Now that Apple has released OS X 10.9 Mavericks, you might want to consider creating a USB install drive for clean installs and future use. Ed Rhee Ed Rhee, a freelance writer based in the San ...

A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent ...

When Apple released OS X 10.7 two years ago, it stopped selling operating system DVDs in its stores, stopped shipping recovery disks with new Macs, and switched to downloadable installers for OS X ...

I recently loaded OS X Mavericks on an old (2007) 20" iMac, and to check that everything was fine I ran the machine through the full Setup Assistant -- setting up a user with my name in the process.

Mavericks (OS X 10.9) doesn’t ship on a disc. Instead, it’s available only as an installer app downloadable from the Mac App Store, and that installer doesn’t ...

About nine months ago, I acquired a 13-inch MacBook Air. At that point, the first Ultrabooks had been announced but were not yet shipping. Even so, I might have waited, except that the Ultrabooks I’d ...

Apple has finally implemented a maps app in the OS X platform, and it seems to have been worth the wait. After being noticeably missing from the system, Maps (and iBooks) are helping achieve a greater ...

OS X Mavericks is available in the Mac App Store now, but it's only an upgrade—but if you want to do a clean install, you'll need to manually burn an installation flash drive. Here's how to do it.

I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.