Apple took down that update after users said their systems became unstable and applications began crashing. As a result Apple now would rather have users update with a large 1.3GB file which they will have to manually download and apply instead of using Software Update from the Apple menu with OS X.

A second snafu came about when a security update caused problems with Rosetta, the virtual interface that runs older PowerPC applications on top of OS X made for Intel based Macs. Users can run older software that doesn’t run natively on the Intel compatible version of the Apple operating system. A second version of the security fix came out that shouldn’t break Rosetta.

Apple normally doesn’t send out updates that cause this much trouble, causing the folks at The Inquirer to speculate that Apple moved some quality control people over to the iOS. Apple released financial earnings showing that iOS provides a larger percentage of their earnings, so it would be natural that they would move people to that side of their business, the post says.

That’s highly speculative and we have no evidence this is true. One failure doesn’t make a pattern. It does mean that Apple needs watch their updates carefully if they don’t want to tarnish their previously good reputation for stability.

To get the new full 1.3GB update from Apple, download it or check out the support page with the “client combo” file.

Via The Inquirer

Apple Takes Down OSX Updates Due to Stability Issues is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

The AirPort Utility handles your Mac Wi-Fi radio. This update brings compatibility with Apple’s AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule devices all of which are networking devices produced by the company.

For all the details, check out the description of the update below the screenshot:

Use AirPort Utility to set up and manage your Wi-Fi network and AirPort base stations, including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule. See a graphical overview of your Wi-Fi network and devices. Change base station and network settings, or manage advanced features such as security modes, wireless channels, and more.

For the latest information on AirPort software, check Software Update in System Preferences or the following Apple website: Apple Support Downloads.

Learn more about Apple Wi-Fi at: http://www.apple.com/wifi/.

The Mac OS X Update brings the OS to OS X 10.7.3 and includes an update for Safari (version 5.1.3) which adds some international language support to Apple’s browser and fixes issues in the OS with smart cards, directory services and Windows file sharing. Read the description of the update below the image:

The 10.7.3 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

• Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support
• Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X
• Resolve issues authenticating with directory services
• Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5048.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Download these updates by clicking on the Apple menu and choosing Software Update.

OSX 10.7.3 Safari and AirPort Utility Updates Available is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

When copying or pasting text, most people select the text and then use the Edit menu and choose the Copy command or the Cut command. Then they move their cursor to the new place they want to place the text and again use the Edit menu to find Paste. You don’t have to do it that way. Let me show you some tips for turbocharging your Cut, Copy and Paste in some OS X apps.

These don’t work in every app. For example, a couple of these tips don’t work in Safari. They do work in the Text Edit program or in Microsoft Office applications.

The Basics

If you’re even a bit experienced in using OS X, then you can probably skip to the next section because this is for beginners.

These work in nearly all OS X applications. Instead of using the application’s Edit menu each time, try the toolbar buttons or use the right-click menu. Some apps have a button for cutting, copying and pasting on the toolbar, like Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac does (see below).

Click the scissor button to cut text. The button next to it copies text. The button with the clipboard behind the image of a document performs the paste function, but you knew this. You might not know about the right-click menu.

On a trackpad, click or tap with two fingers after selecting the text you want to cut or copy. If that doesn’t work you may need to set it up in Settings. Choose the Trackpad applet and then click the Point & Click tab. Put a check mark in Secondary Click to enable the two finger right-click. Now you can tap or click the trackpad with two fingers to bring up the right-click menu. If you don’t want to do this, then use the Control + Click combo.

The right-click menu pops up with the Cut or Copy commands at the top. You will also see that there are keyboard shortcuts. Command + X cuts the text. Command + C copies it. Cut will remove the text so you can place it in a new place, a new document or a different app. Copy leaves the text behind but lets you place a copy in the new place. Pasting is placing it in the new place. Use the edit menu, the brush button on the toolbar or the Paste command on the right-click menu. The keyboard shortcut for pasting is Command + V.

