28 Best apps for Mac

I recently did a reset on my Mac, and had to re-download all of my favorite Apps.  This was actually a pretty painless process, but I thought a useful post might be all the top apps for Mac I think are worth having on my machine. These arn't really in a particular order: Dropbox Google Chrome MATLAB MacTeX Latexian Mendeley...Read More

Tool of the Week: Resetting PRAM and SMC on mac

[caption id="attachment_1317" align="alignright" width="300"] I realize my battery probably is getting old...[/caption] A few weeks ago my mac started showing a "service battery warning." The charger would behave erratically, sometimes charging, sometimes not, and sometimes only showing a dim green light.  In addition, when charging sometimes my computer would seem a bit hotter than I remember it. So, before heading...Read More

Tool of the Week: Boosting Performance in Mac OSX

Most of these performance improvements are super minor, but when my system is pegged out with a hefty image processing job or particle tracking model: every little bit helps.  These are especially useful if Matlab is running slow! Also, apparently saving 5% of CPU power can increase battery life by 20-30 mins.  Here are 10 ways to boost your system performance! [caption id="attachment_1068" align="alignleft" width="300"] In...Read More

Tool of the Week: Running Multiple Instances of Matlab on Mac

[caption id="attachment_605" align="alignleft" width="249" caption="Notice There are two Matlabs Running!"][/caption] My research often involves running Matlab Code that can take hours to run. Admittedly, Matlab isn't the fastest language out there, but it has super powerful debugging tools, and image processing packages that make it really easy to use for a non-computer scientist. While matlab is running a bit of...Read More

Tool of the Week: Show hidden files in Finder

For advanced mac users, you may get frustrated when you can't find a hidden file and have to access it through the terminal.  In OS X, there's an easy workaround to change the finder's default mode to always show hidden files. Open the terminal and use this command: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES Now just restart the finder by holding...Read More