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Skype’s iPad and Mac apps now support new multitasking features in iOS 9 and El Capitan

Microsoft-owned Skype for iPad was refreshed in the App Store earlier this morning with support for new multitasking features provided by iOS 9. It's now easier to chat with friends on Skype while surfing the web, reading your email or running other apps in side-by-side Split View multitasking mode (requires iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 4).

In addition to Split View, Skype for iPad also supports Slide Over mode. Both instant messaging and voice calling are supported in Split View and Slide Over.

El Capitan’s Boot Camp has USB drive-less Windows setup, but not all Macs are supported

Boot Camp, the Mac's built-in software for dual-booting between OS X and Windows has been given some love in the new El Capitan software update and now features a slicker Windows setup that no longer requires a USB thumb drive, as discovered by Twocanoes.

Previously, Boot Camp required that the Windows installer be provided in the form of a USB drive or CD/DVD installation media. Now you can just point to an .ISO file, which significantly shortens the entire procedure for those who have purchased Windows as a digital download.

Quick roundup of major El Capitan features

El Capitan is here and with it arrive tons of under-the-hood improvements that will make your Mac run faster and your daily computing smoother than before. Even though El Capitan is a Snow Leopard-style release focused on speed and core OS improvements, it nonetheless packs a pretty punch when it comes to user-facing features.

From a more streamlined Mission Control and a smarter Spotlight Search to more efficient multitasking in Split View mode and an all-new Notes to perfected stock apps and iOS-style gestures in Mail, El Capitan is about refinements to the already great Mac user experience and little things that are worth getting excited about.

Here's a short overview of major new features in El Capitan.

Apple brings some El Capitan features to Yosemite and Mavericks users with Safari 9.0 update

In addition to releasing the major OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update for the Mac, Apple has also posted a Safari update for Yosemite and Mavericks users. In addition to improving your privacy, compatibility and security, the Safari 9.0 update for Yosemite and Mavericks systems includes some controls found in the El Capitan edition of Apple's web browser.

These mainly include the ability to mute audio in tabs and additional viewing options in Safari Reader, but not the new Pinned Sites feature.

How to upgrade to OS X El Capitan

Now that OS X El Capitan is officially out, it's time to update. First, though, make sure you read our post on how to prepare for OS X El Capitan. It covers basic information, such as using Time Machine to backup your data.

Once you do that, it's time to download OS X El Capitan. You can do that from the Mac App Store, and like past OS X updates, it's totally free. Fire up the Mac App Store, and get to downloading!

OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update is now available for your Mac, get downloading

Keeping true to its promise, Apple today launched the OS X 10.11 El Capitan software update for the Mac. El Capitan has the same system requirements as Yosemite, meaning it should run on any Mac introduced in 2009 and later, and some models introduced in 2007 and 2008.

The software update offers several new headline features while packing in a bunch of under-the-hood refinements designed to make your Mac run faster and more efficiently than before.

If you don't see the update in the Mac App Store's Updates tab yet, give it a while as these things take time to propagate through the Interwebs. By the way, you can manually run a search for 'El Capitan' in the Mac App Store and install it from there.

Reeder 3 now available in the Mac App Store

Reeder, Silvio Rizzi's well-regarded RSS feed reading app, just received a major update for Mac, and is now available for purchase on the Mac App Store.

Reeder, which first made waves on iOS, has been a Mac App Store staple for quite some time now. The latest version, Reeder 3, is priced at $9.99, but it's a free update for Reeder 2 users.

I've been testing out Reeder 3 in beta for a few months, and I can assure you that it lives up to the hype. If you're still into RSS feeds in 2015, then there is perhaps no better app for the task than Reeder 3.

Fantastical 2 for OS X gains El Capitan support with split-screen multitasking and more

Developer Flexibits today rolled out an update to Fantastical for Mac, its reminder and calendar replacement available on both iOS and OS X.

Fantastical 2.1, the first major update to the Mac edition, features full support for Macs running OS X El Capitan ahead of its release next week, including support for El Capitan's split-screen multitasking.

A host of other changes and improvements have found their way into this release of Fantastical, such as swiping to delete events on El Capitan systems.

People on Yosemite and earlier versions can now scroll to a specific day or week in the Week and Month views with a trackpad and organize Reminders by list, but that's just tip of the iceberg.

Review: Mia for Gmail is the perfect replacement for Google Notifier

If you need a fast and lightweight email client for Gmail without the bells and whistles (and bloat) of Apple Mail, you should give Mia for Gmail a whirl. Mia is a minimalist desktop email client for OS X by Stéphane Quéraud.

As opposed to copious minimalist Gmail clients that however wrap the web interface inside native OS X code, Mia provides the full native experience and sits right in your Mac's menu bar rather than run in Safari or Google Chrome.

In addition to showing you most recent emails, Mia allows you to compose new messages and jump through all your inboxes with unbelievable quickness. All in all, it's the perfect replacement for Google's defunct Gmail Notifier app.

How to start up your Mac from a bootable CD/DVD, USB thumb drive or external storage device

macOS can start up your Mac in a myriad of ways. We've already covered some of them in detail, such as using built-in Startup Manager to pick a disk to startup your Mac from and booting into Safe, Verbose and Target Disk modes.

In this article, we get to talk about starting your Mac up from external storage like optical media or an external USB-based hard drive or flash storage. Booting from an external storage allows you to start up your Mac in another version or copy of macOS, Additionally, it can help you troubleshoot certain issues, and more.

How to create a USB install disk for OS X El Capitan the right way

Now that the final GM version of OS X El Capitan is released, it's time to revisit how to create a USB install disk. Chances are high this GM seed will be the same version of OS X that ships later this month on September 30th.

Not only is the OS X 10.11 GM available to registered Apple developers, but it's also available via Apple's public beta program. With this in mind, you may now deem it the appropriate time to take the plunge, if you already haven't thus far.

In this post, we'll show you how incredibly simple it is to create an OS X El Capitan USB install disk from scratch. All you need is a USB disk with at least 8GB of storage space.