When using an application on a Mac it may become unresponsive and become frozen. When an application is in this state you are normally not able to interact with the program or close it normally via the Quit menu option. When this occurs the only way to close the program is to use Force Quit, which will forcefully close the programs. This tutorial will walk you through terminating an unresponsive program on your Mac.

In order to keep your Mac secure and operating efficiently it is important that you always install software updates as they become available. These updates not only fix problems with applications and the operating system, but also fix security vulnerabilities that can be used by computer viruses to infect your computer. Unfortunately, many people feel that because they are using a Mac they are much more secure and thus may not be as diligent in updating their software as they would on a Windows machine where viruses are much more common. The reality, though, is that any operating system, regardless of who makes it, constantly introduces security vulnerabilities that need to be fixed. Therefore, it is important to remember that though you may be using a Mac, even they are vulnerable to computer infections as shown by the recent Backdoor.Flashback Trojan.

A file extension, or file name extension, is the letters immediately shown after the last period in a file name. For example, the file extension.txt has an extension of .txt. This extension allows the operating system to know what type of file it is and what program to run when you double-click on it. There are no particular rules regarding how an extension should be formatted other than it must begin with a period and have at least one character after it. For the most part, file extensions consist of three characters, which are typically letters or digits, that textually represent the type of file it is. Some examples of file extensions include .txt, .mp3, .jpg, and .gz, which represent text files, mp3 files, jpeg image files, and files compressed with the gzip program. As you can see, the actual extension name gives clues as to the type of file it is.

Any files that start with a period on a Mac are considered hidden files in the Mac OS and are not visible from within the Finder. You can see these hidden files from within the Terminal utility by using the ls -a command, but that is not convenient when you wish to see all files on your computer through the Finder. This tutorial will describe how to make it so that all files on your Mac are visible from within the Finder.

When you double-click a file on your Mac, the operating system will automatically open the file using the program assigned to that type of file. It is possible, though, to open the file using another program if you wish. To open a file on your Mac using a different program, navigate to the file you wish to open and right-click on it to see the file menu as shown below.

In the Mac OS it is possible to change the default program the operating system will use to open a file when you double-click on it. After you have changed this file association, though, you may want to reset this file association back to the default program that Mac OS was configured with when it was installed. This tutorial will explain how to restore your default file associations in Mac OS.

The default setting for Mac OS is to not display a file's extension. For those who want to view the full filename, rather than having the extension removed automatically , this tutorial will provide information on how to make it so you view the extensions for all files on your computer or for just an individual one.

A nice feature of the iPad is its ability to also become a digital picture when it is locked. Due to the sharp and vibrant screen of the iPad this feature will turn the iPad into one of the nicest digital picture frames that I have ever seen. While the picture frame is active, the iPad will scroll through the available pictures and, by default, display them randomly.

When you set up your iPad, iPhone, iTouch, or iPod for the first time, you assign it a name. In the future, if you give the device to someone else or you just do not like the name anymore, you may want to change that name to something else.

At the bottom of your iPhone or iPad screen are a series of icons that appear on every screen you switch to. This is consider the dock and can be used to hold your most used applications so that they are easily accessible from every screen. There is a limitation, though, as to how many icons you can dock at the bottom of the screen without using special apps. For the iPad you can dock 6 icons, while for the iPhone and iTouch you can dock 4 icons. This guide will explain how to remove and add icons to the dock so that they are accessible from every screen you are viewing.