Category: Operating Systems

Unthaw Frozen Mac OS X Lion With an Automatic Reboot

Here’s another quick Mac OS X Lion tip. Sometimes, you can be left staring at the spinning beach ball on your screen completely uncertain as to whether or not you will ever get control of your Mac (often called the “spinning beach ball of death”). Sometimes it will come good but other times it won’t …

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“About This Mac” Just Got Friendlier

Here’s another tidbit of information about Mac OS X Lion. If you are unaware, the “About This Mac” screen has been refreshed to be a bit more user friendly compared to versions of Mac OS X prior to Lion First up is the “Overview” screen which looks a bit cleaner and even includes a picture …

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Unlimited Photos and Documents for Windows Live SkyDrive

Here’s a quick update for those users of SkyDrive out there (and that includes you too Windows Phone folk). It seems that Microsoft will be uncapping the allowed storage for photos and documents for its SkyDrive cloud storage service. This could be seen as a form of response to Apple’s forthcoming iCloud service (which uses …

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Extra Spotlight Search Capabilities in Mac OS X Lion

Here’s a quick tip for the Mac OS X users out there who have migrated to 10.7 (Lion). Spotlight has been a while for a while courtesy of the little magnifying glass icon up the top right-hand corner of the screen. Traditionally, you’ve been able to search for applications, documents, folders, messages and other local …

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AVG for Windows Phone 7 is a Farce

There’s not much in the way of security software on Windows Phone 7 partially because the operating system already does a good job sandboxing third party app. However, AVG released a scanner this week for Windows Phone 7 which sought to fill a perceived gap in virus security for the platform. Unfortunately, it seems like …

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Disable “Natural” Scrolling in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)

Here’s a quick tip for people moving across to Lion. By default, the scroll gestures that we have become accustomed to are now inverted to simulate what would happen on an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. Scrolling from bottom to top on your trackpad will scroll the page up will scrolling from top to bottom …

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Restore a Missing Local Scout Tile in Windows Phone 7

A new feature in Windows Phone 7 Mango is “Local Scout” which is a location based service powered by Bing. Think of it of something like a mashup of Urban Spoon and Google Maps allowing you to find local eateries, shops and landmarks. Depending how your phone is configured when Mango is installed you may …

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The Perils of Pulling Out Your Smartphone Battery

Just a quick one tonight. If you have a smartphone with a removable battery (like an Android phone or a Windows Phone) you should take particular care to avoid accidentally or intentionally removing the battery while the device is powered up. Smartphones are essentially small computers with file systems contained within their internal storage. Pulling …

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Remedies for Stuttering Audio in Windows

Once upon a time, in order to get sound on your Windows computer you’d have to buy and install a sound card of which the most popular were the Sound Blaster line of cards from Creative Labs. Back in those days, The CPUs inside your computer had more than enough to do running Windows while …

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Nokia Maps 3D – Better Than Google Maps?

Nokia Maps 3D - Sydney Harbour Bridge

Here’s something to check out in your spare time. These days, Google Maps is often the place to go to get driving directions, traffic conditions and also a laugh at how you need to swim across the ocean to get to another continent if you attempt to get directions to an overseas destination. However, Nokia …

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