In celebration of reaching 10,000 subscribers–we’re giving away 2 iTunes gift certificates, $50 and $100. To win a certificate enter a suggestion for MacTips in the comments. Any suggestion at all. The two best suggestions win.
Today MacTips reached 10,000 subscribers for the first time, and it’s such an important milestone I wanted to take a moment and thank you–the readers.

But before I do that, I’d like to thank the writers here at MacTips. They’re the heart and soul behind the website and without them the site would not be where it is today.
So, in no particular order thanks to Omer Zach, Michael Zhao, Travis Jeffery and most recently Brandon Hopkins.
The past couple of months we’ve seen some spectacular growth here at MacTips. Below is a graph of subscribers to MacTips for all time:

As you can see things were steady for a long time. As we updated more frequently with unique content–more of you subscribed.
Another reason for this is the success of the MacTips Widget which has been hovering in Apple’s Top 50 Widgets since its release:

So from me, to you–thank you. Thanks if you’ve ever read a story. Thanks if you’ve ever linked back. Thanks if you’ve ever submitted a tip. Thanks if you’ve ever commented on a tip. Thanks if you’re reading this now.
Thank You!
I think I speak for all the writers when I say we love writing Mac tips–but it’s much more enjoyable to have an audience you can engage in conversations.
As my way of saying thank you, I’m giving away 2 iTunes gift cards, $50 and $100. I realize this isn’t a ton of money, but it’s the best I can do on a student’s salary.
To win the gift card you have to make a suggestion in the comments and leave your e-mail in the e-mail field.
The suggestion can be anything you want–anything at all.
Here are some examples (and feel free to use and expand upon these):
- I want to see more Mac tips, 1 or 2 per day is not enough!
- I want less Mac tips, a couple long tips are better than a lot of short tips
- Write less about OS X applications and more about tweaks, hacks
- The Mac Switchers page sucks, redo it.
- The forum is dead, you should find a way to make it more active
- Write more tips on X
- More advanced or beginner tips
By anything I mean anything. I really want to hear what you guys (and gals) have to say.
Anything from topics to write about to changes with the widget to a re-design of the website.
The two best suggestions win the $100 and $50 certificates.
Here’s a tip, the more constructive your suggestion the better your chance of winning.
So if you say “x sucks” I will definitely accept your criticism. But if you say “x sucks because a, b, c” you have a much better chance of winning.
Contest ends Saturday April 26th at 12PM CST. Winners are chosen by me.
And once again, thank you. We’re at the stage where things start getting really exciting. You’ve noticed we’ve started doing giveaways recently. This isn’t possible without an audience.
We’ll have many more giveaways and things like it in the future, stay tuned!
Update: Thanks everyone for the awesome suggestions. We had dozens of great ideas–many of which I’m already trying to incorporate into MacTips. I changed the rules of the contest half way through, and without telling anyone.
Because there were so many great entries, I decided to give away 5 $30 gift certificates instead of 2 larger ones. I think this is a little more fair to everyone who made suggestions.
The winners of the contest are Concetta, Daniel, PleanBean, Hayley and Carl. Everyone should have received their certificate with the exception of Carl. Unfortunately iTunes only lets you purchase 4 certificates per day–so I’ll send Carl’s out tomorrow.
Again, thanks to everyone who made suggestions–I’m very happy with the turnout.
Here’s to 20,000!
Alexandria Riley
HOPE I WIN! April 22nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
richie
Shannon Magnani
Ola
Bob P.
Hayley
empress bee (of the high sea)
smiles, bee April 23rd, 2008 at 5:55 am
Thomas
There seems to be buggy code:
http://feedvalidator.org/check?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.mactips.org%2Ffeed%2F April 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 am
Ken Grazier
Danielle
Also, I think more "intermediate" tips would be nice, at least for me. I am definitely not a beginner, and know the basic shortcuts and secrets about my mac, but I am not too into using terminal or anything yet, so more material in between would be nice. Along those lines, tips for applications that a lot of people use, Safari, Mail, iTunes, Word, Pages, etc. would be awesome.
Keep up the good work and I'll keep reading! April 23rd, 2008 at 7:39 am
Jon
Maybe develop a test that evaluates your mac proficiency and then directs you to what you still need to learn.
Separate Apps tips and Apple tips somehow. April 23rd, 2008 at 8:38 am
Dan
Jack
I think you should make more tips on Photoshop and Pixelmator, particularly those for beginners. You only have 5, and it would be nice to have some more.
Here's to the next 10,000 subscribers! April 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 am
Landon Johnson
David Iriana
Carl
Also, it would be nice to have an index at the beginning of the email as to what the content is...IE, which apps have 'tips'.
thanks...as a recent switcher, I enjoy reading your tips each day....they are fairly short emails that I can actually get to each day...thanks
Carl
Victoria, BC
Canada April 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
susannah scranton
hacking for dummies would be a great idea, if thats doable. also,more meat and potato's, let's get into the nitty gritty, get our hands a little dirty.
for instance: every week have people submit hacks, the person with the best hack gets it published on your site at the end of the week.
