Mac OS X

Recently we were contacted by a MacFixIt reader who has not been able to record video chats in iChat on his new MacBook Air laptop. While video chats work fine, for some reason the "Record Chat" option in the "Video" menu does not work and the program will not allow video chats to be recorded. This is in contrast to both prior MacBook Air models, all other Mac systems that support video chatting.

MacFixIt reader "Joseph" writes:

"I've just discovered that the new MacBook Air, unlike every other current-vintage Apple laptop and … Read more

Apple outscored both Dell and Hewlett-Packard in overall satisfaction with tech support by phone, though its problem-resolution rates took a bit of a hit in a study released today by consumer feedback firm Vocal Laboratories.

Based on interviews with customers from July 2009 to December 2010, Apple's lead in phone support over Dell and HP dipped a bit in the second half of last year compared with the first half, according to the study from Vocal Laboratories (Vocalabs).

But Apple customers seeking tech support still proved the happiest, with 66 percent saying they were "very satisfied" with … Read more

When troubleshooting various aspects of OS X and Mac hardware, one common routine is to boot into Safe Mode to automatically run some maintenance routines and prevent the system from loading inessential features. This can be done by holding the Shift Key immediately after hearing the boot chimes when starting the system up; however, sometimes this may not work.

Booting to Safe Mode requires the Mac's firmware to send the kernel some variables (boot arguments) that it interprets as a command to modify the procedures it uses to load the rest of the system. These can be set manually … Read more

The OS X keychain is a useful and secure way to save passwords, certificates, and other authentication information for applications, Web sites, and various other services. By default these are generally loaded into either the log-in keychain or the System kechain, depending on whether the service is user-oriented or a system setting such as Wi-Fi or VPN passwords.

Though the keychain is convenient, sometimes after extensive use it can become cluttered with numerous items. Generally this clutter does not harm anything, but sometimes it can result in odd problems such as the incorrect password being used for a service even … Read more

When establishing a file-sharing connection to your Mac from a different computer, the system may display a number of available items to you, which include all hard drives and your home folder in addition to various shared folders you may have enabled. This can leave new OS X users confused about why the system appears to be so open and accessible, and may cause concern about the security of files in OS X.

OS X has three default share-point locations:

Filesystem roots: The root (base folder) of any locally mounted filesystem is available through file sharing; however, it is only … Read more

If you have a system that you allow other people to use, you may at times want to be able to see when others have logged into your system. This may be particularly true with systems you use as a server, a workstation at a school, or even a family computer that may have multiple accounts on it. Though the system has tools like the Console or Activity Monitor, which can show information about users on the system, using these to track when they logged in can be a bit cumbersome.

To view this information specifically, the terminal has a … Read more

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 past week there were updates with a number of maintenance and optimization utilities, in addition to an update for a useful multi-GPU management tool.

Maintenance In maintenance utilities this week, both MacPilot and MacPilot Lite were updated. In the latest … Read more

Sometimes applications that usually launch quickly may take longer to load, and may either bounce in the Dock more than usual or take a while to show interface elements. The system may be otherwise responsive and active when this happens, and after the application loads it may also run well, but it might take a while to launch.

Inactive RAM Commonly used applications or those that were recently opened will usually reopen more quickly than when the same applications are launched right after the system is booted. This is in part because of the system's HotFiles cache where it … Read more

If you want to rename a file in OS X, you can select it and then do one of several things. The first is to press the Return key and the name will be highlighted for editing, or you can get information on the file and rename it using the Info window. A commonly used alternative to these is to click the name of the highlighted file with the mouse and after a small delay the file's name will be highlighted for editing.

While I have found using the Return key is the fastest way to switch between selected … Read more