorer on a Mac, we’ll show you how to do it in the easiest possible way. Yes, it’s a complete version of IE11, it’s always the latest version, and it works great.


This tip uses a free internet service from Microsoft called Modern IE, which relies on Remote Desktop to access Internet Explorer 11 from Windows but atop OS X. It’s fast, but obviously requires internet service given the reliance on remoting. If you need an offline solution, you should run IE in a virtual machine instead, which is another free approach, albeit a bit more technical.



Requirements for Running Internet Explorer 11 in Mac OS X

• Internet access, higher speed is better for performance
• Microsoft account, like @hotmail or @outlook email address, these are free and you can sign up for one here if you haven’t done so yet
• Download Remote Desktop for Mac from Microsoft from the App Store

Once you’ve met those basic requirements, the rest is really easy to setup.



How to Use Internet Explorer 11 in Mac OS X with IE Tech Preview



This will work to run IE 11 on any version of OS X that Remote Desktop is compatible with, we’re demonstrating here with OS X El Capitan but it will work with Mavericks, Yosemite, Snow Leopard, etc too.


1. Go to Modern.IE and subscribe to the service with your Microsoft account (this is free), and pick a region nearest you for the best performance – after you subscribe your Microsoft account will get an email saying “You can start using Remote IE right now!”


2. Now launch the Microsoft Remote Desktop app you downloaded a moment ago

3. Click on “Azure RemoteApp” in the Remote Desktop titlebar





4. Now log in to authenticate with your Microsoft account, accepting the invitation to use Internet Explorer





5. Under ‘Internet Explorer’, double-click on “IE Tech Preview” (or select it and click the Start button)







6. Wait a moment or two while Internet Explorer 11 loads, in a moment a new IE 11 browser window, complete with the familiar Windows UI, will appear on the Mac desktop





That’s it, you’re ready to use Internet Explorer 11 just as you would if you were running Windows natively. Yes really, this is a complete Internet Explorer web browser on your Mac. You can browse the web as usual, everything is loaded in a true Internet Explorer browser.






Always the Latest Version of Internet Explorer in OS X



The Internet Explorer 11 web browser version will update itself with updates, you do not need to do anything to update IE versions or change software. Each time you connect to the IE Tech Preview, the new version will load automatically.






Complete Access to Internet Explorer Developer Tools on the Mac



For developers and designers, running Internet Explorer 11 this way also offers complete access to the IE Developer Tools which should make it much easier to troubleshoot IE specific issues with syntax, HTML, css, Javascript, or whatever else you’re working on.





You can even launch the Web Inspector Tools in IE into a separate window, which is great for larger displays or multi-screen setups.





On subsequent launches and anytime you want to run Internet Explorer again, you just need to open the Remote Desktop app, go to the Azure section and launch the Internet Explorer Remote IE config again.


You may need to periodically renew a certificate by authenticating with the Microsoft login, but that’s about it.





For those whom were wondering how this works, it’s very similar to using VNC or Screen Sharing from Mac to Mac in OS X, you’re accessing a remote session (hosted by Microsoft in this case) except rather than accessing an entire computer, it’s just giving you the Internet Explorer web browser.





It’s fast, fluid, and pretty impressive, assuming you have reasonable broadband internet at least. So while it works great if the Mac has a reliable internet connection, it won’t work for offline situations because it’s not truly installing Internet Explorer on the Mac, and it’s not downloading Internet Explorer to the Mac either. If you need a solution that works both online and offline, then running IE in VirtualBox using a free VM is still a great solution, as it downloads IE specifically into a VM on the Mac, but for most casual users or testing purposes, it’s probably unnecessary to have a complete virtual machine when you can use this remote approach instead.

