While it certainly is recommended to use a login password for your Mac, this does not prevent someone from being able to access the data on your hard drive. For instance,someone could attach an external drive containing Mac OS X to your computer and then boot from it, thus bypassing the startup disk’s login password.

You can prevent this from occurring by establishing a firmware password. What this does, is requires a password to use the different disk as the startup volume. Luckily, it is quite easy to set a firmware password in Lion. Note that if you  established a firmware password in Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion, the password is no longer valid. You will need to create a new one.

To Set a Firmware Password

1. Restart the computer, holding down the Command and R keys during boot up. This will boot you to the Recovery System.
2. If prompted, select the language you want the Recovery Partition to use.
3. Click Utilities from the menu and then click Firmware Password Utility from the menu.
4. From the dialog box, click the Turn on Firmware Password button.
5. Enter the password you wish you use. You will need to type it in twice to verify it.
6. Click OK and restart your computer.

The next time you try to boot from a disk other than your computer’s hard drive, a lock icon appears on the screen with a text box underneath, into which you must enter a password (your firmware password) before being able to progress further. You will also be required to enter in your firmware password if you try to boot into the Recovery System (Command and R).

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When you install an application, related support and preference files are stored in various folders throughout your system and they are not always deleted when you drag an application’s icon to the trash. This handy little utility helps ensure that there are no orphaned files left behind when you delete an application.

Completely Deleting an Application

To delete an application and all of its related files from your Mac, launch the AppCleaner application and drag the icon for the application you wish to delete to the AppCleaner window as shown below. Then, click the Delete key.

Moving an application to another computer

I have personally found this utility handy for moving an application to another computer. When purchasing a new computer for instance, you might want to start out with a fresh, clean machine and instead of restoring all of your application from a backup, you might want to only bring over selected applications. Dragging an application’s icon to the AppCleaner window will display the location of all related files. This way, you can ensure that you bring over all necessary support and preference files when moving the application.

In the example below, the window displays the PhotoShop CS3 application and the location of all of its related files. If I wanted to copy this application to a new computer, I would want to ensure that all of these support files were copied along with it and placed in the proper folders.

Using SmartDelete

In the AppCleaner Preferences window, you can turn on the SmartDelete feature. What this does, is that when you delete an application, it will find and offer to remove all related application, ensuring that no orphaned files remain behind.

This is a free utility which has become an important part of my own workflow. You can download it from the Freemacsoft Web Site.Similar Posts:

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Microsoft has just released Microsoft Office for Macintosh 2011 version 14.2.1 which fixes all of the problems with Outlook that the recent Service Pack (14.1.0) created.

You can download the update from Microsoft’s Web Site or use the AutoInstaller program by choosing Help > Check for Updates from any Microsoft Office application.

For a detailed description of the update, click HERESimilar Posts:

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A new feature in Mac OS X Lion is that any documents have not been worked on in over two weeks are locked down. This is to prevent accidental auto-save changes from modifying your files. Thus, whenever you try to modify a file that you have not touched in over two weeks, you’ll receive the following message:

The file [File Name] is locked because you haven’t made any changes to it recently.

All you have to is to click the Unlock (or Duplicate) button and you’re back in business. While many people find this new functionality a handy addition to OS X, others find it more than annoying. Luckily, as I discovered while browsing Mac Life’s Web site, there is a way to disable this feature or change the time interval before a file becomes lock.

To Modify File Locking in Lion

1. Open the System Preferences App.
2. Click Time Machine .
3. Click the Options button.
4. To disable locking files, uncheck the box next to ”Lock documents [2 Weeks] after last edit.
4. To change the time interval between file locking, click the drop-down list after Lock Documents and choose 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month or 1 year.
5. Click Save

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The latest update for Andreas Amann’s GV Connect app was made available in the App Store yesterday. If you are not familiar with GV Connect, it allows you to place calls using your Google Voice number rather than your mobile number as well as send and receive text messages from your Google Voice number for free. With the app, you can interact with your Google Voice account from your iPhone or iPad without having to logon to the Web site. I find it to be quite a handy app, especially seeing that I use Google Voice for all my texting. I also like the ability to listen to my voice mail messages right from my device.

