Does your laptop seem to die faster than it used to? It probably does. Laptop batteries lose capacity over time. Download coconutBattery, a free utility, to reveal some important details about your laptop battery’s health. Apple says their batteries are designed to retain up to 80% of original capacity after 300 full charges. You can […]

Here is a fun trick to try in your favorite web browser. Paste the following snippet of javascript code into the address bar where you normally type a web address:

This tiny script tells your web browser window to jump to 800×600 pixels in size. A handy shortcut for web designers proofing sites. Here are a collection of resize links based on that simple javascript code:

Resize Link: 640×480
Resize Link: 800×600
Resize Link: 1024×768
Resize Link: Full Screen

You can save these links as Bookmarklets — small javascripts saved as normal bookmarks — to easily resize your browser windows on the fly.

In the rest of this tip we’ll walk you through adding Bookmarklets in Safari.

Here is a technique I use every week while proofreading final drafts of this tips newsletter. When you need to proof your final documents or important email, have your computer read the text out loud to you and listen for mistakes. You’ll catch errors you might otherwise miss.

In many OS X applications, you can highlight your text and choose [Application] > Services > Speech > Start Speaking Text (if you are using Mail for example, look under the Mail menu next to your Apple menu).

As with last week’s tip, this trick only works in Cocoa apps. If you are using an Adobe or Microsoft program where this doesn’t work, just paste the text into a new TextEdit document and have your Mac read from there.

It’s always fun to stumble across a little-known feature that’s been around for years. When you’re typing text in many OS X applications (Safari, TextEdit, Mail, etc), you can press ESC (F5 also works) for an pop-up list with words from the built in OS X dictionary. Note: This trick only works in Cocoa apps. […]

Three months ago we published two Photoshop actions we developed to clean up shadows in Leopard screenshots when using the command-shift-4 plus spacebar screen capture technique. We received a number of thank-you emails, so those tips must have touched a nerve for some people out there. This week’s tip covers a different way to remove […]

Here is the easiest ways to remove System Preference Panes you’ve added over time and no longer need. Simply control-click, or right-click, on a preference icon in the Others section of your System Preferences (the Other section contains the custom preferences installed by users). A pop-up menu lets you remove the selected preference pane. This […]