lion

Mac OS X login passwords put at risk

Last update: 1:20 p.m. PT

Users of the Lion version of Mac OS X will probably want to update their log-in passwords.

Security researcher David Emery warns of a new vulnerability involving the FileVault feature in Mac OS X Lion, version 10.7.3, which allows for encryption of certain directories. He writes:

Someone, for some unknown reason, turned on a debug switch (DEBUGLOG) in the current released version of MacOS Lion 10.7.3 that causes the authorizationhost process's HomeDirMounter DIHLFVMount to log in *PLAIN TEXT* in a system wide logfile readible by anyone with root … Read more

Disk Utility showing less available space than the Finder in OS X

There are several ways to display disk usage in OS X, with some of the more-common options being the Finder's status bar, or to get information on your hard disk in the Finder, or to use Apple's Disk Utility program. However, while these options will display the available disk space on the system, in OS X Lion you might see some differences between the numbers reported in these areas.

For example, on my Mac running OS X Lion there is currently 184.43GB of free space reported as being available on the disk if I get information on … Read more

Apple nudging developers to get apps Gatekeeper-ready

Apple's release of its Mountain Lion software isn't until "late summer," though today the company began nudging developers to get their software up to speed with its new security feature.

In an e-mail sent to developers this afternoon and forwarded on to CNET, Apple urged developers to start signing their apps and other software with their Apple Developer ID certificate so they will get by Gatekeeper, a security feature that's built into Apple's next OS and designed to keep malware at bay.

"Gatekeeper is a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion that … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

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

This week people wrote in with questions managing a persistent warning in Web browsers about local storage when browsing YouTube, what to do about an encrypted hard drive for which you do not have the recovery key or password, managing a bluetooth mouse that keeps losing its connection, and a reader suggestion for a file quarantining bug in OS X Lion. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, then post them in … Read more

Overcoming Safe Mode not working in OS X

When a problem arises in OS X because of a software configuration error, often one troubleshooting step to take for clearing the issue or at least investigating it further is to boot into Safe Mode; however, sometimes Safe Mode may not work.

Booting to Safe Mode in OS X is done by holding the Shift key at startup, which triggers a minimal boot environment where only basic Apple-supplied extensions and services are loaded. This will help you determine if problems are happening from peripheral devices or third-party extensions such as those supplied by some security software packages. In addition to … Read more

Apple gives away Snow Leopard to boost iCloud migration

Apple has a plan to nudge more MobileMe users on to iCloud.

The cloud-based storage service will replace MobileMe in June, but only users running OS X Lion (version 10.7) will have access to iCloud. Apple has realized that many MobileMe users are probably running an older OS and may be left behind by the cost of upgrading their systems.

So Apple is giving users of older operating systems a gentle push by making the first step toward upgrading easy: the company is giving away Snow Leopard -- the 10.6 version of OS X -- to MobileMe users, … Read more

Third Mac OS X Mountain Lion developer preview released

Available only to registered Mac developers, build 12A178q of Mountain Lion comes with a laundry list of fixes and minor tweaks. The release notes also list the known issues that are still being worked on by Apple (including issues with both Quicktime and Game Center) and directions for developers to submit bug reports as they explore the new build.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (read our first take from February) is expected to be launched to the public sometime this summer, only one year after the release of OS X Lion, making it Apple's fastest major OS … Read more

Fighting Flashback, Apple issues second Mac update

Apple still appears to be fighting the Flashback malware that was recently found to have infected more than a half-million Mac computers.

A second Java update has been released for Mac users, according to Mac security blog Intego.

No details are available as to why this latest update was released. Intego speculates that perhaps there was a small glitch in the first update. This latest update also seems geared just for the Lion version of Mac OS X, while the initial patch was designed for both Snow Leopard and Lion.

Some confusion also exists over the name, Intego noted. The … Read more

How to revert input behavior changes in OS X Lion

OS X Lion comes with a number of new and altered features, some of which, like Mission Control and full-screen options, can be avoided if you don't find them useful. However, Apple has also included a couple of alterations that cannot be quickly avoided and that new users might find a bit frustrating.

The first of these is the default scroll direction on Apple's multitouch trackpads. In prior versions of OS X the scroll direction mirrored that of scroll wheels on mice, which when rolled toward the user cause the page to scroll down. The trackpad likewise would … Read more