Selecting Non-contiguous Text

Let’s say you want to copy a sentence from three different paragraphs or maybe certain words in multiple sentences. You can just Copy and Paste over and over, but that gets monotonous if you have a bunch of text to copy. Instead use the Command + Select combo. You hold down the Command button while you select the text with your mouse or trackpad. Select the various sentences, phrases or words that you wish to copy or cut. After you select the text, then copy/cut the text and paste it wherever you wish.

You can use this to select words you wish to look up and create definitions for a study session. You can also cut sentences to make a study sheet. There are plenty of uses.

Select Contiguous Text

Selecting contiguous text by using the Shift key held down while dragging to select the text. You can also use the keyboard arrow keys. To select a whole line place the cursor before the text on the line and use Shift + Command + Right Arrow. Select text before your insertion point using the Left Arrow.

Select a Block of Text

It is possible that you want to select a block of text in the middle of a paragraph (see the image below).

To do this, hold down the Option key and the select the box of text with your mouse or trackpad. You might want to do this to quickly grab a bunch of random text from a document in Word. This doesn’t work in Safari for some reason.

Source: Cult of Mac

OS X Shortcuts for Cutting Copying and Pasting is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

If you’ve used DropBox or SugarSync, then you know of the beauty of putting a file in a folder on one computer and having it show up on another computer without having to do anything other than signing up for an account and installing the software. Now you can get the same functionality in Lion without installing their app or using up the limited amount of storage you have available via those services.

The magic folder resides in your hidden Library folder. You can go one of two routs – un-hide the Library folder to open up some interesting usefulness or just navigate to the folder using the Go menu in Finder. But first, let’s make sure you have iCloud files sync turned on.

Go to System Preferences and click on iCloud. Make sure there’s a check box next to Documents and Data.

Now you have a choice to make. Do you want to un-hide the Library folder? We have a How To on that you can follow. If you don’t want to bother, then open Finder and click the Go menu. Type in the following:

~/Library/

This will open the hidden folder. Find the Mobile Documents folder. If for some reason you don’t see one, you can create the special folder, but not by the traditional means of just making a new folder in Finder. You have to open an iWork app like Pages and create an iWork document. To do that just open Pages, Numbers or Keynote. Create a new document and click the Share menu and choose Share via iWork.com.

After sharing the document, the folder will be created with Apple’s magic sauce for syncing between all of your Macs.

Now, just make an Alias to that folder somewhere. I dragged the folder to the FAVORITES list along the left side of the Finder Window.

Now any file you save to that folder will automatically sync to your other Macs, if they have iCloud Documents & Data turned on in Settings. You may want to repeat these steps on other Macs to ensure they all have the folder setup and an easily accessible shortcut to it configured.

Using this solution in place of DropBox or SugarSync means you don’t get cloud based backup or web browser access to the files from another location. For quick and dirty sync of a file this works better than the woefully horrible AirDrop feature. I can see using this to quickly move a file to another computer that you don’t really need ongoing access to after your done with it.

Thanks to Apple Insider for the idea.

How To Use the Built-in DropBox-Style Sync in Mac OS X Lion is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

The number of visitors that the online advertiser sees in sites displaying their ad network ads shows that 16% of users run Lion, and that is up only 2% since the end of September. According to the figures, the increase of Lion visitors flatlined after September 25.

While I can see that this might be evidence that Lion’s upgrade numbers aren’t growing as fast as early days of the OS release, are these figures really reliable for judging how many people have upgraded, and if so is anyone surprised?

While the number of visitors to a large network of sites might show possible evidence of such a slowdown, what it really says is that the growth of the number of people who visit sites with Chikita ads while using Lion has stalled. By itself the figures do not necessarily lead to such a conclusion without more evidence. We’ll have to wait for Apple to release figures to know.

Now, let us assume the figures represent the larger install base accurately. Is anyone surprised? There are a few reasons why the increase would naturally fall off at this time of year. First, many upgrade only when buying a new computer and, since Christmas is coming, there may not be as many new computers going out the door in September, October and November. We’ll have to wait for sales figures to find out if this explains the flatlined numbers.

