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.

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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

Mac OS X has a secondary Cut and Paste function that provides the ability to cut and paste additional information without overwriting existing clipboard contents.

This alternative clipboard is completely separate from the normal clipboard accessible with Command+C and Command+V, and instead you’ll use different keystrokes to access the secondary cut and paste feature and accomplish the task.

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To get the most out of an iPhone you’ll obviously want to have internet access, but for those who live in regions where wi-fi access is ubiquitous, you can potentially save some money on a monthly cell phone bill by not having a data plan.

No, I don’t mean only turning off data on the phone, I mean having a simple voice and SMS plan without any data plan at all. These voice and text plans are quickly disappearing, but they can result in a low bill of around $25 per month with plenty of talk time and text messages. To accomplish this, you’ll need a few things.

Requirements:

• Unlocked iPhone – the iPhone must be GSM unlocked, either from a software unlock or an original hardware unlocked device. Apple sells the iPhone 4S unlocked for $649 and up
• A simple cell phone plan and it’s SIM card without data – usually from an older “dumbphone” or a cheap pay-go phone

Depending on how old the data-free plan is, you may need to trim down the SIM card so that it fits into the iPhone 4 and 4S micro-SIM slot. This wouldn’t be necessary for iPhone 2G, 3G, or 3GS though.

Setting Up iPhone With No Data Plan

If you have those two things, setting up the data-free iPhone is easy:

1. First turn off data by launching Settings, tap “General”, tap “Network”, flip the “Cellular Data” switch to OFF
2. Now insert the old data free SIM card into the iPhone and wait a minute or so to get service

The first step is important because it prevents the iPhone from attempting to use data, which can inadvertently sign you up for a data plan with some carriers. AT&T has been known to detect and automatically add data plans to smartphones, whereas T-Mobile is reportedly less likely to do so. After the old SIM card is inserted you should quickly get service and be able to make and receive phone calls and text messages.

For using an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S with T-Mobile, you may want to follow our T-Mobile iPhone 4S set up guide to configure MMS, but skip the ‘Cellular Data Network’ section.

Of course, the unlocked iPhone aspect is fairly expensive and can quickly make this whole idea cost prohibitive. If you’re looking for more ideas to lower the monthly iPhone bill though, the next cheapest option – and it includes data – is to set up a prepaid iPhone, which the iPhone is unofficially capable of supporting on a pay-go basis with AT&T, or if you have an unlocked device this can work with T-Mobile too.

Thanks to Anthony F for the tip and information about AT&T.

Sending contacts from an iPhone is very easy, and all data about the contact, from name, phone number, picture, email, URL, etc, can be exported as an inclusive vCard bundle and sent to someone else by email or text message.

While we’ll focus on sending contacts between iPhones, these vCards are also usable by other smartphones, iOS devices, Macs, Windows, Windows Phone, Android, and even Blackberry phones, because the exported VCF format is pretty much universally accepted across all platforms as an address book standard.

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It’s pretty hard to get excited about a USB cable, but the Dexim Visible Smart chargers are ridiculously cool in a super geeky way.

You need to watch the video below to see the effect, but basically the cable glows while it is charging or syncing to “visibly show the electrical current flowing through the cable.” The lights actually change speed based on the battery capacity of the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, with the animated lights moving quicker the lower the battery charge is, and finally stopping motion once the battery is charged.

You can buy the glowing Dexim charger on Amazon for about $30.

Coolest USB cable ever? Yea, I think so. Heads up to Gizmodo for the find.

Using Mac OS X’s powerful built-in media encoding tools, large AIFF audio files can be quickly and easily converted to compressed high quality M4A audio, ready for use on in iTunes or an iPod, iPhone, or elsewhere.

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It’s easy to lose track of all the defaults commands used to perform tweaks to Mac OS X, but with the help of the history command it’s easy to list every defaults write and accompanying defaults delete commands ever used on a Mac. Launch the Terminal to get started.

See All Defaults Commands Executed

To see all defaults commands, including defaults write, defaults read, defaults delete, and even those requiring sudo:

history |grep "defaults"

Will return something like this:

47 sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo HostName
48 sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo IPaddress
98 defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
206 defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
237 defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool TRUE;killall Dock
238 defaults delete com.apple.dock itunes-notifications
239 defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool TRUE;
241 defaults delete com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text;killall Dock

See Only Defaults Write Commands

To see only defaults write commands, including those requiring sudo:

history |grep "defaults write"

The results will look the same as above, but without showing any defaults read or defaults delete commands.

