It’s easy to be distracted by other open applications and windows while using a computer, and sometimes even the best of us need a bit of help to focus. Lion’s full screen mode can be helpful, but when that’s not enough or when you need access to other windows and apps, then Isolator is your friend.

Isolator is a free application that provides an easy way to focus on a single application at a time by applying various filters to everything in the background, these are fully customizable and even if you aren’t interested in the focus and productivity side of things, can make for a nice way to customize the appearance of Mac OS X.

• Download Isolator for free from willmore.eu

You can choose to tint the background, blur it, use a bloom effect, turn it into crystals, or make the background black and white while everything else is colorful. Both the tint opacity and filter strength are adjustable by a slider, leading to plenty of customization options. Screenshots and a video of some of these effects and filters are shown below.
Read more »

The OS X 10.7.3 update brought with it a variety of subtle changes, including a minor adjustment to how the Launchpad background image style is switched. In previous Mac OS X versions, Command+B would switch between the background effect styles, but this is now achieved with Control+Option+Command+B.

Try it yourself by opening Launchpad and then hitting the Control+Option+Command+B keys to alternate between backgrounds with blur, unblurred, black and white, and blurred black and white. You can see samples of these background style effects below.

Read more »

SHA hashing is frequently used with distribution control systems to determine revisions and to check data integrity by detecting file corruption or tampering. For common usage, a SHA checksum provides a string that can be used to verify a file been transferred as intended. If SHA checksums match, the files integrity has been maintained.

This tutorial will show you how to check the sha1 checksum of a file on the Mac, but it works the same in Linux too.

Read more »

Did you know the split iPad keyboard in iOS includes six hidden ‘phantom’ keys that make typing even easier?

Read more »

If you have tried to delete Safari, Mail, FaceTime, Chess, Photo Booth, Stickies, QuickTime, or any of the other default Mac OS X apps before, you’ll know the Finder prevents you from doing so. Try to move one of these apps to the trash to uninstall it and you’ll get a message saying: ‘”Safari.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.’

Read more »

For those of us up north battling the cold winter, this Mac setup at sunset is sure to inspire some envy. Reader Pavel G is spending his winter in balmy Goa, India, and set up a desk on the rooftop of a house near the beach. Here’s the hardware he’s using to be productive while beachside in the sunny tropics:

• MacBook Pro 15″
• iPhone 4
• Magic Trackpad
• German Maestro headphones

We post a lot of Mac setups with tons of fancy desks and great hardware, but some of my favorites are these untraditional workstations, ranging from tents in Australia, to boats in Germany, or motorcycles in the middle of the American southwest. Keep ’em coming!

Thanks to Pavel for sending this in! Submit your own Mac setups to osxdailycom@gmail.com

Apple looks to have quietly updated the troubled Mac OS X 10.7.3 Updater, first noticed by several of our readers and confirmed by OSXDaily. No official change was announced and there is no revised version number provided by Apple’s Support page, but presumably the new build addresses any potential installation problems or CUI errors that occurred for some users with the original release of OS X 10.7.3 earlier this week.

The original OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater .dmg has the SHA1 checksum of: 07dfce300f6801eb63d9ac13e0bec84e1862a16c

The revised OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater .dmg has a SHA1 checksum of: b8322dbd1f7b55bf35aac4122ad2204c51307793

Apple has updated the SHA1 on the combo updaters support page to reflect the change, and they are also now redirecting download links from the original OS X 10.7.3 Client Updater to the revised OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater.

The file size of the new update is also slightly larger, as shown by apprentice who compared the two in our comments (old version first, revised version second):

SHA1= 07dfce300f6801eb63d9ac13e0bec84e1862a16c
Version: 10.7.3
Post Date: February 01, 2012
Download ID: DL1484
License: Update
File Size: 1.2 GB

SHA1= b8322dbd1f7b55bf35aac4122ad2204c51307793
Version: 10.7.3
Post Date: February 01, 2012
Download ID: DL1484
License: Update
File Size: 1.26 GB

OS X 10.7.3 Build 11D50b vs 11D50
There are also mixed reports that installing from the new Combo Updater changes the OS X 10.7.3 build number fro 11D50 to 11D50b on some Macs. This does not appear to be the case on all Macs though, and some retain the 11D50 build even when the new update has been used, suggesting the original installation issues and CUI errors may have only impacted certain Mac models to begin with.

