Mac OS X 10.7 ("Lion") will be happy to know that Micromat has "lion-ized" TechTool Protogo (http://www.micromat.com/protogo) as of version 3.0. The software allows you to turn an USB or FireWire device, such as an iPod, flash drive, compact hard drive, or SD Card, into a toolkit to troubleshoot your Macs.

You can boot, run diagnostics and perform drive repair on multiple Macs, both Intel and PowerPC flavors, from a single, portable device as small as a flash drive. Just drop it into your pocket and take it anywhere.

Protogo ships with the Protogo device configuration application, a collection of standard system and utility configurations. Custom profiles for specific needs can be created with a few clicks.Your Protogo profiles include TechTool Pro to diagnose hardware issues, repair drives, fix disk permissions, clone volumes, backup your Lion Recovery HD to another Lion device, and more. Plus you can add other utilities, like anti-virus, to complement your profiles. And you can reconfigure your device profiles anytime you need. That's versatility.

With Protogo, you plug in a flash drive or retired iPod to help maintain or repair your Mac. You can configure a bootable device to maintain and monitor your Macs for impending problems. You can also create your own custom profiles too, and your device will run software faster than from a DVD.

In the latest version, Protogo has been upgraded to run on Lion, yet preserves the flexibility to more add profiles for diagnosing hardware issues and repairing drives on older Macs, too, according to the folks at Micromat. Now a single portable device, such as a small flash drive, old iPod, SD Card or hard drive, can be used to boot, diagnose hardware and repair drives on a variety of Macs at home or at work.

Protogo 3.0 -- compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.9 or higher -- is available direct by download from Micromat (http://www.micromat.com) for US$129.99 with $39.99 upgrades for previous users of Protogo, Protege or TechTool Pro 6. Upgrades from TechTool Pro 5 and older, or from Micromat's Diskstudio are $59.99. Specially priced academic versions are $59.99, and can be ordered thru authorized academic resellers by download or direct from Micromat at 707-566-3831.