Second, I would bet that most operating systems see an initial surge in upgrades followed by a slowdown after the early adopters install the new version. Apple users, like most other brands, include a segment of hardcore users that will install the newest version almost no matter what. I’m one of those. At only $29 OS X was an easy upgrade for users like me who want the “latest greatest” version. Yet, a lot of users are the opposite. They won’t upgrade at all and may not even know there is a new version.

Third, a middle group of people sit on the spectrum between the tech savvy users and the uninterested, and they don’t even know Lion exists. They may realize it is there, but don’t want to bother or are afraid to install a new operating system for fear of losing their data.

“I’ll upgrade when I get a new Mac” or “I’ll do that later,” with later never coming until someone like me asks, “Want me to install Lion for you?”

Finally, the new features in Lion are not that compelling to a lot of users. I never use Launchpad and I’m are little more tech savvy than the average user. Other new toys in the OS like AirDrop, Mission Control, and updated versions of Safari, Mail, Calendar and Contacts are unnoticed. I use Chrome, Gmail (for email and contacts) and share files via DropBox and SugarSync.

I guess I’d be surprised if the number was higher than just 16% at this stage only a few months after the update was released.

Source: Techcrunch

New Lion Installations Down According to Web Stats is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

The Trojan known as Trojan-Downloader:OSX/Flashback.C was discovered by F-Secure. The malware destroys some essential files on your computer thus disabling XProtect.

The malware poses as a Flash Player installer in order to fool the user into giving their system password to install the “update” on their system.

F-secure offers a manual fix using their virus scanning software to identify the infected files. Do the following if you fear you might be infected.

Manual Removal Instructions

• Scan the whole system and take note of the detected files
• Remove the entry
  • <key>LSEnvironment</key><dict><key>DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES</key><string>%path_of_detected_file_from_step_1%</string></dict>
  • From:
    • /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info.plist
    • /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info.plist
• Delete all detected files

You can then use this guide on how to force your system to update the malware detection system to find the problem. Also see our guide to 10 Mac Virus software programs.

via TUAW

New Trojan Turns Off OS X Malware Detection is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

The new Find My Mac feature gives you the ability to locate a missing Mac computer, much like the Find My Phone feature on iOS. You can remotely lock the computer, send messages and even add a new password or wipe the data. This helps if you lose your system, much like I did recently when I accidentally left my MacBook Air at a restaurant. I was really wishing this new feature had already been released.

Find My Mac won’t work if the computer is turned off or not connected to the Internet. In my case I would not have found my Air since it stayed in the bag behind the counter at the Subway restaurant where I left it.

Back to My Mac will also now be part of the new iCloud. This feature lets you remotely log into your computer from another Mac anywhere on the Internet so long as the computer is online.

A second OS X update available now updates the Lion Recovery program, which lets you recover your system if you have a problem.

You can get both updates by running Software Update from the Apple Menu on your Mac.

In addition to these major updates, 10.7.2 primarily makes OS X compatible with all the new features related to the iOS 5 release and the iPhone 4S release coming this week. For more on these releases, please visit our sister site GottaBeMobile.com.

Below you will find the full text of the update description:

The 10.7.2 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. It also includes support for iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content on iCloud and push it to all of your devices. iCloud on OS X Lion includes the following features:

• iCloud stores your email, calendars, contacts, Safari bookmarks, and Safari Reading List and automatically pushes them to all your devices.
• Back to My Mac provides remote access to your Mac from another Mac anywhere on the Internet.
• Find My Mac helps find a missing Mac by locating it on a map and allows you to remotely lock the Mac or wipe all its data.

Getting started with iCloud is easy. After installing the update, OS X will automatically present an iCloud setup panel. Simply enter an existing Apple ID or create a new one and then follow the on-screen instructions. To learn more about iCloud visit http://www.apple.com/icloud.

