Troubleshooting

Since a single type of document can often be opened by many different programs, OS X has a feature called Launch Services that centralizes document-handling associations.

When you add a program to the system, Launch Services will make it available as either the default handler of its associated document types (the program that will open documents of that type by default) or as an alternative handler. For instance, if you have Microsoft Word installed then it will be the default program for opening DOC files, but Apple's TextEdit program can also read DOC files, so TextEdit is available as … Read more

OS X is a multiuser operating system so each user can tailor the system for his or her own needs without interfering with another user's workflow. With this setup, not only can multiple people use a system, but an individual can also configure it to have multiple work environments.

For example, if you use your computer for two jobs and would like to keep all work for one completely separate from another, then one option is to use multiple user accounts for this. Alternatively you might like to have a separate user account for testing purposes if you've … Read more

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

This week, readers wrote in with questions about managing contact images in Address Book, the lowdown on the rather negative community reaction surrounding the MacKeeper utility, and errors in gathering Application information in the System Information utility. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Managing the Recent section for contact images in Address Book MacFixIt reader Lars asks:

Many programs, such as Microsoft Office, support their own interfaces for various fonts you may have installed on your Mac; however, many other programs like TextEdit and Apple's Pages use Apple's central Font panel to provide font management. This panel can usually be invoked by pressing Command-T in programs that support it, where you will be presented with a column-oriented view of font collections that you can navigate through, select, and set the size for.

While convenient for quickly selecting and setting font sizes, the Font panel also contains a number of additional features that can be applied … Read more

Apple's MacBook systems support a mode called "clamshell" which allows you to close the lid and continue using the system in a desktop configuration if you attach an external monitor and a keyboard. This mode is exceptionally useful for docking the system when at a work desk, but there may be times when the system will not properly enter clamshell mode, and instead stay in an extended desktop mode with the system's built-in display still active.

If this happens to you and your system will not fully enter clamshell mode, there are a couple of things … Read more

If you are running OS X Lion or Mountain Lion and need to see some quick information about your Mac's hardware, you can do so by selecting "About This Mac" from the Apple menu, and then clicking the "More Information" button to launch Apple's System Information tool. This tool can be used to generate a detailed system report, but by default will show a brief summary window that includes a breakdown of storage usage.

The storage view shows your hard drive and includes a small diagram that breaks down the amount of space used … Read more

OS X is an account-based system, in which individual users have their own accounts storing their own settings and data. When you set up a user account, the system will ask you for your name and then based on that will create a short username the system will use to identify your user account.

This short username is the true username of the account, but you can use the short name or your full name at the log-in window. Since the system initially generates it for you, it's easy to overlook the fact that you have the chance to … Read more

In OS X you should be able to create and manipulate files on your system largely without being burdened to authenticate, especially if the files are within resources your account owns such as your home folder. However, after upgrading or otherwise performing changes to the system you may find that the system continually prompts you for a password when you try to manage your files.

Sometimes this issue may occur only when you perform certain tasks such as deleting files (as opposed to placing them in the trash), but at other times it may happen on any manipulation.

OS X … Read more

While setting your Mac to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity has its energy-saving benefits, you may find that the system will go to sleep even when it is churning through data (e.g., applying a lengthy filter routine to groups of images).

This issue happens because Apple has implemented some changes to the latest versions of OS X that result in different requirements for the system to determine if it can go to sleep, and one of these is a new dependence on applications to invoke a "power assertion" to keep the system from going to … Read more