Mac OS X

Troubleshooting malfunctioning notes in Mail

The notes feature in Apple's Mail program can be useful for jotting down quick reminders and other items without having to send yourself e-mails. Though convenient, the feature may not work properly at times, if at all.

We were recently contacted by MacFixIt reader Richard who found that the notes feature stopped working when he migrated to his new MacBook Pro system. Usually when program features like this stop working, the first recommendation is to try refreshing some settings and delete the program's preferences files, but Richard had already done this when he contacted us. Additionally, sometimes there … Read more

GPS location scripting broken with iPhoto 9.0.1

Starting with iPhoto 8.0.3, Apple implemented support for editing the geographical positioning tags for photos using AppleScript. The idea in part was to encourage developers of third-party programs like HoudahGeo to edit the photo information in the iPhoto library without directly accessing the library itself.

This implementation has worked for a number of iPhoto revisions, but in the latest update from Apple it appears that setting GPS coordinates with AppleScripts is not working properly. If you run an AppleScript similar to the following that uses the "set latitude" or "set longitude" commands, then you … Read more

Sophos unveils free antivirus software for the Mac

Sophos unveiled free antivirus software today that Macintosh users can install to detect and block malware that targets computers running the Mac operating system.

Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition for Mac also detects malware written for Windows that Mac users can spread via USB drives and e-mail, Chet Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at Sophos, told CNET.

The software is a noncommercial version of Sophos Anti-Virus 7.2 for Mac, targeted at home users and modified so it is easier to install and use, he said.

The free Mac antivirus software from Sophos, which also launched a Mac support forum, will … Read more

MacBook Air a great Windows Netbook, for a price

It's rather well-known that Steve Jobs doesn't like Netbooks, which he calls "slow, low-quality displays" that run "old PC software." And who would like a computer like that? I know I wouldn't.

However, as you more often than not should take what Jobs says with a grain of salt, Netbooks don't have to be that way. Case in point: the all-new MacBook Air. More specifically, the $999 11.6-inch 2010 version of what Jobs called "the third kind of notebook."

The computer meets every criterion of a modern high-end Netbooks. It's small and light, doesn't have an optical drive, has a limited number of peripheral ports, a limited amount of storage space, and a small screen. And most of all, it's relatively cheap (for an Apple product, that is.)

Of course, it can't be called a Netbook yet when it's not running Windows, which, however, can be fixed relatively easily.

Now that we've settled with the category, to Jobs' credit, he has just created the best Netbook ever. The MacBook Air is arguably the only Netbook on the market that is not only comparable with laptops but, in some cases, outdoes them in terms of performance.

Just to see how well it does, I tested it against a few laptops with similar specs: the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge, the HP Pavilion dm3-1002, the Dell Inspiron 1470, the Acer Aspire TimelineX, and the same MacBook Pro that I used here. All of these machines run Windows 7. … Read more

Weekly troubleshooting utilities update

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week the most updates are with hardware-monitoring and management utilities, with one for data recovery and another for system tweaking utilities.

Hardware The main utilities this week are with those that manage the system's hardware, either by providing information … Read more

Update for iPhoto '11 addresses potential data loss

Upgrading to the latest version of iPhoto has caused a few users some problems where the program would hang during the library conversion, and in some rarer cases has resulted in lost photos. Apple has addressed this problem in an update to iPhoto (version 9.0.1) that was released on Friday.

The update is a 33.87MB download that is available at the iPhoto 9.0.1 download webpage. While this should be available through Software Update, if you have not yet installed iPhoto '11 then first download this update, and apply it immediately after installing the new version. … Read more

How to solve iPhone volume problems by cleaning your headphone jack

One frustration many iPhone (or any Apple device with headphones) owners will undoubtedly experience is a situation where their handset remains in headphones mode, despite no headphones being plugged in.

The solution to this problem can be quite easy, though a steady hand is recommended.

Symptoms If this situation occurs, you'll most likely figure it out pretty quickly:

You slide to unlock your iPhone and the "click" sound is not heard. You press the volume buttons to increase or decrease the ringer and the headphones volume setting appears instead. You launch applications, games, or videos that normally … Read more

Error -8003 or other problems with emptying the OS X Trash

The OS X Trash may sometimes give people problems where files cannot be deleted. Usually if you come across a file for which you do not have write privileges, the system will prevent you from moving it to the Trash. But there are instances when odd permissions setups for files can result in bizarre errors when you try to delete them.

One such error may be: "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8003)," but others include a simple warning that you do not have enough privileges to perform the delete action.… Read more

Critical security risk posed by new 'Boonana' Trojan horse for OS X

A new Trojan horse malware that affects Mac OS X has been uncovered by Macintosh Security site SecureMac. The Trojan is called "trojan.osx.boonana.a" and is being disguised as a video and distributed through social-networking sites like Facebook.

The Trojan horse appears as a link on people's Facebook pages that may have the text "Is this you in this video?" in the link. When the link is clicked, the Trojan will run a Java applet that will download other files to the computer and run an installer automatically.

The Trojan will run in … Read more

Weekly troubleshooting utilities update

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week the big updates are with data recovery utilities, but there are a couple of hardware and maintenance utilities as well.

Data recoveryDisk Drill is a relatively new data recovery package that is in development to be released as … Read more