If you updated to 10.7.3 without any problems, you likely do not need to download the new version. If you held off on the OS X 10.7.3 Update due to the reported problems, you are probably safe to update now, although you should perform a Time Machine backup before proceeding just in case.

Thanks to all who sent this in

Apple has released an updated version of Security Update 2012-001 to v1.1, which resolves the Rosetta issues in the first release that caused many PPC based applications to either crash or not run at all. If you have been experiencing problems with apps like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Quicken, crashing after installing the security update, downloading version 1.1 will fix those problems.

Security Update 2012-001 v1.1 is now available for Mac OS X v10.6.8 systems to address a compatibility issue. Version 1.1 of this update removes the ImageIO security fixes released in Security Update 2012-001.

The revised update is recommended for all Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard users, even if you haven’t encountered problems with PowerPC application compatibility.

You can download the new version of Security Update 2012-001 from Software Update, or directly from Apple as a standalone installer.

All Macs with OS X Mavericks, Yosemite, Lion, Mountain Lion, have a bootable Recovery partition that can be accessed in case of system problems, allowing you to troubleshoot, restore from Time Machine backups, and even reinstall Mac OS X. There are two ways to reach Recovery mode on a Mac:

Hold down the OPTION key during boot and choose the “Recovery” option, or Hold down Command+R keys during boot to access the Recovery HD partition. Which method you will want to use depends on your Mac model, but the OPTION trick works on every Mac.

You’ll know you’re in recovery mode because the standard desktop won’t be displayed, replaced with a limited Mac OS X Utilities window and a simple Mac OS X menu bar. Here you can use Disk Utility, Time Machine, and restore the OS.
Read more »

Bored with how your iPhone looks? If you have it jailbroken, you can install iPhone themes and make the device look a lot different than iOS by using an app called Dreamboard.

If you haven’t jailbroken yet, backup the iPhone and then proceed with Absinthe for iPhone 4S on iOS 5.0.1 or Redsn0w for iOS 5.0.1 on other iPhones and iPods. Dreamboard is then found as a free download in Cydia, so search for it and install.

Many Dreamboard themes are available via Cydia, here’s a handful:

• Endroid – Android HTC lookalike with updating weather widget and clock, this is the default Android theme
• OS7 – Makes iPhone look like Windows Phone 7, complete with tile animations
• WebOS – If you want your iPhone to look like a now extinct Palm device
• Kindle Fire for iPhone – Gives the iPhone an interface like the Kindle Fire
• OS X Lion Ultimatum – one of the fancier themes, makes iOS look like Mac OS X Lion
• Apple Desk – looks like an actual desk, complete with iMac and keyboard

There are plenty more, and while a lot of the themes are free, others cost a buck of two. Some paid themes have to be downloaded manually and then moved to the iPhone with SSH and SFTP from a Mac or PC, others can be installed directly on the phone.

Heads up to Lifehacker for the basic theme ideas.

The problems updating to Mac OS X 10.7.3 aren’t the only issues with Apple’s recently released Mac OS X updates, as MacRumors reports that SecurityUpdate 2012-001 aimed at Mac OS X 10.6.8 has caused significant problems with Rosetta apps in Snow Leopard.

Applications effected seem to be anything that relies on Rosetta PowerPC support to run on Intel Macs, including Microsoft Office 2004 and X, Adobe Photoshop, Quicken, FileMaker Pro, AppleWorks, and others.

