Apple provide OS X Lion recovery tool

In betanews

Apple has released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant for beleaguered OS X Lion users, allowing them to start the Lion recovery process directly from a USB drive. Previously anyone who'd purchased the Lion upgrade through the Mac App Store would be forced to reinstall and update Snow Leopard before they could reinstall Lion if disaster struck, forcing them to replace the hard disk.

The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant requires an external USB hard drive or USB thumb drive with at least 1GB free space. It will partition the entire drive, so follow the guidelines at this Apple KB article for details of partitioning the drive so the rest of its capacity can continue to be used for general data storage if required.

The assistant is simple to use: once downloaded, open the DMG image and double-click the file inside to launch the tool. With your USB disk plugged in, select it (or the specific partition you created) and click "Continue". Enter your user password and the utility will do the rest.

Once completed, you can test your disk immediately: restart your Mac with the drive plugged in, holding down the [Option] key. When prompted, select "Recovery HD" to go to the recovery screen, complete with the same options you'll get from the hidden partition on your hard drive.

Although designed specifically for those upgrading to Lion, the recovery disk utility can be used by those who purchased a new Mac with Lion pre-installed. These Macs have recovery procedures built-in that don't require the presence of the original hard disk to run, but can be hobbled by a rare set of circumstances whereby the new hard drive has already been partitioned in a format not recognized by OS X.

Note the recovery disk created does not contain all of the Lion installer files -- these are automatically downloaded from the Internet when the "Reinstall Mac OS X" option is selected.

Download Lion Recovery disk free here

Win a quarter-million in prizes to improve Windows security

In betanews

If the security of your system depends on users making intelligent security decisions then you're basically doomed. After all these years of experience with end users on the Internet we know that they can't be trusted to make those decisions correctly. At least not often enough.

That's why the best security technologies are the ones that happen in spite of the user. These have been a focus for Microsoft over the last 10 years and remain the last, best hope of userdom.


And that's why Microsoft launched the Blue Hat Prize this year at BlackHat. The prize will be awarded each year for advances in defensive security technology. Existing examples of these are ASLR and DEP, which stop exploits of vulnerabilities automatically.

A quick review of these technologies is in order:

DEP (Data Execution Prevention). This goes back to Windows XP SP2 I believe. Windows uses CPU features to mark data areas of the program as non-executable. Many exploits rely on generating code in data areas and executing it.

Click here to access the Blue Hat prize

Boxee for iPad - Access media collection easily

In betanews

The Mac and PC versions of Boxee provide a wonderfully versatile means of accessing your media collection -- music, photos and movies -- in a delightful interface. The app can be used in conjunction with your computer, or linked to your TV and stereo. Now there is an iPad app available that brings the flexibility of the desktop software to Apple's tablet. Boxee for iPad has been unleashed, and it has plenty to offer.

The idea behind the iPad app is very much the same as the desktop software, although this time around there is an even greater emphasis placed on streaming media. As is almost expected of any app these days, Boxee for iPad integrates with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. This is not just so that you can interact with your friends, but also so that you can access videos that have been posted to these sites in the same app you will use to access the rest of your media collection.


Boxee software has always had something of the wow factor and this app is no different. You can find out more and download a copy of the app by paying a visit to the Boxee for iPad review page.

CCleaner 3.0: New beta supports Mac OS X Lion

In betanews

Piriform has released the third public beta of its forthcoming CCleaner for Mac. Based on the popular Windows version, CCleaner for Mac offers various cleaning tools for parts of the operating system, and is a freeware release.

CCleaner for Mac Beta 3 is available as a free download for Macs running OS X (Leopard) or later.CCleaner 3.09 is also available as a freeware download for PCs running Windows 2000 or later.