Just a thought... thanks again for all your hard work!! susannah April 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Steve Jones
Cary
charles goodson
Because of your tips, I have customized my Mac more than any of my friends. I have more "stickies" with reminders than I can even keep track of - Now, I just click on one link in the bookmark bar and it opens all my fave sites at once - and every morning with about 10 other sites, I get my daily dose of Mac tips.
EVERY time I find a new tip I love, I go "WHY can't Apple tell us about these ?" I guess that's the mystique of Apple and why I love it - It never gets old -
So, my suggestion for you is to keep doing EXACTLY what you're doing. You're doing a great job - oh I really loved the "video" "how to" you had on a few weeks ? or months ago that was really cool. I forgot what tip it was, but I remember you said you were trying something new with video tips - they were EXCELLENT.. for a newbie like me.... it was just the speed I needed. Maybe a color coded message at the beginning of each tip (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced" would be cool too - so you get the idea of what you're getting into. Some of the tips are very complicated for me and I'm a bit afraid to try ( like the terminal tips) not sure about doing that just yet.
Anyway...great job... keep up the work
Chuck Goodson, Southern Cali April 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Alex Hwang
1. Give more tips, but this is just be because I am a 10-year-old, so I have a lot of free time to look at the site, but I know this is tough for you guys.
2. Make the forum a little better; there are some threads that are 6 months old with no replies...
3. Write more about freeware. I mean ScreenFlow looks great, but for a person like me (who can't buy anything without his mommy's approval) or someone who just doesn't want to spend any money because they aren't really tech-savvy and want something as cool as the pricey apps.
Thanks for all of this website, and don't think I hate it because it rocks!
Alex (a little 10-year-old boy who likes iTunes) April 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Alex Hwang
For example, an easy cookie technique that when a user comes onto mactips.org, the website asks for their name. Later, when they sign on again, a popup could be displayed that says: Hi Name!
Here's the thing I'm talking about: http://w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_cookie_username
Alex(again) April 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Matt
Travis Jeffery
Mark Molchan
Craig
Michael Zhao
Willie
Stephen Fink
Concetta
I looked over the tips from this month - here's the list:
(stay tuned for comments and suggestions at the end)
23 - Hear
22 - Freedom
21 - Jaxtr
21 - Fluid
21 - Evernote
19 - iPhone slow motion
16 - Visor
16 - opening new tab in Safari
16 - Quickbook
15 - iPod serial #
15 - using Terminal to have fun
14 - Mailboxer
14 - Adium
13 - Boot Camp
12 - NetNewsWire
12 - closing tabs in Safari
11 - Omnifocus
11 - resetting he PMU on a AirBook
10 - contact actions in Mail
10 - Snapture (for iPhone)
10 - fixing Mighty Mouse
9 - NetRestore
8 - Pixelmator
8 - Ecto
8 - PhotoShop
7 - iCal events
7 - Afloat 2
5 - FF 3's Buttons
4 - Twitter clients
4 - iPhone/iPod touch backups
4 - hidden Safari keyboard shortcuts
3 - RescueTime
3 - using QuickLook with Safari
2 - SafariStand
2 - Quicksilver with Terminal
1 - Eliza
1 - MarsEdit
that's 37 tips - of those,
23 are about 3rd party apps (most of which cost money)
5 are non-computer hardware-related
5 are browser-specific (hint - not everyone uses Safari)
I'm left with these 4:
15 - using Terminal to have fun
13 - Boot Camp
10 - contact actions in Mail
7 - iCal events
None of those address interests I have (don't use Terminal, Boot Camp, or contacts)
How about a little more about our beloved computers and the astounding OS we use???
I have a gripe about some computer magazines I get.
Some consist mostly of reviews (read: ads) for 3rd party software and hardware.
I remove the 2 - 10 pages that are relevant to me (an ordinary run-of-the-mill MacUser who uses Apple apps and computers), and toss away the rest.
I don't mind some reviews ...
but it would be nice to see more about ...
Address Book, Finder, iCal, Mail, Preview, Quicktime, TextEdit, Dictionary, Stickies, Dashboard, Finder ... etc etc ...
more about the Leopard OS
Time Machine, Stacks, Quick Look, ...
and more about iLife apps
(at least iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD) April 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Brad Jasper
Concetta
to wit:
should I want to explore the category of keyboard shortcuts, I have to scroll through 105 posts to see what's available
It would be great if, when you click on a link, you see a (clickable) LIST of all the entries for that topic.
Likewise, it would be great to click on a month in the Archives, and have the same kind of list appear. April 23rd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Concetta
a) let us know which tips won the Pixelmator licenses
b) what's "wrong" with this list of MacTips writers?
