Troubleshooting

Address missing plug-in notices in OS X Mail

The default e-mail client in OS X is Apple's Mail program, which supports a feature that permits you to view many common attachment file types in-place instead of having to download and open them in another program. For example, if someone sends you a picture you should be able to view it directly in Mail. However, for some people this may not be the case and instead of showing an attachment, Mail will display a gray box that reads "Missing Plug-In."

If this happens to you, the first thing to do is troubleshoot the Internet plug-ins on … Read more

Tips for managing windows in OS X

Having multiple windows cluttering your screen can be inconvenient. While the Mission Control feature in OS X can be used to preview windows and switch between them, and isolate windows to specific desktops, even with this you may find your work space a bit cluttered with browser windows, Word and Pages documents, various utilities, and Finder windows.

Unfortunately, switching between multiple windows by clicking with the mouse can result in them overlapping in ways that are frustrating to deal with. While keeping things simple by continually closing windows is one approach, you can also use some OS X features to … Read more

Fix permissions errors for sandboxed applications in OS X

When using some common sandboxed applications in OS X such as TextEdit, you may run into an issue where the program experiences file access errors for which you may not even receive a notification. For example, if such an error occurs in TextEdit, you may see a warning stating that you do not have permission to access a file you are trying to open, or you may just find yourself unable to save a new or existing file you are currently editing.

In addition, access restrictions in sandboxed applications may result in odd file-saving behaviors in which multiple copies of … Read more

Hack your old Mac's ADB keyboard to bring it up-to-date

If you are a longtime Mac user who simply could not bring yourself to throw away your old systems, then you may still have an old Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) keyboard such as the Apple Extended Keyboard II lying around. Despite being an older style, many of these keyboards were quite well-made and if only they had USB connectors instead of their ADB connections they could be put to good use on modern systems. It turns out, this is quite doable.

Recently tech hobbyist Scott Vanderlind found that by adding a small USB controller to the keyboard, he could tap … Read more

OS X not accepting your screensaver password? Try this

In the OS X Security system preferences you can set the system to require a password when the system wakes from sleep or after the screensaver has been active for a period of time. However, you may run into a few cases in which entering your account password then does not work.

One cause can be if you have recently changed the name of your user account. For authentication, OS X will use either the short or long username, along with any aliases that you have associated with your account. However, if you have changed the long username for your … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

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

This week, readers wrote in with questions on whether it is possible to prevent drives from spinning up at boot, system fans increasing noise when watching video files, and options for managing birthday events in the OS X calendar. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Prevent drive spin-up at boot. MacFixIt reader Samuel asks:

Is it possible to set the system so attached drives do not spin … Read more

How to view and manage script line numbers in OS X

While the need to locate a specific line in a text file may not be a very useful feature in regular prose text, for managing structured code such as scripts and XML files that are common in OS X, being able to identify a specific line or two may be quite useful.

If you have attempted shell scripting in OS X, you may find that when your scripts run into errors you will be given a brief description of the problem that includes the line where the problem occurred. While the use of BBEdit, TextWrangler, and other powerful text editors … Read more

Change your Notification Center sound

When you receive a notification in Apple's Notification Center for Mountain Lion, the system will use the built-in "Basso" sound. If you do not want this sound to play whenever you receive a notification, then you have a couple of options.

The first is to disable the sound completely, which can be done on a per-application basis in the Notifications system preferences. Simply select an application and then uncheck the "Play sound when receiving notifications" option, which should silence it.

Unfortunately this is a relatively limited option and one that requires you to change it … Read more

OS X 10.8.3 forces discrete GPU use in 2010 MacBook Pros

A number of owners of Apple's mid-2010 MacBook Pro who have upgraded to OS X 10.8.3 are noticing that systems with dual graphics cards will automatically switch to using the more powerful discrete graphics chip regularly, even when using non-graphics intensive applications like Google Chrome, Dropbox, and Growl. This does not result in crashes or other interruptions in workflow, but it does increase the drain on the systems' battery and result in a shorter working time when not connected to AC power.

The 2010 MacBook Pro has had its fair share of graphics-related issues, including black-screen output … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

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

This week, readers wrote in with questions on fixing a stuck locking mechanism for a MacBook lid, the inability to boot to or otherwise use the Recovery HD partition in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, and tackling nonspecific slowdowns in OS X. I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Stuck locking mechanism for a MacBook lid MacFixIt reader Dominic asks:

The locking mechanism on the lid of … Read more