How to Hide OS X El Capitan from Mac App Store

Not all Mac users want to update to OS X El Capitan, and if you’re in the group who wants to stay put with OS X Mavericks, Yosemite*, Mountain Lion, or even Snow Leopard on their Mac, that’s perfectly OK*, you probably have a reason to stay with the earlier Mac OS X releases. But, if you’re on a prior release of OS X, anytime you open the Mac App Store and the Updates section, you’ll be presented with a large splash screen to install OS X El Capitan.

Obviously if you want to stay put and not update OS X, you don’t want a giant banner with a new version in your face, but fortunately you can hide the big splash OS X El Captain ‘free upgrade’ screen with a few simple steps:

1. Open the Mac App Store and go to the Updates tab as if you were going to install a software update
2. Right-Click (or Control+Click) on the large OS X El Capitan banner and choose “Hide Update”
3. Exit the App Store

The banner will disappear and will no longer appear at the top of the Updates section of the Mac App Store, and it’ll be ab it easier to avoid accidentally installing the upgrade if you want to avoid it for whatever reason.

If you decide you want to download OS X El Capitan on a later date, just search the App Store, or follow a link to get the installer directly from the App Store.

* For what it’s worth, updating to OS X El Capitan is really an improvement when coming from OS X Yosemite, so if you’re holding off due to issues experienced with the prior Yosemite release, consider that OS X El Capitan is undoubtedly a better experience, it runs faster, and is seemingly more stable. Basically, OS X El Capitan in its first form is a better release than OS X Yosemite was. Justifying the update from OS X Mavericks or prior is more challenging, since users have probably opted to stay with OS X Mavericks or an earlier OS X release for a particular reason, and whether or not that is addressed in OS X El Capitan will vary per user and per Mac. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve been able to install OS X El Capitan on multiple Macs without a single issue, whereas I ran into a myriad of problems with Yosemite on some Macs for no obvious reason.

OS X El Capitan Available to Download Now for All Mac Users

Apple has released OS X El Capitan as a free update to all Mac users. The new version of system software is officially versioned as OS X 10.11, and the final build number is 15A284. Users can start the download now from the App Store using the direct link below.

OS X El Capitan brings performance updates and improvements to the Mac operating system, a including a new system font, split screen view, adjustments to the Mission Control window manager, improvements to Spotlight search, and various enhancements to bundled Mac apps including Mail, Safari, Notes, Maps, Photos, and Safari. The OS X El Capitan update should offer particularly worthwhile refinements to Mac users currently running OS X Yosemite.

Any Mac that is capable of running OS X Yosemite or OS X Mavericks is supported and can run OS X El Capitan. If you haven’t done so already, it may be a good time to prepare your Mac for OS X El Capitan installation, but at the very least be sure to back up the Mac before installing any system software update.

Download OS X El Capitan

All Mac users who wish to download OS X El Capitan must do so from the Mac App Store, where it is available as a free download from Apple:

Get the final version of OS X El Capitan from the App store here

The El Capitan installer is about 6GB in size.

The installer will automatically launch itself when the download completes, and the process of updating OS X to El Capitan is a matter of following onscreen instructions.

Updating to OS X El Capitan

Be sure to start and complete backup your Mac before installing OS X El Capitan, if you haven’t setup Time Machine yet, now would be a good time to do so.

Users who wish to create a bootable USB flash drive installer of OS X El Capitanshould do so before installing the release, as the installer app will remove itself upon successful completion of the software update. Instructions on creating a bootable USB install drive for OS X El Capitan final are here. Using a bootable installer is the best way to perform a clean install of OS X El Capitan.

1. Back up the Mac if you haven’t done so yet
2. Run the “Install OS X El Capitan” installer app if it hasn’t launched itself and agree to the Terms of Service
3. Select the target hard drive to install OS X El Capitan onto, if you’re upgrading your current disk operating system you’d locate the name of the current boot drive, which is typically “Macintosh HD”, then click on “Install

Note that OS X 10.11.1 is currently available as a beta release as well for users who are participating in either the Mac developer program or public beta program. There is no known timeline for OS X 10.11.1 being released to the general public.