Brad, Omer, Michael, Travis and Brandon
(hint: this is a woman asking this question) April 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Concetta
you said you were offering "2 iTunes gift cards, $50 and $100"
How about SIX $25 cards??
or better yet, TEN $15 cards
Hey, I'd be happy with one of those ...
AND you'd get to choose 9 other posts as winners (besides this one, of course)
Looking over the posts so far, I think choosing 10 winners would definitely be in the realm of possibility.
Oh, yeah, give the winners public recognition - list the posts, along with their "names" - who wouldn't want a minute of Mac Tip fame?? April 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Concetta
Where?
But this gives me an idea, for those who are visually oriented.
Your little calendar icon at the beginning of a tip has a green bar at the top.
How about?
green = beginner
blue = intermediate
red = advanced
purple = any level April 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Brad Jasper
I completely agree. The fact of the matter is not as many women applied last time we were hiring, so the men had a bigger pool to choose from.
Next time we hire I'll give women more of a chance to see if we can't even this out a little bit.
This is a good idea, I'm just weary of changing the contest rules after I've posted them. I'll think about it. April 24th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Daniel
Jerrett Wilson
Jeffrey
-up down arrow on the scroll bar (as well as scrolling with the up down arrows on the keyboard)
-allowing text and photos from the widget to be selected (so you can copy it without having to go to the actual website)
Keep up the great work! April 24th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Sue
Since I just found your site through the widget (about 2 weeks ago) I don't have much to add except to say that I am thoroughly enjoying the tips so far and I appreciate the time and effort you all have put into it. April 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Concetta
something like,
request: tips for downloading/saving videos
request: tips for speeding up our Macs
request: tips for making snapshots
request: tips for using/creating animated GIFs
request: tips for reclaiming hard drive space
(you get the idea)
then, readers could send in specific tips for needs others have...
having requests made would jog readers into volunteering specific info they have
and often there is more than one solution - some solutions are "better" for individuals than others, for various reasons ...
I'm sure readers would be a valuable resource for various types of solutions. Sometimes I go merrily on ways that are more difficult than easier methods I don't even know exist.
When I see an easier way to do something, saving me time/effort/resources/etc, I am grateful!!!
Often, there's more than one way to skin a Cat (Leopard, Tiger, etc ...) April 25th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Concetta
I have a couple of suggestions to "streamline" the site.
1) There are a LOT of beginners/switchers here, crying out from the depths of Mac Tips. I'm not one, but I've been one (we all have), and I feel their pain ... ;-D
Put the hack/terminal-type tips in a separate section, easily accessible to the gurus here.
BUT (important) put a short entry (with a link) in that day on the homepage announcing
**** new tip posted in Hack Section about xxxx ****
Any interested hackers could go there.
2) I don't know if this is typical, but this month about 2/3 of the tips were reviews of 3rd party software.
Maybe those reviews could be put in a separate section also.
BUT (important), as in the previous case, put a short entry in that day on the homepage (with a link) announcing
**** new tip posted in Third Party App section about XXX, software that does a killer job of xxxxx****
In addition, if there's a tip related to that 3rd party app, a homepage announcement could also be posted.
Anyone interested enough to pay for an app that does "a killer job of xxxxx" could follow the links.
Those apps could be sub-divided by topic (image-editing, video, audio, etc).
That would really simplify matters for those who are interested in finding good image-editing software, and would like reading reviews & tips for each app to decide which to purchase.
Putting in place some type of system you could devise along these lines, more advanced readers could quickly check the homepage and follow links to hacks or 3rd party apps.
What would remain in the homepage, for the most part, would be more Apple/Mac OS-specific tips, which should be of interest to general readers.
Whew! I hope some of this is comprehensible!!! :-) April 25th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Concetta
for those who don't check MacTips on a daily basis:
On the home page, in the right-hand column, you have sections for things like recent comments and discussions. Good idea!
Maybe another small section with links to "Hot Topics/Discusstions of the Month". If someone hasn't checked in for a while, they could see what the "buzz" has been in the recent past ...
Is there any way right now to do this besides scrolling through the pages of days, and checking for the "fire sign" where you show the number of comments? April 25th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
PleanBean
http://web.archive.org/web/20050803024117/http://www.mactips.org/
Nice to see you growing and improving like hell.
Theres really not that much that hasn't been said, and i think not much actually needs to be suggested, you have everything going for you..
But if i were to request one thing, i would ask for when you first look at the tips, only the title is showing, and maybe a brief description, but if you click on the title, the rest of the tip unfolds and you can read the whole thing if your interested, and when your done reading you can click on the title again and it will minimize.
Another thing you could do is change the Categories, and have broader categories instead of, for example, having a category specifically for "Photoshop", you could broaden it to be an "Images" category, and an "Internet Browser" category, instead of "Safari", "Camino", and "Omniweb" (which each contain some tips of each other's categories).
Also, i suggest you have an option for Advanced Search, so you can search by date, author, etc.
Thanks for listening! :D April 25th, 2008 at 10:26 pm