Guides & How-Tos

mac.column.ted: Airline hassles from online to on board (with a PowerBook)

Ted Landau April 2005

Over the past year, I have had to fly back and forth between Michigan and California several times. I used my desktop Mac for booking my flights online; the idea here was to save time and money from booking the ?old-fashioned way.? On flight days, I took my PowerBook with me of course. My plan was that to use the laptop to help pass the time. I might get some work done on an article or just watch a movie on DVD. Unfortunately, my ideas and plans turned out to have very little in common with … Read more

Tutorial: Ten ways to stay out of trouble

Ted Landau March 2005

Many troubleshooting articles focus on how to get yourself out of some troubleshooting jam. In this article, I instead want to look at the other side of the table: How to keep yourself out of trouble in the first place. I will not be covering here any of the oft-cited maintenance routines (such as repairing permissions or running cron jobs). Instead, I will be covering even more basic advice that is also, in most cases, even more simple to do. Despite this, it is advice that is too often ignored...at the user?s peril.

Back … Read more

Mini-Tutorial: Minimizing System-Wide Freezes where "Force Quit" will not work

One of the most frustrating problems under Mac OS X 10.3.x are system-wide freezes where nothing short of a manual restart will resolve the situation. There are many causes for this issue, and an equally high number of solutions.

Heavy network activity Some system-wide freezes can be directly linked to heavy network activity. The problem is most common when users are transferring data through a file sharing application like BitTorrent, but also can also occur under other high-load circumstances.

In some cases, Macs seemingly succumbed to a system-wide freeze due to this problem actually recover after a few … Read more

Mini-Tutorial: Inability to boot from Mac OS X CD/DVDs; solving

It's a troubleshooting nightmare: you have problems starting your standard Mac OS X installation, or another serious issue that requires re-installation of Mac OS X itself. You grab your Mac OS X CD or DVD, insert it, press the reset button, hold down the "C" key and expect to be back up and running -- but the system still refuses to properly boot.

This obviously makes re-installation of Mac OS X impossible, and severely limits your troubleshooting avenues. Fortunately, there are some relatively straightforward methods for dealing with this issue.

Try holding down the "option" … Read more

Mini-Tutorial: The dreaded spinning pinwheel; Avoiding unresponsiveness/slow-downs in Mac OS X

Patience may be a virtue, but in the case of Mac OS X's dreaded spinning pinwheel process indicator, even the most tranquil users can find themselves more than a tad anxious for the standard arrow cursor to re-appear and normal system operation to appear.

While virtually all users will experience a spinning pinwheel (and associated unresponsiveness from a specific application, a group of applications or the entire system) from time to time, there are a number of measures you can take to lessen the occurrence of these incidents and eliminate standstills.

Add more RAM The primary cause for overall … Read more

mac.column.ted: The Trouble with Troubleshooting Mac OS X

Ted Landau March 2005

Recently, a friend of mine requested help in solving a printing problem in Mac OS X. The road to the solution led me to reflect, yet again, on the nature of troubleshooting Apple's OS [Note: If you are a MacFixIt Pro member, check out my September 2004 column for a different take on this subject.] Mac OS X has a well-deserved reputation for being reliable. But, when things do go wrong, you may have to traverse some huge potholes to get to the solution. In many cases, even seasoned troubleshooters abandon any attempt to find … Read more

Mini-Tutorial: When software updates don't work (system cannot see or install updates)

"Grayed-Out" Software Update menu item Generally, Software Update can be universally accessed via the Apple menu. In some cases however -- sometimes after a major system update -- the Software Update menu item appears in a grey shade indicating that it cannot be selected

The most consistent workaround for this issue has been clearing of system caches -- a task easily accomplished with a tool like Panther Cache Cleaner.

Unable to apply updates Some users are presented with a permissions error referring to the directory: "/tmp/501/TemporaryItems/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate." when attempting to check for … Read more

Tutorial: Dealing with Wake-from-sleep issues

These fixes deal specifically with the two most common wake-from-sleep issues affecting Mac OS X systems -- a completely blank screen with the system unresponsive where a forced restart is usually the only option and a kernel panic where a restart is also required.

Both manifestations of these issues also exhibit the following symptoms:

The afflicted machine does not react to a network ping. The CD works normally and will accept media, but the system does not react appropriately. The battery continues to drain The machine does not "Wake for network administrator access"

Do not connect, disconnect external … Read more

mac.column.ted: Strangled in a Wireless World

Ted Landau

Ah, the bliss of living in today?s wireless world. With my AirPort Base Station, I have been freed from the tangle of Ethernet cords that used to emanate from my collection of networked computers and printers. Gone is the need to run Ethernet cables behind walls, so as to avoid unsightly cables along the floor. With my AirPort Express, I can even play songs from my Mac?s iTunes Library on my audio equipment in the next room ? without any wires connecting the devices. My Bluetooth-equipped Mac connects to a Bluetooth mouse completely untethered. My mobile phone ? … Read more