 

The 10.7.2 update also includes Safari 5.1.1 as well as fixes that:

• Allow reordering of desktop spaces and full screen apps in Mission Control.
• Enable dragging files between desktop spaces and full screen apps.
• Address an issue that causes the menu bar to not appear in full screen apps.
• Improve the compatibility of Google contact syncing in Address Book.
• Address an issue that causes Keynote to become temporarily unresponsive.
• Improve VoiceOver compatibility with Launchpad.
• Address an issue that causes a delay in accessing the network after waking from sleep.
• Enable booting in to Lion Recovery from a locally attached Time Machine backup drive.
• Resolve an issue that causes screen zoom to stop working.
• Improve Active Directory integration.

For detailed information about Safari 5.1.1, please visit this website:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4922.

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4767.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 Update Brings iCloud To Your Apple Computer is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

In the past I’ve seen the list of apps and considered them to be mostly junkware. Sure, maybe one or two programs are  ones I would use, but I could get for the same price or less. However, the most recent bundle has some great programs, so I jumped at the chance to save myself some money. If you bought them all you would spend much more than the $50 the bundle costs by itself.

Let’s take a look at what you get, and how much you would pay for each app alone if you purchase it outside the bundle.

Toast Titanium 11 – $79.99

The do-it-all app for burning disks, capturing video and converting video to various formats. Toast comes from Roxio, and Windows users will recognize the manufacturer as the makers of the once great CD and DVD burning app Roxio Easy Creator.

Printopia – $19.95

Printopia brings AirPrint to users no matter what kind of printer they use, as Apple’s over-the-air printing solution only works with a handful of HP printers. Printopia works great as I found out when I reviewed the app. This app will be included only for the first 20,000 bundle buyers.

Data Rescue 3 – $99

Data Rescue 3, from Prosoft, recovers files from hard drives that are otherwise unreadable. You can use it to get those pictures or documents off a bad hard drive or flash drive. It works on internal and external drives. The light edition is also available in the Mac App Store for $59.99. It only works on non-boot and external drives.

FX Studio Pro – $39.99 in Mac App Store

FX Photo Studio Pro works with your images to make them look beautiful with lots of effects and filters. It handles both RAW and JPG files for editing and touching up pictures. You can sharpen them, or deal with shadows, highlights and color adjustments. You would pay $39.99 just for this app in the Mac App Store.

Fantastical – $19.99 in Mac App Store

Adding appointments to iCal gets easier with this Menu Bar app. It drops down and lets you type in natural language. Click the Fantastical Menu Bar button at the top of the screen and start typing something like, “have lunch with Josh at 3 PM Sept 12 at Joe’s Crab Shack” and it will add an appointment to your calendar at the right time and date with the location entered properly. In my experience it works great. You also get quick drop down access to your calendar showing a month view and list of appointments below it. The Mac App Store version costs $19.99.

iStat Menus – $16

iStat Menus quickly shows you real-time hardware data like CPU usage, disk usage, battery life, network use, disk activity, memory use, the date and the time and temperature sensor information. It stays in your Menu Bar and you can quickly view with the data via drop downs. The app lets you turn on or off the various monitors, so you don’t clutter up your OS X Menu Bar with more than you really want.

If you use this app, I recommend turning off some of the OS X Menu Bar applets and use the iStat Menu Bar applets for things like Date & Time as well as Battery. Also, to keep from overloading your Menu Bar go to the Combined item at the bottom and put most of the sensors on a combined drop down menu.

Phoneview – $19.95

Phoneview lets you backup your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad data to your Mac. The app looks like a Finder window and lets your explore the various kinds of information and data on your device. You can view the device like a regular disk, so you can easily see and copy your photos, videos or files. You can view contacts, notes, call logs, text messages, web pages, voicemail and apps. It also lets you view and back up media like music, videos, books, podcasts, ringtones, photos and voice memos.

Concealer – $19.95 in Mac App Store

Concealer hides files and info to keep them confidential using AES-256 bit encryption. The app stores secret or personal information like notes, credit card numbers and passwords. You can assign passwords to specific files or folders or you can use a master password for the entire app. You might also want to keep a private diary or journal in text files. The program will hide those too. You can find it in the Mac App Store for $19.99.