If you use Mac OS X 10.6 and you have not yet installed Security Update 2012-001, you may wish to avoid doing so until the problems have been resolved. If you already updated and you now have apps crashing left and right, read on…

Fixing the Rosetta Problems in Snow Leopard
Restoring to a pre-Security Update 2012-001 Time Machine backup is ideal, but if you can’t do that the next best thing is to use a bandaid patch created by an Apple Discussion Board user that restores Rosetta app functionality:

Download the RosettaFix Patch Here

Use the patch at your own discretion, and be sure to follow the instructions:

This fix MAY NOT resolve your issue… This is the installer that we are most confident in. It replaces all of the files that were replaced by the Security Update 2012-001 and should be similar to a “reversioner”. Once you have installed the Package, please make sure to repair permissions and restart your computer in order for the changes to take effect.

Presumably Apple will release an update in the near future to resolve these issues, although there is no time frame on when that could happen.

Update: Apple has apparently released Security Update 2012-001 version 1.1 to address the Rosetta issues. It’s available through Software Update.

Update 2: Security Update 2012-001 version 1.1 is now available to download directly from Apple support here. You can install this over existing Snow Leopard installations.

If you need to delete sensitive information and have it completely inaccessible, you’ll want to use the “Secure Empty Trash” feature. This works by writing random patterns of data over a trashed file immediately after it has been emptied, or removed from the filesystem, such a process which otherwise takes place over time throughout normal computer usage as more files are created and deleted.

There are two easy ways to secure empty the Trash on the Mac. In order for either option to be visible to you, you must have some file or folder within the Trash can, otherwise the option will not be visible since there is nothing to trash.

Read more »

Spotlight is generally very good at keeping a valid index of a drives contents up to date, but if you’ve recently restored a drive or had to delete the Spotlight index for one reason or another, you may need to reindex the drive manually. This is easy from the Spotlight control panel, and can also be achieved through the command line as we’ll demonstrate.
Read more »

The recently released Mac OS X 10.7.3 update is proving to be a more significant upgrade than originally anticipated, with the update for OS X Lion Server adding a simple web server.

The web server pane is found in the Server application, and has the standard features you would expect. Apple specifies the following capabilities about the web pane in the 10.7.3 Server release notes:

• enable .htaccess overrides
• edit web sites’ domain names
• map multiple domains into a single web site
• configure redirects and aliases
• specify custom index files
• choose SSL certificates for individual websites

Due to some of the reported problems with the OS X 10.7.3 update, it’s recommended to install with the Combo Updater (link for Server Combo) rather than through Software Update.

When OS X Lion Server initially shipped, some longtime users were surprised to discover no web server had been included. The addition in 10.7.3 is welcome, and was first discovered by @MacMiniVault, who runs a colocation service for Mac Mini Servers. MacMiniVault also noted that PostgreSQL is the default database server for OS X Lion, ditching the longstanding MySQL that was featured in Snow Leopard Server.

Every Mac owner should be using Time Machine, it’s by far the easiest and most painless backup solution, running in the background and allowing for easy recovery of files or the entire operating system should something go wrong during an OS X update or otherwise. There’s no way around it, having backups of your Mac is critical, and advanced users may benefit from scheduling the Time Machine backups.

Scheduling Time Machine backups on a Mac is useful for many reasons, whether for management or administrative purposes, or simply because you want to change how often the backups occur. For example, Time Machine can be a bit aggressive sometimes, and by default it backs up all changes every hour that a drive is connected or within range. While that is great for backup purposes, it can be a nuisance when it hogs disk I/O and CPU cycles from other tasks. The easiest way to avoid this is to adjust the backup schedule. Whatever the reason, we’ll show you how to adjust backup schedules from the Terminal, or with a super easy to use Preference Pane called TimeMachineScheduler.

Read more »

Mac OS X 10.7.3 update was just released, and for the vast majority of users the update installed trouble free. But not everyone was so lucky, and a series of problems have cropped up for some users, ranging from being stuck on an endless spinning loop progress indicator, to apps crashing nonstop, to a very bizarre “CUI CUI CUI” error screen filled with question marks (seen below), to other strange behavior.

The good news is these problems are relatively easy to fix. Basically all you need to do is install the OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater over the existing messed up installation of 10.7.3.

