TMUP Live March 4th with Steve Stanger

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Open Source Typical Mac User Live

 

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-- INTRO:

 

Welcome to the Typical Mac User Live show. My name is Victor Cajiao and I am your host this evening. My regular Podcast Typical Mac User Podcast can be found at www.typicalmacuser.com and that shows is released weekly on Tuesday nights.

 

If you are listening to the Talkshoe stream and want to be an interactive part of the show. All you have to do is sign up for Talkshoe at www.talkshoe.com (It's free) and get an ID

 

The you can Call Phone Number: (724) 444-7444

Talkcast ID: 3097 you will be asked top put in your talkcast ID and then you can put in the number you choose for your talkcast ID.

 

This evening I have a very special co host Steve Stanger who is the host of the Mac Attack Podcast http://themacattack.us/. Steve is a super knowlegable veteran Mac User alike, and tonight we are going to focus on tips and tricks to keep your Mac running great and what to do when it's not.

 

STEVE THIS IS JUST AN OUTLINE WE CAN FILL IT WITH WHAT WE WANT. I'M THINKING A FOCUS ON PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE AND WHAT TO DO WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

 

 

  • General discussion around Mac Maintenance (I will go into more detail on each of the items listed below)
    • back up, back up, back up
    • Recommend using either of these free applications - MainMenu or OnyX.
    • Repair Permissions - yes, there is an on going debate if this actually does anything to help your system.
    • Run Maintenance Scripts.
    • There are also a number of databases your want to force the OS to rebuild or update.
    • Cache Cleaning - (What is a cache, different caches in Mac OS X, Side effects of cache cleaning.
    • Cookies - Why deleting may be a bad idea.
    • I also use DiskWarrior (commercial software) http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/ for hard drive directory maintenance as well as repair.

 

Other maintenance software

 

 

File Salvage from SubrosaSoft http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=10

Tech Tools Pro from Micromat http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83

idefrag from Coriolis http://coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php

 

AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can’t load the GUI, or don’t have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use. http://applejack.sourceforge.net/

 

    • Caveats

 

Because AppleJack is doing some serious things, a few caveats and warnings are in order:

 

* WARNING Do not use AppleJack in Terminal when your Mac is started up normally; doing so will likely cause problems, up to and including a full system crash and possibly data loss. It's designed for use only in single-user mode at startup.

* As mentioned above, I recommend printing out the AppleJack ReadMe file during installation; it will come in handy if you ever need to use AppleJack at startup.

* If you're a "power user" who has moved their virtual memory swap files from the default location, be sure to read the AppleJack ReadMe for details on an extra step you need to take before using the "remove swap files" or "auto" functions.

* Although these processes can take a few minutes, you probably want to stick around and see them through, for both security and noise reasons. When booted into single-user mode, anyone can mount your hard drive and access files. (Granted, there are plenty of other security concerns if someone has physical access to your computer -- too many to get into here -- but why make it easier?) In addition, Mac OS X's fan management software isn't loaded in single-user mode, so on some Macs -- especially Power Mac G5 models -- your fans will start to ramp up to full, jet-engine levels. Although this isn't harmful -- your Mac is just ensuring that it doesn't overheat -- your coworkers or neighbors will likely appreciate the cacophony ending sooner rather than later.

* I've heard very few reports of problems with AppleJack, but those I have heard have almost all been from people who have enabled FileVault for their user account. The developers of AppleJack note that the current version (1.3.2) fixes these FileVault-related issues, but I recommend holding off using AppleJack with FileVault enabled until more reports come in.

 

 

 

iSat Pro Widge http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html

Stat pro is the ultimate system monitoring widget, consisting of nine sections which can be minimized, expanded, or closed. It features detailed information on CPU, memory, hard drives, IP and external IP, bandwidth, CPU temperature, battery, uptime, temperatures, and fans. You’ll know exactly what’s going on inside your Mac!

 

Menu Meters Memory Usage/CPU: Menumeters is a great program to keep an eye on page in/page outs and how your CPU is chugging along. http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/index.html#download

 

 

SMARTReporter, free http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/

 

SMARTReporter is an application that can warn you of some ATA hard disk failures before they actually happen! It does so by periodically polling the S.M.A.R.T.-status of your hard disk. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology built into most modern hard disks that acts as an "early warning system" for pending drive problems. Because SMARTReporter relies on the S.M.A.R.T. Alot of people including Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte indeed don't thin S.M.A.R.T. is very smart at all (listen to the latest Security Now Podcast episode #81 http://www.grc.com/securitynow.html, and you'll hear why. But I think that anything we can do to be aware of potential failure is a good thing to do.

 

ASK THE AUDIENCE WHAT THEY DO TO KEEP THEIR MACS RUNNING GREAT

 

 

  • General discussion what to do when thing go wrong (Troubleshooting and repair, basic things to try first when your Mac start to misbehave)
    • back up, back up, back up (yes I said it again).
    • When your Mac starts acting up, shut it down, wait 10 to 15 seconds and restart.
    • Try a safe boot - hold down the shift key after hearing the start up chime.
    • computer locks up before it ever gets to the desktop or seems to freeze shortly after you see the desktop. Try disconnecting all of the peripherals
    • Create a new user account, and see if the problem persists there
    • run Preferential Treatment - check your preference files (both in your user’s preference folder and the system’s preference folder) for corruption.
    • A keyboard or mouse gone bad can make it appear that your Mac is frozen.
    • If an application stops responding you should force quit it.
    • If you are having problems with the finder, you can always relaunch it
    • Make sure you're not running out of free space on the System volume
    • OS X is exhibiting strange behavior, and applications and files aren't working the way they're supposed use Disk Utility to check and repair your disk.
    • Use a maintenance utility (like what we spoke about above) to run maintenance scripts and most importantly clean the user and system caches.
    • Use the combo updater to fix problems that may of occurred after a recent software update.
    • Apple Hardware Diagnostic app.
    • IS the computer acting up after installing new RAM?
    • Start up your computer in verbose mode, hold down cmd+V at start up, Look for anything that gives an error message and record it. Try doing google searches (this is a little more advanced).
    • If you are having really serious problems and you think it maybe hard drive related there are a number of drive tools that might be able to help you out. Alsoft's DiskWarrior - TechTool Pro - Drive Genius -
    • If all else fails Reinstall the system from scratch. I hate recommending it. It requires erasing your hard drive, so you'll have to back up your data.

 

 

 

 

SHOW ENDING:

 

Well I want to thank Steve Stanger from the Mac Attack Podcast http://themacattack.us/ for being with ust tonight. You definetly want to subscribe to his podcast and listen to each episode and some of the past ones. I sure do.

 

The Typical Mac User Podcast can be found at www.typicalmacuser.com and that shows is released weekly on Tuesday nights. This show will be release in my sream late tonight. If you haven't subscribed to that show yet, head over to the web site at www.typicalmacuser.com and hit the ONE BUTTON iTunes subscription.

 

For now this is your Host Victor Cajiao saying, enjoy the rest of your Sunday

 

 

 

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