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No HDMI Sound Under OS X Lion Using A Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt Adapter? There’s An Easy Fix For That [How-To]

I’ve mostly been very happy with my migration to Lion, but I did get bit with one bug after the upgrade: for the life of me, I couldn’t get sound to output through HDMI when using my Kanex Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter. That meant the days of hooking my 11-inch MacBook Air to my 47-inch 1080p HDTV were at an end.

I wasn’t alone. Apple’s support communities are filled with threads from frustrated Lion upgraders who suddenly lost the ability to pump sound through their HTPCs. HDMI sound also stopped working on my girlfriend’s MacBook when she upgraded to Lion. It’s obviously a widespread problem.

Luckily, today I finally figured out how to fix the issue, and it was remarkably simple. Here’s how to get HDMI sound back into Lion.

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How to Get Google+ Running in Your Mac’s Menubar

Have you fallen in love with Google+? Do you find yourself checking the social network frequently throughout your day?

There’s a free app in the Mac App Store that let’s you run Google+ from your Mac’s menubar, and it’s called Tab for Google+. With this app, you can easily check and interact with Google+ while doing just about anything on your Mac.

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How to Change the Scrolling Direction in Lion [OS X Tips]


One of the most noticeable changes in OS X Lion is Apple’s reversal of traditional page scrolling. In Lion, Apple has adopted an iOS approach to scrolling by changing the way that the user scrolls up and down; instead of moving the window around the content, you actually move the content itself.

This method of scrolling works great when you’re on a touchscreen device like an iPhone or iPad, but a more traditional desktop experience doesn’t lend itself to what Apple calls “Natural Scrolling” in Lion.

If you’d like to go back to the old way of scrolling in Lion, here’s how to do so.

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Use Lion Recovery Disk Assistant To Make A USB Recovery Drive [Video How-To]

 

Apple has just released the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, which allows you to turn any USB flash drive into a Lion recovery disk. This useful tool comes in handy in the event of a hard drive failure. In this video, I’ll show you how to set up a Lion recovery drive the right way and how to use it in the event of a hard drive failure.

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Make The Most Of Your Magic Mouse In OS X Lion [Video How-To]

OS X Lion includes a plethora of new gestures to enhance the user experience. While the majority of these gestures are based around the trackpad, the Magic Mouse still has more than a few new gestures. In this video, I’ll show you how you can use Lion’s new gestures to make the most of your Magic Mouse.

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Get The Most Out Of Mission Control [Video How-To]

In Mac OS X Lion, Mission Control unifies Spaces and Exposé. Along with this unification comes changes to how Spaces and Exposé work. In this video, I’ll show you the changes with Mission Control and how to use them to your benefit.

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How To Edit Mission Control Keyboard Shortcuts In Lion

Command left and right arrow in Lion

Mission Control is one of the big new features in Lion, and like most new features it brings with it some new keyboard shortcuts. One of these is Command+Left Arrow or Command+Right Arrow to move swiftly between spaces.

It’s a sensible shortcut, but on my machine it conflicted with the shortcut I use dozens of times a day to jump to the end of a line of text. If you’re in a similar position, and you’ve found that Command+Right or Left Arrow no longer does what it used to do, here’s how to fix it.

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How To Set Up A Universal Full-Screen Keyboard Shortcut in Lion

The new full-screen support in OS X Lion is a dream come true for lifehackers looking to squeeze more productivity out of their apps, but one problem for keyboard users is that there’s just no standardized shortcut.

That seems like something of an oversight on Apple’s part, but luckily, there’s an easy to way assign your own universal full-screen shortcut for every app on your machine, even if the devs didn’t provide their own easy keyboard combination for triggering full-screen on your Mac.

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Use Front Row In OS X Lion [Video How-To]

One of the subtle changes in Mac OS X Lion was the removal of Front Row, Apple’s media center application. While not an incredibly important loss, it may frustrate some users who enjoyed using the application. Fortunately, it’s rather simple to get Front Row working on Lion, as I’ll show you in this video.

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How to Give Address Book A Clean and Simple Look in Lion

In OS X Lion, Apple redesigned Address Book with a new look that resembles a physical hardcover book binding. This type of design choice is called “skeuomorphic,” because it was, “deliberately employed to make the new look comfortably old and familiar.” Lion’s version of Address Book takes the old look and feel of a physical book and ports that to a virtual application.

While some may like the new look of Address Book in Lion, many have raised complaints. If you’d like to make Address Book look clean and simple again, we’ve got just the trick to unbind Address Book from its brown hardcover.

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