The bad news is that if you already updated to Mac OS X 10.7.3 and you’re having problems, you’re going to have to find a way to use the Combo Updater over the troubled installation. If you’re just encountering the CUI errors, this is relatively simple, but if you’re stuck on a boot loop you need to get a bit more creative.

Fixing the OS X 10.7.3 Installation Problems
The simple formula is this:

• Download Mac OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater (direct link)
• Run the 10.7.3 Combo Updater on top of the existing 10.7.3 installation
• Reboot

If you can’t get to the desktop of the Mac in question, you can boot it with Target Disk Mode (Firewire or Thunderbolt required), and then point the 10.7.3 Combo Update at the troubled Mac and install it that way. If your OS X installation is totally screwed up and you can’t use target disk mode, you have a few choices:

1. Restore from a recent pre-10.7.3 Time Machine backup, then install the Combo Updater
2. Boot from Recovery HD, a Recovery Drive, or Lion USB drive, and reinstall everything

Not the best situation, but hopefully you have recent Time Machine backups.

Finally, if you’re reading this and haven’t had any problems but you’re now paranoid about the OS X 10.7.3 update, here’s all you need to do to be safe: Backup your Mac with Time Machine, download the Combo Updater and install the update manually. You’ll almost certainly be fine.

Thanks to Erik, Martin, and Apple Discussion Boards for the tips. Chime in if you have any additional info.

The Absinthe Greenpoison jailbreak utility for A5 based iOS hardware has been updated to version 0.4, fixing several bugs and adding support for PPC Mac users and those running Mac OS X 10.5 on either Intel or PPC platforms.

This version is aimed at new users, and if you already have the jailbreak installed on the iPad 2 or iPhone 4S there is no reason to re-do it with this version. However, a new version of the Corona tool was released as “corona 1.0-8” and can be found on Cydia to resolve some of the the bugs that have persisted for some iOS 5 jailbreakers. Older Mac users should be pleased the new Abinsthe version supports them, and instructions to jailbreak the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 remain the same regardless of device or host operating system.

The official changelog for 0.4 is short:

– Mac: added support for OSX 10.5, PPC and Intel CPU
– added consistency check on startup to make sure required files are in place
– Windows: fixed bug in payload generator that might cause a crash

Download Absinthe 0.4

• Mac
• Windows
• Linux

Again, this is for iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1, or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1. Other hardware requires the redsn0w jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1. All 5.0.1 jailbreaks are untethered at this point.

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.7.3 to the public, the third minor update to OS X Lion. The update includes bug fixes including a Wi-Fi stability update, and also fixes a handful of other issues that have effected OS X 10.7. The update also includes support for several new languages, and updates Safari to 5.1.3.

Download Mac OS X 10.7.3 Update

You can download Mac OS X 10.7.3 Update through Software Update, it’s about 1GB, or through these download links from Apple:

• OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client)
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client Combo)
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Server)
• OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Server Combo)

Mac OS X 10.7.3 Release Notes are below:

What’s included?

The OS X Lion v10.7.3 Update includes Safari 5.1.3 and 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
• Address compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows file sharing 
• Address an issue printing Microsoft Word documents that use markup
• Address a graphics performance issue after sleep on some earlier iMacs that use ATI graphics
• Resolve a Wi-Fi connection issue when waking from sleep
• Address an issue that may prevent Safari from opening before joining a wireless network
• Fix a potential issue authenticating to an SMB DFS share
• Include RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras

Directory Services

• Improve binding to read-only Active Directory Domain Controllers
• Improve binding and login speed for Active Directory users in a domain whose name ends in “.local”
• Improve reliability of Dynamic DNS (DDNS) updates by Active Directory clients
• Allow login with an Active Directory username that contains a space
• Improve compatibility with Active Directory schemas that have been extended with the “apple-user-homeDirectory” and “apple-user-homeurl” attributes
• Fix home directory Dock item for Active Directory users with mobile accounts
• Allow NIS users with MD5-hashed passwords to log in