Mac OS X

Mac Quick Tip: Empty Trash in iPhoto and Aperture

If you are like me, you have terabytes' worth of photographs on many drives, taking up valuable space. Of course, even if you aren't a professional photographer you may still have a lot of photographs on your machine and wish you had more space for other media like videos or music.

One tip that could get much of your valuable space back is simple, but not entirely obvious. Most Mac programs will delete files fully from your machine when you delete them from the program (or at least ask you if you want to delete the program completely, as … Read more

How to: prevent sidebar 'Shared' clutter in OS X

In the past, file sharing between computers took a little configuration to get done. You had to set up and properly configure your network ports, then enable file-sharing services, select files to share, and connect to an IP address for the desired system if you could not locate it with various discovery tools like the Classic Mac's Network Browser or Windows' Network Neighborhood.

These days a lot of the same configuration and setup has to be done to get the system on the network, but once on the network there are new zero-configuration protocols, such as Apple's Bonjour, … Read more

Weekly Troubleshooting Utilities Update

Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week we have had updates to a couple of maintenance tools, a few process management tools, a number of filesystem and file management tools, and a benchmarking suite.

Maintenance In maintenance utility updates this past week, Cocktail has been updated … Read more

DHCP timeouts? Other network problems? Try new locations.

By default the network settings in OS X are set up to dynamically adjust to different network environments. All ports on the system are enabled, so when activated either by plugging in an Ethernet cable or turning on the Wi-Fi receiver, the system will configure an available network connection through these ports. Sometimes, however, network configurations may hang during this initial setup. This might happen when a port is enabled, or when the system refreshes the configuration after waking from sleep or booting up.

If this happens, one of the easiest approaches is to create a new network location for … Read more

iTunes 10: Screensaver starts during full-screen visualizer

Some people are reporting an issue with iTunes 10 in which the screensaver starts while they are using iTunes' visualizer in full-screen mode on connected devices like HDTVs. Prior to iTunes 10, the visualizer would take precedence on the screen display, not allowing the screensaver to start when playing, similar to a full-screen video. Apple Support Discussions user "megadot" writes:

I have my Mac Mini connected to my flat screen TV. I have my screen saver set to come on after the minimum time to protect my plasma panel. Since upgrading to iTunes 10 my screen saver starts … Read more

Troubleshooting sound volumes in OS X

Configuring the OS X audio settings is quite simple and should be pretty straightforward; however, there are times when odd mishaps can occur and the system will not play sounds, or will not play alerts. In addition there may be instances in which it will only play these sounds through odd sources, such as only through the internal speakers, only through headphones, or only through a third-party audio device.

The first step if audio stops working is to restart the system to see if a basic reload of the current configuration will fix the problem. However, if this does not … Read more

Lack of start-up commands due to faulty cable?

Sometimes problems happen for what turn out to be rather bizarre reasons. Recently we were contacted by MacFixIt reader "Frank" who had a long-standing problem where his Mac Pro would not accept boot arguments such as booting to Safe Mode when holding the Shift key.

Many times when boot commands are not working people suspect either the PRAM, the SMC, or an enabled firmware password is the root of the problem; however, this is not always the case. Sometimes incompatible hardware or faults in hardware can interfere with the ability to pass boot arguments to the system, though … Read more

Finder icons all appearing the same

The Finder's large and detailed icons are appealing and help give OS X a rich and colorful experience. However, every now and then there can be issues with them that result in either an odd appearance or odd behavior. One of these we covered in the past was blurry or pixelated icons, but another might be missing icons or duplicate uses of the same icon.

If this problem happens, there are a few approaches you can try to fix the issue:

Relaunch the Finder

The first step is to relaunch the Finder. You can do this by logging out … Read more

Advanced iCal alarms resulting in 'HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden' error

Using iCal linked with Apple's online MobileMe service is one way to synchronize your calendars across devices and make them available online wherever you have an Internet connection. Despite the benefits of this, a number of users have recently run into a problem in which setting alarms on future events results in an access-forbidden error that seems to pop up randomly.

For people experiencing this problem, if you create an event seven or more days in the future and then create an alarm or reminder for this event that occurs seven or more days in advance, iCal issues the … Read more