How to Install or Upgrade to Windows 10 on a Mac With Boot Camp

Apple now supports Windows 10 in Boot Camp. If you have Windows 7 or 8.1 installed on a Mac, you can take advantage of the free upgrade offer and get Windows 10. Just ensure you’ve updated your Apple software first.

If you’d like to perform a clean install of Windows 10, you can do that in the future after taking advantage of the free upgrade once. You’ll be able to install Windows 10 on that same Mac in the future. Or, you can install it with a new Windows 10 product key.

What You’ll Need

Before you get started, here’s what you’ll need:

• A supported Mac: In general, you’ll need a Mac made in mid 2012 or later to run Windows 10 Apple provides a list of officially supported Mac.
• Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, if you’re upgrading: If you have the original version of Windows 7 or Windows 8 installed, you can upgrade to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1 for free from within Windows. You’ll then be eligible for the free upgrade.
• A 64-bit edition of Windows: Boot Camp only supports 64-bit versions of Windows 10. If you’re installing Windows 10 from scratch, you’ll need the 64-bit edition of Windows 10. If you’re upgrading an existing Windows system, you’ll have to upgrade from the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 or 8.1. If you have a 32-bit version of Windows 7 or 8.1 installed, you’ll need to install the 32-bit version first to take advantage of the free upgrade.
• An authorized Mac or Windows 10 product key, if you’re clean-installing: If you’re installing Windows 10 for the first time, you’ll need a Windows 10 product key. if you’re installing Windows 10 on a Mac that’s already taken advantage of the Windows 10 upgrade offer, you can just install Windows 10 fresh and it will activate with Microsoft.

Prepare Your Mac’s Software

Apple recommends you have the latest software updates before doing this. To do this, boot your Mac into the OS X system, log in, and open the App Store app. Select the Updates tab and ensure you have the latest version of Mac OS X and your Mac’s firmware. Install any available updates.

Next, boot into Windows and launch the Apple Software Update application. Install any available updates from here, too.

Upgrade to Windows 10 in Boot Camp

Download the Windows 10 media creation tool from Microsoft and launch it. Select “Upgrade this PC” to upgrade your current Windows installation to Windows 10. Go through the process normally, as if you wereupgrading to Windows 10 on a typical PC.

The upgrade process registers your Mac’s hardware with Microsoft. Microsoft will register your Mac’s hardware and grant it a free license. You’ll be able to clean-install Windows 10 on that specific Mac in the future. You must perform an upgrade install to gain your free Windows 10 license before you can perform a clean install.

If your Mac reboots to Mac OS X, restart it, hold the Option key while it boots to launch the Startup Manager, and select the Windows option.

After upgrading to Windows 10, open the Apple Software Update application again and install any other available updates. Everything should work normally.

Install Windows 10 in Boot Camp

If you’ve previously upgraded to Windows 10 once, your Mac’s hardware has been registered with Microsoft and you can perform a clean-install of Windows 10 on that specific hardware. You won’t have a product key, but it will automatically activate itself. Just go through the Windows 10 installation process normally and skip entering a product key. After it’s completely installed, Windows 10 will activate itself online with Microsoft.

If you just have a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 license and you haven’t performed a Windows 10 upgrade on that particular Mac yet, you’ll need to install Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 and upgrade to Windows 10 from there. In the future, you’ll be allowed to clean-install Windows 10 on that Mac.

If you’ve purchased a new copy of Windows 10 for use on your Mac, you’ll have a product key you can enter while installing Windows 10.

Installing Windows 10 in this way is the same as installing any other version of Windows on a Mac. Use the Boot Camp wizard to create Windows 10 installation media, partition your hard drive, and start installing Windows.

You can download a Windows 10 ISO file directly from Microsoft for the Boot Camp wizard. You’ll need a legitimate Windows 10 product key or a Mac that you’ve previously upgraded to Windows 10 by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer to do this.

