filesystem

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week, we have questions about old e-mail addresses still being used in Mail's address auto-completion, battery calibration behavior in MacBook Pro systems, printer queue accidentally removed from the Dock, and a commend on another useful utility that tracks file system changes.

Question: Old e-mail addresses still being used in Mail's address auto-completion

MacFixIt reader "Charles" asks:

I have a problem with Mail/Address Book. When my friends change their e-mail address, the old address remains in my system. When I send … Read more

There are many times when in troubleshooting your Mac, it is useful to see what files on the system are being modified. For instance, if you are having difficulty with some system preferences and know what preference files are being used to store the system settings, you can further troubleshoot the problem by manually editing the files or removing them. The problem with doing this is that sometimes you can't easily find the files that are being modified.

Though you can use the Finder to search for and sort files by modification date, this is only useful for visible … Read more

Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of all the updates for many Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.… Read more

Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of all the updates for many Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.… Read more

Compatibility with Microsoft's NTFS filesystem is sometimes necessary for people who use either separate PCs or Boot Camp. While Apple offers a driver to read NTFS volumes, by default it will not write to them. To overcome this, there are several third-party NTFS drivers available, but in Snow Leopard you can set Apple's built-in driver to write to NTFS as well.… Read more

In order to implement full support for the NTFS file system, you will need to install third-party software. While Apple allows you to read NTFS drives on Macs, the ability to both write to these drives and format drives for NTFS are not included in OS X. NTFS-3G is one popular option for managing NTFS partitions in OS X; however, if you have had it installed you may run into an issue where Disk Utility will give you an error when you try to format a drive to NTFS.… Read more

There is a known problem with Snow Leopard's handling of FAT32 drive partitions, where the system will run into an error when folders containing files are copied from one drive to another. This only happens when copying between FAT32 drives, and not when different filesystem types are used.… Read more

When it comes to full read and write support for windows drives, OS X can only do so on FAT32-formatted partitions. The newer and popular NTFS format is a more stable option for Bootcamp and other applications; however, it is only readable by OS X. One of Apple's selling points for OS X is the enhanced Windows compatibility, but the lack of write ability to NTFS drives makes transferring files between the Mac OS and Bootcamp rather cumbersome. Luckily, third-party utilities enable this missing feature.… Read more

FinderPop is a free preference pane that extends the functionality of OS X's contextual menus, helping you more quickly browse, open, move, preview, and get info on folders, files, volumes, and apps using your mouse, in much the same way that other "launcher" apps increase efficiency with keyboard commands. This popular, venerable application has been around since Mac OS 9, and one of its main purposes is to emulate the old Apple Menu Items folder.

At its most basic, FinderPop lets you browse the contents of a folder or volume just by control-clicking on it, while also … Read more