os x lion

Apple will be ending its beta program on December 14 for testing its new Messages service that is part of OS X Mountain Lion and iOS.

In releases of OS X prior to Mountain Lion, Apple included its iChat instant messaging program that consolidated numerous messaging services such as Jabber, AIM, and Yahoo chat into one interface; however, this did not integrate with Apple's own iMessage and FaceTime services that it included in the iPhone as alternatives to SMS messaging.

To tackle this gap, Apple released Messages Beta for OS X in February as part of the Mountain Lion … Read more

In addition to firmware updates for MacBook systems and updates for iPhoto, Aperture, iOS, and Mountain Lion, Apple has issued security updates for both OS X Snow Leopard and Lion.

The updates should be available via Software Update for systems running their respective operating systems, but they can also be downloaded from the Apple Support downloads pages for the respective updates:

OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Server Combo (1.99GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Server (1.22GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Client Combo (1.91GB) OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 Client (… Read more

Apple has not yet released sales numbers for its Mountain Lion operating system, but a new report suggests it's off to a stronger start than predecessors.

Advertising and analytics company Chitika today says that 3.2 percent of Macs are now running Mountain Lion, Apple's latest release of OS X that went on sale Wednesday. By comparison, the firm says it took Lion (the previous OS X release) three months to get a 14 percent share.

"It is rather impressive for an operating system to capture 3.2 percent of market web usage after just 48 hours … Read more

Mountain Lion has pounced into the Mac App Store. If you haven't already upgraded to the latest version of OS X, you'll want to make sure your Mac is ready for the upgrade.

Once you have gone through the preparation and installation of Mountain Lion, you're not going to want to wait to dig right in and get all of the new features set up.

One of the (many) features OS X has incorporated from iOS in Mountain Lion is the Notification Center. If you use an iOS device, you're already familiar with how … Read more

One of the ongoing problems that has affected some OS X users is random dropouts in their Wi-Fi connections. While Wi-Fi connectivity is not an issue with most Mac systems, for people experiencing it, once the problem starts it seems to persist. In some situations nearly identical systems on the same network will result in one system working fine and the other being regularly dropped.

Unfortunately Wi-Fi connectivity is difficult to troubleshoot, since there are many factors that play into a stable connection. These include drivers and other software configurations, the Wi-Fi card, the router, other computer hardware and components, … Read more

If you have upgraded your OS X Lion system to version 10.7.4, you may run into an issue where the log-in screen might appear black and not show the standard usernames and icons and the area to present your password. When this issue happens, if you move your mouse the system will reveal a small square of the log-in window underneath the mouse, and subsequent movement of this square will erase more of the black mask and further reveal the log-in window.

While perhaps confusing and odd for the user, this issue does not break the functionality of … Read more

Replacing a hard drive on a Mac may sometimes be necessary to either upgrade to increase its capacity, replace a faulty drive, or upgrade your Mac with a faster solid-state drive (SSD), which will often breath new life into an older system. While swapping out an older hard drive for a newer one is generally fairly simple to do, in Lion the upgrade may take a few more steps.

There are several ways of migrating data to a new drive for your Mac, but generally it involves either cloning the system or restoring from a backup (either by migrating or … Read more

Following the announcement of Apple's Thunderbolt Ethernet and FireWire adapters to accompany its latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air offerings, Apple issued a small software update for existing computers that will allow them to properly use Apple's new adapters. Apple made this update available via Software Update so many would automatically install it on their systems, but unfortunately for many people this update has resulted in kernel panics and the inability to boot their systems.

In some cases, at startup the system will appear to boot normally but then issue a gray screen with the instructions to hold … Read more

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

This week readers wrote in with questions about upgrading to OS X Lion or Mountain Lion when it is released, managing large attachments in e-mail messages, using NTFS disks with OS X, whether to wait for Mountain Lion to upgrade or purchase Lion right now, and managing 0KB files that appear in various places in OS X. We welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, post them in the comments!

Question: The need for OS upgrades … Read more