Like any computer, a Mac is prone to serious problems over the course of its life. A wide variety of things can go horribly, horribly wrong. From a complete failure to start, to that terrifying kernel panic screen, here's how to troubleshoot (and hopefully fix) what's plaguing your Mac.

Mac: When Mountain Lion was released last year it dropped support for older generation Macs from 2006-2008. There were workarounds to get it to install, but they were far from user-friendly. MLPostFactor is a utility that makes the process of getting Mountain Lion installed on an older Mac a bit simpler.

Mac (Mountain Lion): There are lots of different ways to remind ourselves to do things, including to-do lists, task lists or calendars. But if you're looking for something much simpler that just reminds you to do something in a specified period of time, Scheduled Notifications does the job.

Apple has released a big update for Mac OS X. in conjunction with today's iOS 6 release. It brings improvements to Facebook, iMessages, Game Center and bug fixes.

Notification Center is one of Mountain Lion's coolest features, but not everyone likes it. If you want to get rid of Notification Center completely, OS X Daily shows off a simple terminal command to do just that.

OS X Mountain Lion has a handy automatic update system, but unlike previous versions of the operating system, you can't set the frequency of updates. If you want to update more (or less), OS X Daily shares a simple Terminal command to allow you to control the process.

Don't find the Dock useful in Mountain Lion? Lifehacker reader Luke Carbis explains how you can conceal it with a simple Terminal script.

Mountain Lion's system-wide notification banners can occasionally cover up something that you need to click. Luckily, a quick flick can get rid of them instantly.

Even if you're a happy Windows user, you may have thought about trying Mac OS X. Maybe you'd like to test drive OS X before switching to a Mac or building a Hackintosh, or maybe you just want to run that one killer Mac app on your Windows machine. Whatever your reason, you can actually install and run OS X inside your existing Windows setup with a program called VirtualBox. Here's how.

OS X: With Mountain Lion, Apple took away the ability to see your remaining battery time in the menu bar. Free app Battery Time Remaining brings it back, along with a few other goodies to keep your laptop alive.

If you've been having battery trouble since upgrading to Mountain Lion, there's good news: yesterday's 10.8.1 update may improve it some. Ars Technica tested it out on a MacBook Air and a retina MacBook Pro, finding that 10.8.1 brought their battery life back up by nearly two hours.

A fast, refreshed, and completely awesome Mac is within your reach, but Mountain Lion isn't the way to get there. If you want to maximise the power of your machine, it's time to move to Linux.

Mac: You probably know that in OS X, you can right-click on any file to open it with the app of your choice. Mountain Lion adds a new tweak: if you're browsing through files using Quick Look, you can do the same right from the Quick Look window.

When Mountain Lion launched, we discussed how to use its new Dictaction feature effectively. It works pretty well on its own, but reader MDaemon wrote in with a handy tip: if you're having trouble getting Dictation to understand words you use often, just create a fake contact for it -- since the tool scans your contacts to make sure it gets proper nouns right, it'll see your contact, match your word with the contact, and print it correctly.

Mac: Notification Centre is one of the best parts of Mountain Lion, but the classic linen background is a bit bland. If you want to add your own image, Cult of Mac shows us an easy way to spice it up.

Mac: So you've upgraded to Mountain Lion, but you've found a few things that annoy you about the OS. Mountain Tweaks is a simple app that will fix those problems in just a few clicks.

Surprise! Mountain Lion has a new secret feature: basic text expansion. Here's how to set it up and some handy shortcuts to get you started.

We've already highlighted 10 secret features of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, but another hidden standout is the ability to link Twitter handles to all your contacts with a single click.

Apple introduced the multi-desktop management tool Spaces way back in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and it was great until they laid waste to it in Lion (and now Mountain Lion). If you're a Spaces lover, here's how to bring back the spaces you know and love.