Articles by Matt Cone
Matt Cone is a technical writer at Fastly. He has experience creating documentation for organizations like Linode and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Matt’s first book, Master Your Mac, was published by No Starch Press. To get in touch with Matt, visit https://www.mattcone.com.
How to Stream Movies from Mac to Roku
December 7, 2011
The Roku video player is a tiny box that connects to your television and allows you to stream video content from the Internet. It’s one of Apple TV’s direct competitors, but with an entry-level model starting at $49.99, it costs only half as much. Purchasing a Roku is a great way to stream Netflix, Hulu, and video content from dozens of other providers to your television. It’s also a popular choice among Mac users.
How to Install Ubuntu 11.10 Using VMware Fusion
December 2, 2011
Everyone is talking about Ubuntu, the popular open-source operating system that’s easy to install and use. Trying out this Linux distribution on your Mac is easy. With an application called VMware Fusion, you can create a “computer within a computer” and run Ubuntu in a virtual machine on your Mac. Here’s how to install Ubuntu 11.10 in OS X using VMware Fusion: Download Ubuntu 11.10 from the Ubuntu website. It’s a free download.
How to Remember Birthdays with Your Mac
December 1, 2011
If you dread remembering birthdays like we do, you’ll be happy to know that you can use Address Book and iCal to store birthdays for all of your contacts and display an alert on the screen when one rolls around. After you follow these instructions and set the whole thing up, the entire process will be automated. All you’ll have to do is enter your contact’s birthdays! The bad news is that you’ll no longer have an excuse for not sending birthday cards.
How to Burn an ISO Disc Image on Your Mac
November 28, 2011
Many operating systems and software applications - like Ubuntu Linux and the Windows 8 Developer Preview - are available for download as ISO images. You know you’re dealing with one of these archives when you see the .iso file extension. ISO images can be burned to CD or DVD for use on other computers or sharing with others. You can also use ISO images with virtualization applications like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
Steve Wozniak Interview
November 28, 2011
Editor’s Note: This “interview” was actually a series of questions that I emailed to Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, on December 31, 1999. While the rest of the world was ringing in the New Year or worrying about Y2K, Woz was typing up his responses. He responded about two hours after I emailed him! If the questions seem a little odd, that’s because they are. I was a junior in high school at the time, and I had no idea how to conduct an interview, let alone what to ask one of the greats of the computing era.
How to Run Windows on Your Mac with VMware Fusion
January 22, 2008
It’s an exciting time to be a Mac user. Everyone knows that we get to use Mac OS X Leopard, the world’s most advanced operating system. And now, if you have an Intel-based Mac and an application called VMware Fusion, you also have the option of using the world’s second and third and fourth best operating systems! Yes, we’re talking about Microsoft Windows, the operating system that the rest of the world has the misfortune privilege of using.
Block Internet Ads with Safari AdBlock
December 13, 2007
It seems we here at Macinstruct discuss blocking pesky Internet ads at least every couple months. There’s a good reason for our ad-blocking articles: Advertising is more distracting and pervasive than ever before. Flashing banners and animated graphics can prevent you from focusing on what’s really important – the content. Fortunately, there are ways to block the nasties. Several months ago, we talked about how to use Privoxy to block ads.
How to Change Your Mac's Icons
November 30, 2007
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: One of the best things about Macs are the icons. There are dozens of icons that come pre-installed on your Mac, and there are literally thousands more available for free on the Internet. Collectively, these little pieces of artwork put a human face on (let’s be honest here) the inhuman and somewhat foreign machine that is your Mac. Fortunately, you too can install beautiful icons by simply downloading and installing CandyBar ($29) or LiteIcon (free), two applications that allow you to replace your Mac’s default icons with custom icons.
7 Little Leopard Niceties
November 27, 2007
Much has been made of Mac OS X Leopard and its major new features. In fact, if you know anything at all about Apple’s new operating system, you can probably name most of the big changes. Time Machine, Spaces, Stacks, and Cover Flow in the Finder are but a few of the major features. (We even covered these in our Mac OS X Leopard introduction article.) But what about everything else?
How to Get Rid of Favorite Styles in TextEdit
October 5, 2007
We’ve used TextEdit since it was first released for all of our word processing and find it does almost everything we need. Recently, we decided it was time to modify or delete some of the early Favorite Styles we no longer needed or wanted to re-title to something more descriptive. We tried everything from deleting our TextEdit plist file to reinstalling TextEdit but we were still stuck with the same styles we created earlier and wanted to eliminate.