Troubleshooting

The necessity of regular use of the 'purge' command in OS X

When using your Mac, active programs, documents, and system resources will be loaded into memory (RAM), where they can be accessed quickly to run and perform computations. While active memory contents are maintained in memory, the system also keeps some recently used but inactive processes and data there in order to quickly revive them, if needed.

These memory allotments should be managed dynamically for optimum performance, but some people who regularly run low on RAM may be concerned about this and resort to using "RAM cleaning" programs. One of these is the "purge" Terminal command that … Read more

How to recover your iTunes account ID

If you have regularly used iTunes to purchase music and movies, then you may have a significant collection of titles that are tied to your specific iTunes account. However, if you have used more than one iTunes account, then you may run into trouble if you cannot remember the account ID you used to purchase the items.

At the very least, if the songs are DRM-protected and you have not authorized your system to play them, then iTunes will present you with a notice to log in to your account before it will play them.

While Apple offers a quick … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions sent in by our readers.

This week, readers asked questions on how to fix a problem with the system crashing whenever printers are accessed, how to get custom or manually installed fonts to appear in Microsoft Office, and where the wireless monitoring windows went in the system's Wireless Diagnostics utility.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Printer access crashes the system. MacFixIt reader jmackane asks:

When I try to print … Read more

Insignificant bug keeps encrypted disks unlocked after ejecting in OS X

Apple's CoreStorage disk encryption technology has a small bug that will keep a disk unlocked, even after it has been ejected from the system.

In OS X Lion, Apple introduced a drive management technology called CoreStorage. When enabled, CoreStorage will create a "logical volume group" out of one or more physical drive partitions, and then create usable "logical volumes" from this group to serve as storage for your system. This setup allows the logical volume to span multiple physical partitions (as is seen with Apple's Fusion Drive), and support features like encryption for Apple'… Read more

Options for secure file removal in the OS X Terminal

While deleting files in OS X simply involves moving them to the trash and emptying it, this routine does not remove the data of these items, but instead only clears the directory entry for them. The content of the items is kept on disk with the system having no way to access it; as a result, there is potential for the content to be scanned and recovered by data recovery tools.

To prevent this from happening, you can use secure-erase features in OS X, one of which is to securely delete the files in the Finder by choosing this option … Read more

How to manually enable NTFS read and write in OS X

OS X supports the option to read NTFS-formatted drives, but has not supported writing to these drives. Therefore, the use of a third-party driver such as Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS has been required for those seeking full NTFS support; however, OS X does support writing to NTFS, but this feature is just not enabled by default.

To enable this feature, you have to do so on a per-volume basis, by editing the system's hidden fstab file to adjust the way the drive is automatically handled when attached and mounted.

First ensure that your NTFS drive has a simple … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers asked about the necessity of running regular permissions fix routines, how to prevent Time Machine from backing up over VPN, and resizing PDF files in QuickLook.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: The necessity and utility of running regular permissions fix routines MacFixIt reader Jim asks:

I was taught it was a good idea to occasionally do a "repair permission" periodically, … Read more

Prevent resume from occurring at application launch

Apple's autosave and resume features are convenient for maintaining your workflow, even when you do not save documents. So in a program like Pages, for example, you could work on a document and simply quit the program or restart your computer, and the next time the program opens, your documents will be reopened with the changes to them preserved.

While convenient, especially in the event of a crash, hang, or power outage, this feature does have one potential drawback: it could reveal some personal or otherwise private information at inopportune times.

You can avoid this by quitting programs with … Read more

How to change the icon for multiple items in OS X

The generic icons that Apple and third-party developers provide for files and folders are usually enough to help you identify file types in OS X, but there are times when you might want to use a different representation. One option that Apple offers is the ability to show file previews as icons, but this is only available for some file types and not for others.

An alternative option is to add custom icons to files and folders, which can be a fun and useful way to give your system a unique look. To do this, simply select an item and … Read more

Tackle problems installing 10.8.4

Yesterday Apple released the OS X 10.8.4 update for Mac users, which brings a number of fixes for network connectivity, VoiceOver, Boot Camp, and online services like FaceTime and Exchange.

While the update has been relatively smooth so far, a few people are experiencing problems in which the update does not properly install. In some cases the update will download and then give an error when running; in other instances the update will appear to work properly but then the system will reboot to OS X 10.8.3.

If you experience these or similar problems when attempting … Read more