Apple Archives

How to start Mac OS X Yosemite in Safe Mode

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Hold down SHIFT during normal boot, until the loading bar appears. It will take longer than usual to start the system. Some services are not available. Safe Mode will clear several caches and verify the startup disks. From the command line, or on remote systems, boot into Safe Mode using this: sudo nvram boot-args=”-x” When … Read more

How to install Java SE 6 Runtime on Mac OS X Yosemite

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When you’re trying to open any of the Adobe CS5 or CS6 applications in Yosemite, you’ve likely encountered a friendly message such as this: This happens because CS5 and CS6 applications were relying on Java 6, and the current version at the time of writing is Java 8. I’m not an expert on Java, but … Read more

How to change the screen resolution on Remote Macs

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It’s easy to remote control your Mac, no matter if it’s hosted in a data centre far away, or if it sits in your bookshelf across the room. But when you do, you’ll notice that the screen resolution is often not what you’d expect on the monitor you control your Mac from. This is a bit … Read more

How to reduce the Progress Bar in Yosemite

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A new “improvement” in Yosemite is the progress bar that comes up when you start your machine. What you Mac does under the hood hasn’t really changed from Mavericks, but the progress bar implies that a long running operating is happening the background. It can look grey with a black background, or dark grey with … Read more

How to test the RAM in your Mac

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Every Mac has an integrated hardware test called – not surprisingly – Apple Hardware Test. When you get a new device, or if you’ve recently upgraded your memory, it’s worth checking if everything is working as expected. Otherwise you may encounter weirdo bugs sometimes down the line. To start the test, simply shutdown your Mac, … Read more

How to launch Mac Apps on your External Display by default

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Screen Shot 2014-11-25 at 13.53.03

Even on the best computers there are some things you only do every once in a blue moon – at which point you’ve forgotten what you did last time to make it work. Setting up a second display with your MacBook is such a case. Here’s what worked for me when I installed my Thunderbolt Display last year. We’ve just added another one in our office – here’s to doing it again in the future.

When you plug that beautiful 27″ puppy into your MacBook Pro or Air it works without any trouble: the dock is at the bottom of both displays, and even the menu bar seems to follow you onto whichever monitor you click. Magic!

Apps however remember which monitor they were launched on last, and if you’ve never had a second display attached to your system then most of them will default to that little laptop screen instead of your new desktop centre piece. This is not an issue if you simply close the lid on your laptop because your graphics card only sees a single display.

If you do use both displays though, there is a way to tell your Mac which one to launch an app on by default. And here’s how to do that:

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