Mac OS X 10.7.3 is here.

Now it’s time to sort out the bugs.

Per 9to5Mac, a number of users are reportedly suffering from an odd application crash bug. Affected people will see apps crash often, with the unusual twist of error messages that feature the word “CUI” stamped over them. A source claims that the company has already sent out an email to a v10.7.3 test group, asking them if they’ve run into the problem and requesting bug reports if so.

Some workarounds exist (which are cataloged here). The most extreme of these involves booting into a Lion Recovery partition, and using Terminal to install a downloaded Combo version of the v10.7.3 update.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve discovered any issues or workarounds, please let us know in the comments.

If iOS 5′s iMessages app is giving you fits, Tim Cook is here to tell you why. Per The Loop, reports of iOS 5 iMessages being sent to the wrong recipient are the result of a misconfigured phone, not an issue with the operating system or Apple’s cloud services, the company indicated.

The report notes that a situation where messages from an Apple Store employee were being directed to another user’s iPhone were the result of the employee failing to follow directions while troubleshooting the customer’s device.

The employee installed his personal SIM card in the customer’s phone, linking the device to his Apple ID account in a way that resulted in his subsequent iMessages, including photos, being relayed to the customer’s device.

The report cited Apple representative Natalie Harrison as saying, “this was an extremely rare situation that occurred when a retail employee did not follow the correct service procedure and used their personal SIM to help a customer who did not have a working SIM. This resulted in a temporary situation that has since been resolved by the employee.”

Apple noted that to prevent such a situation, users should “toggle iMessage on and off” in the Settings app of any iOS 5 device configured to their Apple ID before it is given away or sold.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Late Thursday, version 5.5.0.2340 of the Skype VoIP application was released as a public beta). The new version, a 23.2 megabyte download, offers the following fixes and changes:

- Improved video call stability and improvements to the calling interface.

Skype 5.5.0.2340 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback to offer, please let us know.

It’s the rumors that make tech interesting.

Per Macotakara, a rumor is circulating that Apple will hold a “Strange” event in February and a Special Event to launch the third-generation iPad in early March. Staff writer Danbo has now corrected the original claim as only telling a “half-side of truth.”

According to him, Apple will indeed hold an event in February, but it will be a “Strange” event rather than a full product launch. The author was unable to provide further details on what exactly a strange event would entail, though he did reiterate that it would not be a product event.

One possibility is that the rumored February event could contain industry-related announcements similar to how last month’s education event in New York City to mark the release of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author without showing off new hardware.

“Special Event for new products will be hold in early March and will release products during March as usual,” Danbo continued.

The publication’s most-recent corrections put its insider information more in line with other reports that have pegged March as the month that Apple will release its new iPad, similar to last year. Bloomberg reported last month that production for the next-gen iPad was already underway ahead of a March launch. That report also claimed that the device would feature a high-resolution display, LTE compatibility and a quad-core processor. Rumors out of Taiwan have also pointed to March as the time frame for the launch.

The third-generation iPad is generally believed to feature a doubled-resolution display with a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch. Apple is also expected to unveil its next-generation A6 processor alongside the next iPad as it did with the A5 and the iPad 2 last year.

As for iOS 5.1, a beta release of the software provided by Apple to developers appears to contain references to deep Facebook integration similar to system-wide elements for Twitter that the company built into iOS 5.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

With Mac OS X 10.7.3 going live yesterday, one has to wonder what changed for Mac OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard) users?

Not that much.

Per AppleInsider, Apple’s legacy Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server operating systems saw only minor security patches, though it is recommended that users install the latest software.

The Snow Leopard downloads, which can be found through Software Update or at Apple’s support page, offer Security Update 2012-001 (Snow Leopard) and Security Update 2012-001 (Snow Leopard Server), these updates weighing in at 192.73 MB for the Client version and 212.09 MB for Snow Leopard Server, with both requiring Mac OS X 10.6.8 to install and run.

If you’ve tried any of these updates and have feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

You’v been wanting it for a while and now it’s here.

Late Wednesday night, Apple released its Mac OS X 10.7.3 update. The update, a 997 megabyte download, offers the following fixes and changes:

- Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support.

- Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X.

- Resolve issues authenticating with directory services.

- Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing.

For detailed information on this update, please visit here.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit here.

If necessary, the full 1.2 gigabyte combo updater can be downloaded here.

The Mac OS X 10.7.3 updater requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS x 10.7 or later.

If you’ve tried the new operating system and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.

You can’t argue with effective lobbying.

Per Macworld UK, the United States government, at the request of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has announced an inquiry that could lead to a blanket exemption to the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) for activities that all under the Fair Use doctrine of U.S. copyright law. As such, public comments have been invited until February 10th.

This announcement, and subsequent change in DCMA enforcement policy, has wide-ranging implications for consumers of electronic devices and media. As it applies to the on-going battle between Apple and iPhone hackers, the new rules stipulate that Apple may not actively prevent attempts to “Jailbreak” the iPhone to allow extra functionality with either hardware or software measures.

Beyond the iPhone, the new DCMA exemptions allow academics to legally break DVD copy-protection to use films clips in the classroom, users to remove software and hardware security measures that are no longer supported by the publisher or manufacturer, and legalizes the investigation and correction of software flaws by third-parties.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

On Tuesday, Mozilla.org released version 10.0 of its Firefox web browser. The new version stands as a 31.8 megabyte download and adds the following fixes and changes:

- New: The forward button is now hidden until you navigate back.

- New: Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default.

- New: Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented (see bug 615976).

- New: CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported (see bug 505115).

- HTML5: New element for bi-directional text isolation, along with supporting CSS properties (see bugs 613149 and 662288).

- HTML5: Full Screen APIs allow you to build a web application that runs full screen (see the feature page).

- Developer: We’ve added IndexedDB APIs to more closely match the specification.

- Developer: Inspect tool with content highlighting, includes new CSS Style Inspector.

- Fixed: Mac OS X only – after installing the latest Java release from Apple, Firefox may crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed (700835).

- Fixed: Some users may experience a crash when moving bookmarks (681795).

- Known issues are detailed here.

Firefox 10.0 requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.

On Thursday, shareware developer Maintain released version 5.1.2 of CocktailCocktail (Lion Edition), the popular shareware utility program that allows for additional Mac OS X system tests. The new version, a 2.9 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and features:

- Addresses an issue in which Pilot scheduler could not be enabled.

- Error -105 (Path to user’s home directory contains spaces).

- Error -114 (Home directory not found in the /Users folder).

- Addresses an issue in which Cocktail could not force empty the Trash.

- Error -362 (The Trash contains more than 2000 files).

- Addresses an issue in which Safari webpage previews could not be disabled.

- Addresses an issue in which Cocktail may freeze when trying to gather disk information or the journaling state of the case-sensitive HFS+ disks could not be detected.

- Error -215 (diskutil is not responding).

- Error -217 (Could not get information about the partition).

- Addresses an issue in which improper permissions were applied to the File Sharing logs during the rotation of these logs.

- Added Mac OS X 10.7.3 compatibility.

- Updated Automator actions.

Cocktail 5.1.2 retails for a US$19.00 shareware registration fee and requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later to install and run.

It never hurts to think ahead.

Per 9to5Mac, Apple is looking to combat reservation scalpers through a new lottery system for its iPhone 4S Hong Kong release. The company has set up a new web page on its site for reserving an iPhone in Hong Kong. The page requires the customer to enter a government ID number, which they must reportedly also show at the time of purchase. The system will then employ a lottery system, in which the winners get a chance to buy an iPhone.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.