Rebuilding Spotlight’s Index on OS X (Manually) | Walt-O-Matic. After doing a number of disk clean up and optimizations, I found myself in the circumstance of OS X’s spotlight returning no results. Whether I searched for a keyword in Mail, or by Spotlight using Command-Space, I got no results backs – just an empty list for my troubles. It turns out there’s a neat utility out there called Rebuild Spotlight Index 2.7 that does all the grunt work for you. Problem is, it didn’t work for me. What’s going on is actually fairly trivial, and it’s possible to simply do everything via the command line. The metadata utilities need to run as root, so to see what your drive is up to, you’d enter something like: sudo mdutil -s / This shows the status on the root volume. To turn indexing on for a volume, you enter: sudo mdutil -i on / And, to force Spotlight to rebuild its index, you simply erase the master copy of the metadata stores on the volume like this: sudo mdutil -E / However, while I did all this, Spotlight was still not building the indexed for me.
Abductive Intelligence — OS X Lion Upgrade Remedy - Disable Spotlight and Clear Spotlight Indices. After wasting time with AppleCare support (who appear to have no idea how OSX actually works and how to troubleshoot it), I finally solved my continued OSX churning by disabling Spotlight indexing on all volumes, completing all configuration changes, shutting down all applications, reenabling Spotlight indexing, rebuilding the Spotlight indices and then letting the computer sit overnight to index itself. Until I did this, OSX kept churning and locking up its own indexing system as it fought with Mac Mail and other apps over access to files.
To disable Spotlight indexing, open a Terminal window and type (enter your password if/when prompted): sudo mdutil -i off / To enable Spotlight indexing, open a Terminal window and type (enter your password if/when prompted): sudo mdutil -i on / After enabling Spotlight indexing, tell Spotlight to rebuild the indices by opening a Terminal window and typing (enter your password if or when prompted): sudo mdutil -E / Five essential Mail rules | Business Center | Working Mac. If you’re overwhelmed by your e-mail, Mail’s rules can help. Use these simple yet powerful tools to sift through your e-mail and apply changes to messages, filter messages into specific folders, forward them automatically, set off alarms, and more. Using e-mail rules is easy, and Mail’s interface lets you set up their conditions and actions with just a few clicks. Here are five essential e-mail rules that will help you take control of your correspondance. 1. Make messages stand out with color One of the most practical rules I use changes the color of certain messages to make them stand out.
I use this rule to highlight mail from specific friends, accounts, or clients. First, to create a rule in Apple’s Mail, choose Mail -> Preferences, then click on the Rules icon. Click on Add Rule to display the dialog box where you set the rule’s conditions and determine its actions. In this example, I want all e-mails from macworld.com and pcworld.com addresses to display in purple. 2. 3. 4. 5. About the SD and SDXC card slot. What is SD? Secure Digital (SD) describes devices that conform to SD standards for non-volatile memory cards. See the SD Association website for more detailed information. Are there size limitations for the cards that can be inserted into the SD slot? Yes. The SD card specification for a memory card is 32 mm by 24 mm by 2.1 mm. You can also use thinner cards, such as MultiMediaCards (MMC). Which SD card formats work in the SD card slot?
Cards that conform to the SD 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x standards should work. Example of a passive adapter: What is the maximum speed that my computer can use when reading and writing to an SD card in the SD card slot? Macs that use the USB bus to communicate with the SD card slot have a maximum speed of up to 480 Mbit/s. Check the packaging that came with your SD media to determine the maximum transfer rate used by that specific card. Determine the maximum speed of your Mac using the System Profiler: Choose About this Mac from the Apple () menu. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Change language settings for. Aye, in order to open a US iTunes store account, you need *From the itunes store terms of service*: +to purchase from an iTunes Store in a particular country, you must have both a residential address and a billing address in that particular country.
Items on any particular country's iTunes Store are available only for distribution to customers who use a credit card, debit card, iTunes Gift Certificate, or iTunes Gift Card issued in and for that country.+ edit: actually, you should be able to create a US store account even without a CC by following these instructions: _*Create an iTunes App Store account without a credit card*_. however, that will only give you access to free content - no rentals and no purchases. edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly) 27"iMac11,1/2,8GHz/12GB/i715"MBP3,1/2,4GHz/4GBMini3,1/2.26GHz/2GB, Mac OS X (10.6.4), TC 'sim-d' 500 GBAEBSn2x AX (b/g)ATV 40 GBTouch 2G iOS 4iPad wifi 16 GB.
Batteries - Notebooks. Portables: How to use your computer in closed clamshell (display closed) mode with an external display. The following Mac notebooks support the use of an external display or projector while the internal display is closed: MacBook Pro MacBook Pro with Retina display MacBook MacBook Air This is known as "closed clamshell" or "closed display" mode. Requirements for closed display mode: Power adapter External keyboard, mouse, or trackpad External display Use these steps to enable closed clamshell (display closed) mode: If you are using a wired keyboard and mouse: Make sure the computer is plugged in to an outlet using the AC power adapter. You should now be able to use your Mac notebook as you normally would, with a USB keyboard and mouse. If you are using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse on a Bluetooth enabled Mac notebook: Make sure the computer is plugged in to an outlet using the AC power adapter.
How to disconnect your Mac notebook from the display after use: For best results it is recommend that you put your computer to sleep before disconnecting your display. OS X Lion and later. Configuring the built-in Cisco IPSec VPN client in Snow Leopard and iPhone (Mac OS X SIG) Here's how to configure Snow Leopard (and iPhone) to use an enterprise Cisco VPN concentrator (which is what you connect to from internet when you want to virtually join a company or school's LAN). Open System Preferences --> Network --> click the plus sign (Create a new service). On the iPhone, choose Settings --> General --> Network --> VPN --> Add VPN Configuration.
On the Mac, chose VPN as the interface. Choose Cisco IPSec as the VPN type, and supply a service name as a description (an arbitrary name for the connection, whatever makes sense to you). The rest of the necessary information is supplied by you eyeballing a configuration file (or profile file) used by the typical Cisco VPN client. If the .pcf has already been installed on your Mac, you can find the containing directory here: /private/etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/Profiles/ — which you can see in the Finder by selecting Go --> Go to Folder...
---> and entering that full path above. Open the .pcf file using any text editor. Screencasting On Mac. I’m as annoyed as the next guy about how hard it is to find a decent screencast app for Mac. The forthcoming Mac OS 10.5′s new iChat Theater (and the built-in screen sharing/control features) should create some new opportunities for developers, but right now it’s hard to know what works or is worth trying. Further, I narrowed the field with the following requirement: I need an app that records to QuickTime-compatible files, not Flash. Here’s what I’ve found so far: Extra: this how-to pointed out OmniDazzle and Mouseposé as tools to help draw users’ focus during both live or recorded demos. A mini-guide to Mac OS X for new Mini owners. Introduction A couple of weeks after its unveiling, the budget-priced Mac mini has begun shipping. Targeted at would-be switchers and ? Adders,?
The mini is easily the lowest-priced Mac desktop ever. There are always Mac owners who are looking to upgrade older equipment or looking to own a small form factor Mac. However, some of the new Mac mini owners are Windows or Linux users who have always wanted to fool around with Mac OS X, but have been turned off by the Apple? As anyone who has ever switched platforms will attest, there is always a bit of a learning curve involved. One thing the Mac mini does not have is a comprehensive ? This guide is not intended to be comprehensive and answer every conceivable question Windows and Linux users will have about their new platform. