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Stop Safari Auto-Refreshing Web Pages in Mac OS X Lion

Sep 20, 2011 - 21 Comments
Stop Safari from Auto Reloading Web Pages in OS X Lion

A new addition to Safari 5.1 in Mac OS X 10.7 is that web pages auto-refresh if they are left inactive for a period of time. The feature can seem unnecessary and even annoying, but there’s no clear preference option to disable reloading of pages. Thankfully, Stormcloud (via DaringFireball) shows us how to stop this … Read More

Fix Fan Noise & Overheating After Upgrading Mac OS X with an SMC Reset

Sep 20, 2011 - 26 Comments
Fix fan noise and overheating with Mac OS X Lion

A fair amount of users are reporting that upgrading Mac OS X has caused their Macs to run hotter in general and their fans to constantly engage, creating excessive and unusual fan noise. For users who have just performed an upgrade from 10.6, 10.7, or 10.8, this is usually because of Spotlight and the mdworker … Read More

How to Get Default Gateway Address in Mac OS X

Sep 15, 2011 - 16 Comments
Get Router IP Address from Mac OS X

If you find yourself needing to know what the default gateway address is for a Mac, you can uncover this information in a few ways from OS X. For those who aren’t familiar, the gateway address is the IP of whatever modem, router, or switch the computer is using the access the internet, hence, it’s … Read More

Share Adobe Photoshop Between Mac OS X 10.7 Lion & 10.6 Snow Leopard

Sep 9, 2011 - 6 Comments
Photoshop error 6

If you dual boot Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 then you may have noticed that some apps installed in one OS don’t necessarily work in the other. Some of these are because of 10.7 Lion specific features or Rosetta, but others throw random errors that don’t make much sense. Case in point: Adobe Photoshop. … Read More

Stop Apple Support Communities Email Updates

Sep 6, 2011 - 4 Comments
Stop Apple Support Community Emails

Rant time! Waking up this morning to 49 new emails from “Apple Support Communities Updates” was less than pleasant, especially considering I had already unsubscribed from all email notifications the night before – or so I thought. It turns out that you have to unsubscribe to email notifications from each individual thread that you are … Read More

Get Apple Hardware Test Boot Mode Back on Some OS X Lion Macs

Aug 29, 2011 - 8 Comments
Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion has changed how several helpful troubleshooting tools function, one being the reset password tool, and another is how Apple Hardware Test (AHT) mode works. Gone is AHT’s independent boot mode in favor of an internet based version that is dependent on Lion’s Internet Recovery instead. If you always have access to … Read More

Reset a Mac OS X Mavericks or Mountain Lion Password

Aug 24, 2011 - 66 Comments
Reset a Mac password from System Preferences

One of several changes to newer versions of OS X is how resetting passwords is handled, previous versions of Mac OS X would have a password reset tool easily accessible from the Utilities menu but that isn’t available anymore, and for some added security you now must access a password reset tool through the command … Read More

Launch and Use Any Mac OS X App When Booted from OS X Lion Recovery HD Drive

Aug 22, 2011 - 7 Comments
Launch Terminal from the Recovery Disk in Mac OS X Lion

Whether you made a Lion recovery drive with Apple’s Lion Recovery Disk Assistant Tool and you’re booting from that or you’re just relying on the Recovery HD partition, this technique works.

Fix MacBook Pro 2010 Crashes, Kernel Panics, & Black Screens in OS X 10.7 Lion

Aug 9, 2011 - 104 Comments

A fair amount of MacBook Pro 2010 (and some 2011) users are reporting stability issues with their NVIDIA 330M equipped Macs and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, with problems including kernel panics, random system crashes, blank or black screens, inability to wake from sleep, external displays not working, and assorted other headaches. The Macs most … Read More

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant Tool Makes External Lion Boot Recovery Drives

Aug 8, 2011 - 22 Comments
Lion Recovery Disk Assistant

Apple has released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, a small utility that provides the ability to create an external bootable recovery drive for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. This should quell some of the complaints from users who didn’t want to make a Lion USB install drive or boot DVD, or who were otherwise unsatisfied with … Read More

Mac Wi-Fi Dropping? Use a Simple Keepalive Bash Script to Maintain Wireless Connection

Aug 8, 2011 - 49 Comments
Get WiFi Router IP Address in Mac OS X

Many users who upgraded to Mac OS X Lion discovered that their Wi-Fi connections were dropping periodically for no apparent reason. We published a reasonably thorough walkthrough with tips on fixing OS X Lion’s wireless dropping issues and that’s a recommended starting point because most tips are easy and less complicated, but among those was … Read More

Fix a Slow Mac App Store

Aug 7, 2011 - 23 Comments
Oh no, not the beachball

It’s unclear why, but the Mac App Store is running a lot slower in OS X Lion for some users, including myself. By slow I mean you’ll encounter nearly constant beachballs as you click from app to app, with the absolute worst offender being the main category sections. I’m assuming there is an underlying bug … Read More

Stuck in Chrome Full Screen? Exit Chromes Full Screen Mode in Mac OS X Lion

Aug 6, 2011 - 11 Comments
Exit full screen mode in Chrome under OS X Lion

If you’ve found yourself stuck in Chromes full screen mode, you’re not alone. Chrome has it’s benefits, like syncing and the native omnibar, but unfortunately Chrome does not play well with Full Screen Mode under Mac OS X Lion – at all. You are free to click the full screen button to get in, but … Read More

Re-Download Mac OS X Lion from the App Store

Aug 2, 2011 - 104 Comments
re-download Mac OS X Lion from the App Store

Need to redownload Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store? If you plan on making an install drive but you already upgraded to Lion, you’ll need to redownload the Installer so that you can extract the DMG file. This is the sure fire way to do it, in short, hold the Option key … Read More

Can’t Install XCode 4.1 Because of iTunes? The Fix is to Kill iTunesHelper

Aug 2, 2011 - 28 Comments

Xcode 4.1 was made available as a free download through the Mac App Store for OS X Lion owners, but many users are encountering a strange error when they go to install the development suite; an error message pops up saying that XCode can’t be installed while iTunes is running telling you that “In order … Read More

WiFi Dropping in OS X Lion? Here are Some Wireless Troubleshooting Solutions

Jul 22, 2011 - 165 Comments
Fixes for OS X Lion wifi dropping

Updating to Mac OS X Lion for the vast majority of users is a painless experience and everything works great. But for others there can be trouble, there are various user reports in our comments and around the web on Apple’s Support forums and elsewhere, that suggest that wireless networking in OS X Lion is … Read More

Automatically Restart Your Mac if it Freezes in OS X Lion

Jul 19, 2011 - 24 Comments
Automatically restart Mac if freezes

Your Mac will automatically restart itself if it freezes, thanks to a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion and Mac OS X Lion. Tucked away in “Energy Saver”, the auto-restart ability is an option that can be disabled if for whatever reason you don’t want your Mac to basically fix itself in the event … Read More

Get Exact Boot, Sleep, and Wake Times from the Command Line

Jul 14, 2011 - 7 Comments

Need to know exactly when your Mac was last booted, put to sleep, or woke from sleep? You can get precise information about boot and sleep times directly from the command line, which can be invaluable for anything from troubleshooting various Mac problems to scheduling scripts, or even for your own forensic purposes to determine … Read More

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