Mac - page 68

Okay here’s another annoying iOS feature that Mac OS X Lion has adopted. I actually hate this one, but it isn’t the one I hate the most I’ll talk about that next week. It’s smart if you need it, but stupid if you aren’t spending all day using different special characters. If you are a developer you might not like that fact that you cannot enter multiple letter A’s etc. The title of this post is an example of a creative way to use repeating characters that Mac OS X Lion won’t allow you to do by default.

Today, I’ll show you how to fix that.

Late yesterday I reported that Parallels Desktop 7 users were experiencing a mysterious problem that required them to log into and restart their Mac notebooks twice before being able to use the Finder Desktop. Parallels has released an update that resolves this really annoying problem. So if you haven’t installed it yet launch Parallels Desktop 7 and run a Check for Updates from the Parallels apps menu. Install the update and you will be good to go – no reason to log in twice now!

Iomega’s new Helium Portable Hard Drive is a compact little brick of data storage. Encased in a hard aluminum shell, the Helium Drive is perfect for Time Machine backups or supplementing the memory of a MacBook Air.

Whatever it’s used for, the data will always be safe, even if the drive is lost or stolen. The Helium has built-in hardware encryption, which means no one can ever peek at your files. That also makes it a good place to stash files you don’t want anyone to see…

There have been a some reports that followed the release of Mac OS X Lion from iMac users complaining about graphic or video problems.

One user reports that he’s been experiencing video artifacts on his 2011 27-inch iMac configured with a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. It’s been fairly intermittent and it always disappears for a while after a restart.

Today the problem was so different and a lot worse than usual that they finally decided to call AppleCare.

Apple has included a nice app in Mac OS X Lion that you can use to gather all kinds of diagnostic information from your wireless network. The app provides really technical information about the network that most users might find puzzling perhaps that is why Apple decided to hide it. Today’s tip will show you how to uncover this handy wireless network utility.

MacBook users are reporting that they are experiencing an issue after installing full disk encryption using File Vault. The problem manifests itself by automatically restarting the MacBook after it is turned on and restarted once already forcing the user to login twice before actually reaching their desk top.

It seems that no matter where I go or who I run into one of the biggest complaints about Mac OS X Lion that I hear about is, “Where the #!@#!@# did Apple put those scroll bars?!?!?” This not so subtle change in Mac OS X Lion is driving people crazy.

So if you want your scroll bars and your sanity back pull up a chair, lean in close and I’ll tell you how to bring ’em back.

Here’s the new Blue Screen of Death in Windows 8, which Microsoft is previewing this week at its Build conference.

It’s been transformed into a sad face emoticon.

Reminds me of the old Happy Mac but, well, sadder.

Bigger version after the jump.

Via Arnold Kim’s Twitter stream.

Earlier today Microsoft released updates for the Mac versions of Office 2008 and 2011 that address some issues with security, stability, and reliability. Users of these versions of Microsoft Office should immediately update their software.

Mac OS X Lion now allows you to use Quick Look while viewing files in a stack here’s how. This is something new that earlier versions of Mac OS X didn’t support.

Apple has added a restriction to the Applications folder on your start-up disk that versions of Mac OS X didn’t have before the release of Lion. The new restriction prevents you from moving apps out of the Applications folder, but this tip will show you how to get around that.

Ever since the switch to OS X Lion, there’s been a few little tweaks in the Finder that have annoyed me. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t like change, but either way, I went about looking how to fix these problems. In this video, I’ll show you how to fix little annoyances you may have found with the Finder in OS X Lion.

Steve Jobs is NOT dead — it’s a screw-up by CBS.

The rumor — which is lighting up Twitter like crazy — was caused by an errant tweet from CBS’s “What’s Trending” feed. The tweet said:

“Reports say that Steve Jobs has passed away. Stay tuned for more updates.”

But CBS has now pulled the tweet and kinda apologized:

“Reports of Steve Job’s [sic] death completely unconfirmed.”

So, they don’t know one way or the other.

We’ve called Apple and left messages all over the PR department. The one live person we talked to said they’d get back to us shortly. But there obviously wasn’t a fire drill there, so it’s safe to assume Steve is still alive.

Today the tip is for all you neat freaks out there. I get pretty sloppy when I’m working on a project and I tend to leave a bunch of different files on my Finder desktop. I tend to gather all these up after I complete the  project and later I throw them into a folder. I used to do it the hard way, but not any more.

The Apple Store is currently down. Nothing is rumored, AFAIK, but we all know that Apple loves surprises. Let’s hope it’s something big!

Anyone got any wishes?

Thanks Steven in Settle.

Mac OS X Lion adds a new feature that helps your Mac recover from crashes or freezes. I’m not sure how well it works since my Macs don’t crash all that often, but Apple built it into Mac OS X Lion so I might as well use it.

Voice-to-text speech technology quality has improved over the years and Apple is keeping up with the technology by introducing advancements in Mac OS X to support this technology. Mac OS X Lion doesn’t offer a lot of default voice choices, but armed with this tip you’ll find out that there is lot more for your ear to hear than what your eyes can see.

We’ve seen a MacBook Air being used to cut a cake, but now the razor-thin notebook can used to process and prepare food acting like a knife to slice and dice a variety of vegetables, fruit and your favorite crustacean.

Have you ever wanted to change the default screenshot format in Mac OS X? The default PNG files can end up being huge, especially with higher resolution displays. In this video, I’ll show you how to change the format to anything you’d like, even a PDF.

Mac OS X Lion now allows you to add personalized text to your Mac lock screen. In earlier versions of Mac OS X this feature was only available through third-party apps or hacks. You can use this feature to add your contact information to the lock screen which might help you get your Mac back if you lose it.

I like the full screen mode that apps can run in on Mac OS X Lion, but if you are just now experimenting with this new feature you may feel a little lost. The reason you might feel lost is because while apps run in full screen mode a lot of navigations elements are missing. Today you’ll find out that they aren’t missing just hiding.

People can spend a lot of time surfing the web in Safari and sometimes we get to a page that we cannot read. The reasons you cannot read the page might include having misplaced your reading glasses or perhaps you just want a better look at some fine print before buying something online then this tip is for you.

Here is another good Mission Control(MC) tip for all you MC junkies out there. You can do more than just move applications between spaces. You can even drag the application and all its windows to whatever desktop space you choose in one easy step.

Parallels Desktop 7, a new version of the popular Mac virtual machine hosting software, has just been announced. It allows Mac users to run Windows, Linux, Snow Leopard Server, and now Lion (client or server). If the latter item wasn’t enough to catch your attention you’ll be pleased to know that it also ships with 90 new and enhanced features.

Writer Lisen Stromberg lives in Palo Alto, just down the street from Steve Jobs. She has an awesome and touching post about Jobs as a neighbor who waves and says hello.