EarthDesk – $17.99 in Mac App Store

EarthDesk adds a view of the globe to your Mac OS X Desktop. It shows you a view of the earth behind your app windows. You can pick from a lot of different maps with real-time views of sunlight over half the globe or city lights at night. You can view weather patterns with cloud cover. Center the globe on your favorite city or home town. It supports multiple monitors. The app can be downloaded from the Mac App Store too.

Mellel – $28.99 in Mac App Store

We highlighted Mellel in our look at Apple’s suggested writing and blogging apps. My ministry friend who works in Hebrew a lot loves this app because it handles Hebrew fonts and reversed direction text really well. The interface is not as beautiful as some word processors, but it offers Word-like power for a Pages price.

It handles Word files well and exports to them, so you can share files with the majority of other people in the world. I used to be a Word Perfect user and it handles those files too. The app is great for long-form documents like a student dissertation or a multi-chapter book! The app comes in the Mac App Store.

Bookends – $99.99

If you are a student writing a significant paper like a dissertation or you work with works cited in an education or academic environment, then Bookends will help you organize your references. It helps with citations, annotations, and more. The app interfaces with PubMed, Amazon, Google Scholar, JSTOR, Web of Science and tons of university libraries.

You can look for keywords in your document to create cross references and make note cards, add tags and make tag clouds, and produce instant search of the document. It also automatically scans your paper and makes a bibliography and footnotes. The app costs a whopping $99.99 all by itself in the Mac App Store.

If you like the apps above and think you will save money by getting the bundle, you can order it at MacUpdate. I got mine and saved hundreds of dollars. You can download the bundle or you can just get the disk by mail for an extra fee. They will send you the registration codes via email if you download it.

MacUpdate Promo Bundle Saves You $487 on 11 Useful Apps is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

That’s where developer chaosspace stepped up and created Launchpad-Control, a simple utility that installs in your System Preferences and allows you to control which apps will be available in Launchpad and which won’t.

This free utility does what it promises without a lot of annoyances. You don’t have to look at a Menu Bar icon all the time, like most OS X utilities. It just places a new option at the bottom of the Lion System Preferences. Open it up and uncheck any app you want hidden. Hit apply and you’re done!

The simplicity of the interface makes this an easy utility to use. I tested it out by unchecking two apps I know I will never launch until I’m ready to uninstall the application they go with.

The LogMeIn utility which gives me remote access to my MacBook from another computer or my iPad runs in the background when I boot the system. I don’t need the uninstaller apps to show up in Launchpad until I want to nuke the app from my system. I unchecked them and hit apply. They disappeared.

I will probably go back and uncheck the app itself along with a bunch of others to remove clutter from Launchpad.

As you can see above the before and after shows that it works. The app is free and easy to install. Get it from chaosspace.de. If you find it useful you may wish to give the developer a donation through PayPal.

If you want to learn more about Launchpad as a Lion feature, check out my OS X Lion Launchpad verview.

Launchpad-Control Hides Program Icons from Lion’s Launchpad is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

But there are a few other cool tricks that make it even better than that. Now you can grab any corner or edge and resize the window as you would expect. However, adding some keyboard shortcuts to your mouse dragging does some cool things. Here are those keyboard shortcuts:

• Shift + Mouse Drag = Window will keep its aspect ratio while it changes sizes
• Option + Mouse Drag = Resizes the size you drag and the opposite side
• Both Shift + Option + Mouse Drag = Adds the two together

Shift and Option Keys Help Window Resizing in Lion

Below is a short video I made to demonstrate these keyboard shortcuts and also shows a cool utility called Cinch that I reviewed before.

These are nice features, but are really OS X catching up to Windows. It is too bad they didn’t go all the way so we could have all the Windows resizing tricks in Lion. Apple, please add these features. Until then get Cinch in the Mac App Store for just $6.99.

OS X Lion’s Wonderful New Window Resizing Methods is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.