Tricks

Reclaim your productivity from distractions with Focus for Mac

If you're like me, then you probably have a hard time focusing on what needs to be done and you often multitask with fun activities when you should be focusing on homework or work. For example, instead of writing those essays due for your next class or finishing work, you might be playing around on Facebook with your friends or watching YouTube videos.

If you're the unproductive or procrastinating type, then a useful OS X app called Focus could be just what you need to stop getting distracted by social media and other fun websites.

Focus will help ensure that you only stick to the task at hand when you need to work or complete homework, and in this piece, we'll show you how it works.

Troubleshooting common software issues on Mac

It happens to the best of us – one day you're using an app that you really enjoy on your Mac, and the next, you start experiencing all kinds of problems with the same app. What's going on? Will it ever end?

Before you go calling support to resolve a problem for you, there are some easy troubleshooting steps you can take in macOS to quickly determine if the problem is going to require help or not.

We'll go through some of those troubleshooting steps with you right here in this tutorial.

Why and how to stress test your Mac fans and CPU

How to stress test Mac CPU and fan

As rare as it may be, your processor or CPU cooling fans can fail, and there is a really easy way to test your Mac's hardware with the Terminal app that comes with macOS to ensure everything is working right.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to stress test your Mac using Terminal so you can ensure all your processor's cores are working up to snuff and your cooling fans aren't grinding or failing to cool your Mac as they should.

How to install emulators on your iPhone or iPad, no jailbreak required

Emulators are a way to play your favorite childhood games on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad without carrying the game disks or cartridges and game consoles around with you. Instead, they sideload the games on your device as a piece of software, and they're given controls that are adapted for the touch screen.

In this tutorial, we'll be showing you a method that still works to this day for getting emulators on your iOS device, and the best part is, you don't even have to be jailbroken to do any of it.

How to save videos from your Facebook News Feed

It's super easy to save photos that have been shared on Facebook to your computer, but for whatever reason, Facebook seems to be lacking the ability to save videos that are shared by your friends and appear in your News Feed.

Despite the common misconception that you need a fancy web browser plugin or third-party software to download videos from your Facebook News Feed, this simply isn't the case. In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll show you how you can save videos from Facebook that appear in your News Feed to your computer.

Office Lens converts scanned paper documents to editable Word files

For those of you that still use hard copies for all your important documents, or have physical business cards, photographs, whiteboards, and other important information that are looking for a way to digitize it and even modify it after the fact, Microsoft's Office Lens app will be your best friend.

Office Lens, which is a free download from the App Store, allows you to scan these kinds of information and media and can create software versions of them to make sharing and editing easier so you can get rid of the filing cabinet taking up space in your home or office.

In this tutorial, we'll give you some background on the app and show you how you can use it to scan and then edit documents in Word.