Drag & Drop Not Working in Mac OS X? Simple Troubleshooting Tips

Drag and drop is an essential feature on the Mac that is used frequently for interactions in the OS X Finder and throughout other applications, so obviously if drag and drop stops working seemingly out of the blue, you’ll want to resolve that fairly quickly. While this is a somewhat rare issue, a failure of drawing and dropping capabilities does happen frequently enough that we get questions about it, and it’s thereby worth covering. You’ll find that if you can’t drag and drop at all, troubleshooting the issue is the same regardless of whether you use a trackpad or mouse with a Mac, so read on to resolve the issue.

For best results you’ll probably want to try these in order, they’re arranged in order of simplicity to slightly more complex.

WAIT! First, Check the Hardware for Gunk & Grime!

Before we get started with any of the software based troubleshooting tips, check to see if there is any material, gunk, or grime buildup on the surface of the trackpad, or in the tracking surface of the mouse, and in the buttons. If there is, clean that off first, as physical obstructions can definitely cause weird behavior with input interfaces. If you’ve done that and you’re certain it’s not the cause of an inability to drag and drop, carry on with the tips below.

1: Forcibly Restart the OS X Finder

If drag and drop is failing in file system interactions, often the easiest solution is to simplyrestarting the Finder, which is quite easy:

1. Hit Command+Option+Escape to bring up the “Force Quit” menu
2. Choose “Finder” from the list and click on ‘Relaunch’ to quit and re-open the Finder app

    3. Close the Force Quit menu

Try using drag and drop again, does it work? It should work fine now, but if it doesn’t we have a few other troubleshooting trick…

2: Reboot the Computer

Rebooting often works to resolve drag and drop issues when restarting the Finder has failed. This is particularly true if you’re one of us who basically never reboots their Mac.

1. Go to the  Apple menu and choose “Restart”
2. When the Mac boots up again, try to use drag and drop as usual

Drag and drop working in Mac OS X now? Great! If not… well we have yet another solution, so fear not!

3: Trash Related plist Files & Reboot

If you have already forced the Finder to relaunch and rebooted the Mac but you’re still experiencing issues with dragging and dropping, it’s quite likely the problem comes down to a preference file. Thus, we’ll trash the preferences and start anew, which is an effective technique for troubleshooting strange behavior for a Mac mouse and trackpad, and then reboot the Mac again.

You’ll be deleting some user level preference files here, it’s a good idea to complete a back up of the Mac first just in case you break something:

1. From the OS X Finder, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up the ever useful “Go To Folder” screen, specifying ~/Library/Preferences/ as the destination and click Go
2. Locate the following plist file(s) from the user Library Preferences folder:

com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
com.apple.preference.trackpad.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist

   3. Delete those preference files and reboot the Mac again

Once again, try using drag and drop where you were experiencing the original failures in OS X, it should work just fine at this point.

Keep in mind that if you trash preference files you will lose any customizations you had set for those devices, so in this case you may lose a customization to tracking speed, force touch, mouse clicks, and whatever else you adjusted for a mouse or trackpad.

How to Log Out Another User Without Logging In On Mac OS X

For Macs who have multiple user accounts on a single computer, sometimes you may log in to multiple user accounts concurrently. This leaves the prior user account logged in while another user account session opens. There’s really nothing wrong with that, aside from reducing available resources, but sometimes you may wish to log out the other user account. The typical action to log out another user account in OS X is to switch to that account, log out from the  Apple menu, and then returning to the desired account with another login. Kind of a hassle, right? Another option is to force the other user account to log out, without having to log back into it on the Mac.

Notice we said force the other account the log out, because how this actually works is to force quit the login process of the target user. Just like force quitting elsewhere, using this to forcibly log the target user out will cause any open application on their account to quit and exit without any saving or caching, which could result in unintended data loss since none of the open files, applications, or data would be saved. If you’re comfortable with that, continue to learn how to log out another user account without having to log into that user account first. If you’re not comfortable with that, just log back into that user account and log it out manually after saving files.

