To celebrate Boxing Day I’d like to offer one final gift for 2012. And that gift is a roundup of what I believe were the best Mac 911 entries from the past year. My hope is that it will help you solve those annoying issues that have plagued you over past months and help you start 2013 with a healthier and happier Mac.
We began the year by explaining how to reset a forgotten administrator’s password under Lion. (The technique works with Mountain Lion as well.)
Reader Ted Adams was uninterested in some of the Apple-installed applications that shipped with OS X and wanted to delete them. I showed him how in Deleting Files Within Lion’s Applications Folder. (Again, works with Mountain Lion.)
Now that we’ve learned just how sprightly an SSD can be, many people are interesting in Keeping Mac OS and Data on Separate Drives.
Security is just as important now as it was on March 28, 2012 when I explained to Steve Carter How to Securely Delete Files from his Mac.
Although it’s 2012 (and very nearly 2013), a fair number of Mac users cling to AppleWorks. Ted Landau offered advice for Opening (Very) Old AppleWorks and Word Documents for just these people.
I admit it, I’ve grown quite fond of Automator. During 2012, among other things, I used it to Automatically Encrypt Files For My Google Drive (and other online storage services).
Reader Matthew Hansman was having a heck of a time with iCloud on his MacBook Pro—the service simply could not be automatically configured. I showed him how to Manually Configure an iCloud Email Account.
Some of you are more than a little frustrated that your Macs don’t support AirPlay mirroring. In July I told you about an alternative.
While iOS devices are far more closed than the Mac OS, they’re not quite as closed as some think, as I explain in How To Extract Voice and Text Messages From an iPhone.
If you received an Apple TV for the holidays, you’ll likely be interesting in Limiting your Apple Remote, as were our readers in October.
And finally, we’ll end with something that I hope serves you well for the next 11 months—How to Exclude Holiday Tracks From Genius Playlists.