When faced with disk corruption on his MacBook Pro’s SSD, Marshall Clow spent several days working through different possibilities for repairing the problem and recovering files that had changed since his last backup, all made more difficult by the lack of a SuperDrive. Read on for the details, and the lessons that we should all remember.
Apple says Lion will be available only as a download from the Mac App Store. That leaves a lot of questions unanswered about installation for those who don’t have Snow Leopard installed or lack a high-speed Internet connection. Plus, what about reinstalling in case of problems?
Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Speeding Up Your Mac” completes his Mac Fitness Trilogy with a comprehensive collection of tested tweaks and tips to get your Mac firing fast on all cores — and if slow performance is not your Mac’s only problem, Joe’s just-released “Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition” provides helpful diagnostic and repair techniques. Finally, “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition” helps you keep problems from happening in the first place.
The iMac has two vertical slots in the right side, one for the SuperDrive and one for the SD card reader. What happens when you accidentally miss the SDXC slot and insert an SD card into the SuperDrive? William Porter admits to making the mistake (and explains how he recovered from it) and suggests that a small design change could reduce the frequency of this common error.
In an unannounced change in Mac OS X 10.6.7, Apple changed the way you remove items from the Finder sidebar. Read on for Apple’s new approach.
Other World Computing has a new blog post explaining that the new 2011 iMacs now rely on a 7-wire SATA power connector and Apple proprietary firmware on the main hard drive to monitor temperature. Remove or replace it, and the iMac’s fans run at full speed all the time. Boo on Apple for preventing owners from replacing the drive with one from any third-party vendor.
Faced with a dead Mac Pro and a flashing power LED, Adam determines that he needs to reseat the memory in his Mac. But when a simple reseating doesn’t work, he has to go further to solve the problem.
Over a month after Mac OS X 10.6.7 shipped, Apple has released the Snow Leopard Font Update to resolve the significant font-related troubles caused by 10.6.7.
After releasing an update to “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition,” Joe Kissell joins host Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl Live radio show to discuss his recommendations for keeping your Mac running smoothly.
Disappointed by the loss of Google’s Browse By Name capability in Firefox 4, Adam set out to re-enable it. Along the way, he figured out how to add Browse By Name to Google Chrome and Safari 5 as well. Read on for instructions!
Just over two weeks after the release of iOS 4.3, Apple has pushed out iOS 4.3.1 to fix some important bugs.
The recent Mac OS X 10.6.7 update is causing problems for some Mac users who rely on OpenType PostScript fonts. If you’re experiencing problems, the best workaround is to downgrade to 10.6.6, and if you haven’t yet upgraded and rely on specific OpenType PostScript fonts, hold off on 10.6.7 for now.
The new MobileMe Calendar will cease to be optional as of 5 May 2011, when calendar syncing among MobileMe-connected devices will stop working for everyone who has not yet upgraded. Read on for things to beware of when upgrading.
Consultants and support techs looking for a conference that’s aimed as much at the business of helping people as the knowledge necessary to do so will be pleased to hear that there are now additional locations and dates for the MacTech Boot Camp.
Encrypting an entire hard drive is a great way to protect your data, but as users of PGP WDE learned when they upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.5, whole disk encryption also brings its own risks.