How to Force Log Out User Accounts on a Mac Without Logging Into Them

This will log out any target user account in Mac OS X without having to log back into it, it works the same in all versions of OS X.

1. Launch Activity Monitor from Spotlight (Command+Spacebar) or through /Applications/Utilities/
2. From the “View” menu choose “All Processes”
3. Use the search box in the upper right corner of Activity Monitor to search for “loginwindow” – be sure to use exact syntax
4. Select the ‘loginwindow’ process belonging to the user account you wish to log out

  5 . Click the (X) Quit Process button and verify that you want to quit the loginwindow process for that    

       user, acknowledging that it will log out the related user account

  6.   Enter the admin password if requested, otherwise just choose “Force Quit” and continue, exit out of 

       Activity Monitor when finished

By force quitting the target loginwindow process you are instantly logging out that target user and killing all of their applications and processes.

Because you’re targeting the user account name with this method, there is no visual cue like a profile picture to assist identification, so be sure you’re picking the proper user account to target for the forced log out procedure. As mentioned before, it will force quit all applications and processes on the target logged in user account, which could result in unintended data loss on that user account. This makes the task generally best reserved for advanced Mac users, though it’s clearly accessible to all user accounts, assuming you have an admin password to override whoever the other logged in user account is.

If you’re wondering, you can log out any user account this way by targeting it’s accompanying “loginwindow” process ID and quitting it, whether it’s any other user account on the Mac that is logged in, a guest user account, a hidden account, or even yourself. Of course if you kill the ‘loginwindow’ process of your own user account you are effectively logging yourself out in a forcible manner, which is rarely desirable.

How to Restore a Mac from a Time Machine Backup

While Macs have a great reputation for being stable and rarely experiencing major issues, the reality is that sometimes things can go wrong. Typically this happens when either a hard drive fails or an OS X system update goes completely awry, but if you have set up Time Machine backups on the Mac like all users should, then you will discover that restoring an entire systems hard drive from that Time Machine backup is really quite easy.

To be perfectly clear, restoring Mac OS X and all of your personal stuff from a previously made Time Machine backup is really only needed in extreme situations, and fortunately this is not something that is frequently required or necessary. Nonetheless, it’s good to understand how this process works, so if you ever find yourself in a situation where you have a new hard drive (or even a new Mac), or you just need to perform a complete restore of a previous backup, this tutorial will cover that restoration process of everything with Time Machine.

Note this aims to recover and restore an entire Mac, including all files, all applications, and OS X system software, everything that is made from and contained within a Time Machine backup. If you only want or need to re-install OS X, you can use Internet Recovery for that, which will replace only the system software portion, without any personal files or applications.

Restoring and Recovering an Entire Mac System from Time Machine Backups

1. Connect the Time Machine backup drive to the Mac if you have not done so already
2. Start up or reboot the Mac and hold down the Command+R keys simultaneously, this will boot into the OS X Recovery Partition
3. At the “OS X Utilities” screen, choose “Restore from Time Machine Backup” and click on the Continue button

   4.   Select the Time Machine volume (either the external back up drive, network Time Capsule, or 

        otherwise)

   5.  Select the date and time of the Time Machine backup you wish to restore the entire Mac from, and 

       click on “Continue” – this begins the restoration process from the backup you selected, generally you’ll         want to pick the most recently made backup but advanced users may choose another date (keep in mind        if you pick an earlier date you will lose files and data created from that date onward)

   6. When Time Machine has finished restoring everything, the Mac will reboot into the restored state from          the chosen backup date

Pretty easy, right? You’ll be back on your feet in no time with this method of restoring a hard drive from Time Machine backups.

Of course it may go without saying that this requires a recent Time Machine backup to even restore the Mac from in the first place, which is why setting up Time Machine, letting it perform it’s backup routine on schedule, and ideally starting and completing manual backups before installing system updates or modifying major OS X components is so strongly recommended.

