CrashPlan+ features easy installation with a “just click go” style feature to start using the app. The program transmits a default backup of the home directory once per hour to CrashPlan+, but the user or Systems Administrator has the ability to set the backup interval down to once per minute. The data is encrypted for secure remote storage.

Napkin Studio’s David Stanfill has been hard at work developing an OS X client that will allow for AirPlay mirroring from iOS to OS X, something that is currently unsupported. Stanfill’s decision to develop such a client and the technology behind it came from his desire to find a better way to demo his iOS applications during online meetings and to be able to record live video of the apps as they are being used.

With my current MacBook closing in on its third birthday, it occurred to me the other day that it might be prudent to check out the condition of the battery. Happily, there are several utilities for doing that, and I downloaded a couple of freeware examples to check out their comparative usefulness, as well as that of the MacBook battery.

One of the most popular features in OS X Lion is Resume, which works along with Auto-Save to ensure a user’s documents and other files are always saved in the background and restored to their former state once a Mac is rebooted or an application is exited. But sometimes, it is not in a user’s interest to automatically save their files and documents or preserve an application’s state, and that’s where RestoreMeNot comes in.

I would prefer that Apple continue offering the option of traditional scrolling in the Mac OS for those of us (many) who like it better. Conversely, if you’re holding off upgrading to Lion but want to get acclimatized in Snow Leopard, you can download a freeware utility from PilotMoon called Scroll Reverser that will switch your Mac’s scrolling to emulate most of Lion’s scrolling features.

A little bit more than a year ago I got the chance to test-drive MacKeeper for the first time. I really liked the application, but even more, I liked the potential of it. I’ve been using it ever since, catching up to every update, and looking for improvements. To me MacKeeper is a winner, and you can try it for free by downloading the trial from the MacKeeper site. Have fun with it. It’s worth it.

OS X Lion brought many changes for Mac users that took some getting used, and may have just been unbearable. For those who are unhappy with some or all of Apple’s new changes and features in Lion, an extremely easy-to-use tool by the name of Lion Tweaks comes in handy. Although many of the new features can be enabled and disabled via Terminal, this app makes it much easier for the everyday user to customize his/her Lion installation.

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant installs a Lion Recovery partition to the external media in order to allow a user to create another boot disk. In order to use the app, you’ll need to plug in the external media, ensuring that no data is on it as it will be erased during the process, and then allow it to create a recovery drive. Lion Recovery Disk Assistant is available for download through from Apple’s support site.

Without the option to go out and buy a physical copy of OS X Lion, it would be a good idea to install a bootable Lion image onto external media such as a USB flash drive, SD card, DVD or external hard drive. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a simple task, but developer Guillaume Gete has taken the time to make it so by creating Lion DiskMaker to practically do all the work for you.

Since NTFS problems are not new to the system, the web already has thousands of articles and blog posts on the subject. Many solutions are available; some of them are free, and some of them are paid. I’ve tested a few, and today I’d recommend the one I believe to be the best among them all: Tuxera NTFS for Mac.