This new version (1.9.3) adds the new “iPhone Dialer” calling method for the iPhone, which allows you to place calls using your iPhone’s number as the Caller ID. It also fixes a couple of bug issues.

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Microsoft has now made available Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac Service Pack 2, which brings the version to 14.2. This update provides various fixes to Microsoft Office 2011 and contains stability and reliability improvements.

According the Microsoft, some of the improvements are:

• Document Connection support for SkyDrive documents is improved
• Drag & drop feature in Document Connection is added in Mac OS X Lion
• Improvements to SharePoint upload functionality
• Grammar checker improvements
• Outlook database & rebuild utility are improved
• IMAP account sync (including syncing with Google) is improved
• Exchange Mail sync is improved
• Calendar scheduling resources is improved
• Outlook for Mac performance in key scenarios is improved
• Week numbers added to calendar display
• Functionality for pasting special hyperlinks added for PowerPoint
• Full Screen View in Lion now supported in PowerPoint
• Printing PDF faxes is improved in Word
• Display of user information in Word templates is improved
• And much more….

Before you run the update, your Mac should be running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later.

You can download the Microsoft Office for Mac 14.2 update page HERESimilar Posts:

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You may or may not have noticed that Google updated its Google Plus site today. But that’s not all – They have also updated their Google Currents iPad app as well.

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A handy feature of iTunes is the ability to use more than one iTunes library.  This comes in handy if several family members share the same computer.

I personally store my entire iTunes library on an external USB drive and using this feature, I can access my library from any computer.  In the case of an external drive, you will need to make sure to copy an updated version of your iTunes library to the drive.

To Create a New iTunes Library

1. Hold down the Option (or Alt) key on your keyboard.
2. Click the iTunes icon.
3. Click the “Create Library” button from the dialog box that appears.
4. Navigate to the folder where you wish to save your new library file.
5. Click Save

To Switch to Another iTunes Library

1. Hold down the Option (or Alt) key on your keyboard.
2. Click the iTunes icon.
3. Click the “Choose Library” button from the dialog box that appears.
4. Navigate to the folder where the iTunes Library file is located.
5. Click Open.

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If you create your own templates for use in any of your iWork applications (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), you might want to back them up should anything ever happen to your computer.  To do this, you will need to know where they are located.  This is also important if you ever want to move your templates to a different computer.

Your iWork templates folder is located at:  [UserName]/Library/Application Support/iWork/[Application Name]/Templates/My Templates

To access your iWork User-created Templates:

1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
2. Click Go and then hold down the Option or Alt key to display your Library in the list.
3. Click Library.
4. Click the Application Support Folder
5. Click the iWork Folder
6. Click the folder for Pages, Numbers or Keynote.
7. Click Templates
8. Click My Templates. Any templates that you have created will be located in this folder.

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New in Lion is the ability to arrange items in a Finder window; that is to say, you can group your files into clumps, such as by kind, by size, by associated application and more.  The files are then separated by a heading that identifies each group.

Files arranged by application

This new feature works in any view:  icon, list, column and Cover Flow.  There are any practical uses for this new feature.  For instance, if you want to see what application opens (is associated with) any of your files, you can arrange your folder by Application, as shown in the screenshot above.

When you working with the Applications folder, there is a special category that appears in the Arrange By menu:  Applications Category. What this does, is sorts your applications by what they do:  Productivity, Games, Entertainment, Video, Utilities, Reference, etc.  This can be helpful if you have a large collection of applications to sift through.

There are several ways that you can access the Arrange By feature.  You can choose View from the Finder menu, point to Arrange By and then choose the category you want.  You can also click the Arrange icon on the Finder toolbar and choose the desired category from the list.  You can also right-click on any blank area when in Icon view and choose Arrange By from the contextual menu.

To remove the current arrangement of a folder, choose View > Arrange By from the Finder menu and then click None.

To Arrange the Contents of a Folder

1. Select View > Arrange By from the menu, and then click on the desired arrangement
   Or
   Click the Arrangement icon on the Finder toolbar and then click the desired arrangement.
2. To remove the arrangement of a folder, choose View > Arrange By from the Finder menu and then click None.

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