Do note that you can re-install OS X without a Time Machine backup, but you can lose personal files that way. Having frequent backups is basically essential, so if you haven’t done so yet, do yourself a favor and get Time Machine configured with your Mac, hopefully you’ll never need to use the backup service, but if you do, you’ll be happy you set it up.

Mac USB Ports Stopped Working? It’s Likely Easy to Fix

While Macs usually work flawlessly, sometimes peculiar issues pop up. One such unusual case is when the USB ports on a Mac suddenly stop working, seemingly out of the blue. While there may be several reasons (or no reason) for USB ports ceasing to function with no cause, the good news is that it’s typically a very easy fix.

First and foremost, keep in mind that sometimes a USB device itself can fail, which may have nothing to do with the Mac itself. This is particularly true with cheap low quality USB devices and cables. The easiest way to determine if the USB device itself is the problem versus the Mac USB port, is to try and use at least two different USB devices and switch their ports. If multiple USB devices are not working on a particular port, or all ports, then it’s obviously less likely to be a device issue, and more likely to be related to the Mac itself. And yes, this can apply to any and all Macs, whether a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook, iMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro.

The Solution to No-Cause Random USB Failure on a Mac: Resetting SMC

So, you’re confident a USB port is the problem and not the device itself? The first thing you should do is reset the Mac SMC, a simple process which is slightly different depending on the Mac hardware.

You can learn how to reset the SMC on all Macs here in our detailed tutorial. For those with a MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, all you need to do is this:

• Shut down the Mac and connect the power cable
• Hold down Shift+Control+Option+Power concurrently for a few seconds, when the light on the power adapter blinks or changes colors you’ll know SMC reset is complete
• Release all keys at the same time
• Boot the MacBook Pro / Air by hitting the power button as is typical

The USB ports on the MacBook should now work just fine, which you can confirm by connecting the USB device as usual and checking to be sure that it works – if it’s still not working, try another USB port, and try another USB device.

If, after an SMC reset, none of the USB ports are working, and no USB device is working, something else is likely up the Mac

Other Considerations for USB Not Working on a Mac

• If a single USB port has failed but other USB ports are continuing to work on the Mac, even after an SMC reset, there may be an issue with that specific hardware USB port – you can either avoid using that USB port and instead use a USB hub for one of the other functioning ports, or you can have Apple run a hardware diagnostics test on the machine to determine if there is any hardware failure
• If liquid has splashed on the Mac or the MacBook has contacted water, you will need to take immediate steps to power down and dry out the Mac for a chance to prevent permanent damage – liquid contact can destroy a Mac rather quickly, or damage certain hardware functionality, like USB
• If some USB devices work on the Mac, but another USB device does not work, consider that the device may be incompatible with that particular Mac, the USB device may be failing or have failed, or, in some situations, the USB device may need specific hardware drivers from the manufacturer in order to work properly (typically the case with special use devices, high-end scanners, etc)
• If there are firmware and OS X software updates available, install themonto the Mac. You can check this by going to the  Apple menu > App Store > Updates section – be sure to backup the Mac before installing any system software

Why USB may suddenly cease to work isn’t always obvious, but if all else is well and the USB failure happened out of the blue, the hardware SMC reset is almost always the solution. This exact scenario happened to me recently when I traveled with a MacBook Pro, where mysteriously many hardware functions on the Mac failed simultaneously, with all USB ports ceasing to work with any USB device, a Bluetooth Unavailable error appeared, sleep failure, and fans spinning up like a jet engine with no apparent cause – all classic symptoms of something gone haywire with the System Management Controller, all easily resolved by the reset process outlined above and here. Of course, I’m an experienced Mac user so I knew this this, but given that many other Mac users out there are less familiar, this type of troubleshooting is always worth covering and sharing.

So, if you ever encounter total USB failure on a Mac for no apparent reason, try the SMC reset, it will probably work for you too.