See Only Defaults Delete Commands

To see which defaults write commands have been reverted, grep for ‘delete’ rather than ‘write’:

history |grep "defaults delete"

See Defaults Commands Related to Specific App

By changing the text within grep to an application or process name, we can see which defaults commands were used only for that specific application. For example, to see only defaults commands that impacted the Finder:

history |grep "defaults write com.apple.finder"

Most apps are easy to find this way, and the default applications in OS X almost always follow the ‘com.apple.appname’ convention.

We touched on this concept before in a past post about the history command, but focusing on defaults commands is useful enough to deserve individual recognition.

Firefox 10 has been released and is available to download for Mac, Windows, and Linux users. The new version isn’t too different from version 9, but includes bug fixes, better extension management, an auto-hiding forward button, improvements to CSS3 capabilities, and antialiasing support for WebGL, as well as some other additions that the average user probably won’t notice. The release notes are posted below for those interested, otherwise just download and enjoy.

Download Firefox 10

• Mac OS X
• Windows
• Linux

Unfortunately, the browser is still lacking the now standardized OS X Lion full-screen button, and the 10.0 release didn’t include any new Mac-specific features. All in all, for a 10.0 release it’s kind of boring, but you can make it more attractive by giving it a Google Chrome style Omnibar with this add-on for Firefox that merges the search and URL bars into one.

Firefox 10 Release Notes:
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Apple has released an all new version of AirPort Utility for OS X Lion with a redesigned user interface. The revised appearance makes it simpler to use, with the first screen showing a graphical overview of the network and all connected devices.

Interestingly, the new Mac version looks practically identical to the current iOS version, as shown in screen shots posted on MacStories. The left side of the image below shows the iOS version and the right side shows the new AirPort Utility app on a Mac:

AirPort Utility is an app that lets users easily manage and set up Wi-Fi networks using Apple’s AirPort base station, AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule. If you use a third party router or wireless backup service, the AirPort Utility app will not be of use to you, however.

You can download AirPort Utility 6 through Software Update, or get it directly from Apple. Corresponding firmware updates for Time Capsule and AirPort were also pushed out today, those will only appear in Software Update if you are actively using those devices.

Need to quickly encrypt a file from the command line? With OpenSSL, you can encrypt and decrypt files very easily.

For the purpose of this walkthrough, we’ll use des3 encryption, which in simple terms means a complex encryption algorithm is applied three times to each data block, making it difficult to crack through brute force methods. While we’re focusing on Mac OS X here, these commands will work anywhere that OpenSSL is installed, including older versions of OS X and Linux.

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If you haven’t set up iCloud and Find My iPhone yet, now is a good time to do so. Follow our guide below on how to get this configured on an iPad, iPhone, iPod, and a Mac, then read on for a story about how a police officer used the application to locate an iPhone thief and return the device to it’s rightful owner.

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Pacifist is a powerful Mac OS X utility that gives you full access to package and installer files and their contents, without running the installer itself. Using Pacifist, you can open installers and disk images, find out what is in them, discover what is going to be installed and where, and best of all, extract individual apps, files, and folders directly out of them.

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We’ve been made aware of some ongoing issues with apps crashing constantly on iPads running iOS, and all iPads are potentially impacted with Safari being particularly sensitive and seemingly crashing anytime javascript or a video loads and sometimes with just general web browsing. At worst, Safari won’t even launch and crashes immediately, and often the application instability goes beyond Safari and impacts nearly all applications as well. First we’ll focus on resolving the Safari crashes, but if you’re having issues with multiple apps crashing you may want to jump down and go straight for a clean reinstallation of a new version of iOS.

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Adam Lashinsky, the author of the newly released book “Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – and Secretive – Company Really Works”, recently appeared on an episode of InDay Speaker Series to discuss his work. The interview is about 50 minutes long and covers the corporate culture of Apple, how some internal processes work, and their legendary secrecy. If you’re interested in the business side of Apple, it’s worth watching the video below:

“Inside Apple” is available from Amazon.com for $16

If you have a new computer, you’re going to want to authorize it with iTunes and an Apple ID. Authorizing iTunes does quite a bit, it lets you sync apps, books, music, movies, and other content from the iTunes Store, re-download past apps from the App Store, it enables Home Sharing with iTunes, and also allows for some iCloud specific features like Automatic Downloads. In other words it’s basically essential, and it’s very easy to do, make sure you have have an active Apple ID before continuing.

If you do not authorize a computer with iTunes you will not be able to access content you have paid for or downloaded through iTunes on a Mac, or Windows iTunes. This includes everything from apps to music to movies. So, let’s authorize that computer with iTunes so you can gain access to your stuff.

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