boot

While Mac offers a great operating system, some users may need to switch to Windows or other operating systems for system compatibility or other purposes. With QuickBoot for Mac, users will be able to switch from their Mac OS to another system drive by selecting the drive or partition from the menu bar.

With a simple drag and drop the installation of QuickBoot for Mac went smooth. The program started up well and displayed our drives properly. After launching, the app will run in the background with an icon on top of the menu bar. There is also an option … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about whether it is possible to install Windows on an external hard drive for use in Boot Camp, how to set up Time Machine to back up home folders stored on secondary drives, and how to disable the yellow tooltip popups that appear over URL links in many OS X applications. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Using Windows 7 … Read more

A Windows 8.1 option to boot to desktop? That seductive rumor has been making the rounds over the weekend.

What could be a reflection of wishful thinking, a post at WinBeta (via Neowin), cites a Russian-language Web site as the source.

Apparently, there is Windows 8.1 code that disables the Metro Start Screen and sends you "to the desktop automatically."

That is a feature that more than a few Windows 8 users would undoubtedly take advantage of since the tiled Metro screen is of questionable utility for some.

Market researcher IDC, among others, has been making the case over the past month or so … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Laying the groundwork for its nascent Firefox OS, Mozilla has won over a sizeable list of allies including LG Electronics and China Unicom, and the first phones with the browser-based operating system should arrive in the second quarter of the year.

Mozilla announced today at the Mobile World Congress show here that it's persuaded 18 mobile network operators and four mobile phone makers to back its open-source mobile operating system. That's not enough to unseat the incumbent powers of Google's Android and Apple's iOS slayer, but it is enough to ensure Firefox OS at least … Read more

Apple offers several alternative boot environments for OS X that can help you troubleshoot problems you might be experiencing, which can be invoked by holding various key combinations at startup. Of these, Safe Mode is perhaps the most common; it offers a limited boot environment and can be started by holding the Shift key. In addition there is Single User mode (Command-S) for a command-line interface, Apple's hardware diagnostics tests (the "D" key), Target Disk mode (the "T" key), and holding the Option key will bring up the boot loader for choosing a startup disk.… Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about a system not loading past the gray Apple screen, an external DVD player not working, how to switch to internal speakers with headphones attached, and trouble enabling X-Ray folder view in the Finder. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: System not loading past the gray Apple screen MacFixIt reader Greg asks:

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about cleaning up a Mac to keep it optimized, external drive permission errors, increasing the number of recent documents stored in the system, and options for triple-booting OS X with Linux and other operating systems. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: How to clean up a Mac to keep it optimized MacFixIt reader Angel asks:

A small Spanish startup called GeeksPhone has started selling phones that let developers get a taste of Mozilla's new Firefox OS.

GeeksPhone announced two 3G phones for the browser-based operating system, the lower-end Keon and higher-end Peak. The phones, while geared for programmers rather than mainstream customers, make Mozilla's open-source mobile OS a lot more real, since programmers will be able to develop apps as well as to debug and advance the underlying operating system.

Firefox OS is Mozilla's ambitious attempt to build an operating system that brings more openness to the walled gardens of Apple's … Read more

System Mechanic Free from Iolo Systems is a stripped-down version of much more comprehensive premium tool. However, it offers good basic cleaning and optimizing for Windows systems with seven primary tools: PC Cleanup, Registry Tuner, Startup Optimizer, Memory Mechanic, Drive Accelerator, Shortcut Repair, and Internet Connection Repair. It can back up and save Registry settings and Undo changes with its SafetyNet feature.

When you install System Mechanic, you have the option to install the full or free version; we chose the freeware. But we still had to provide our e-mail address to receive an activation key for the free version. … Read more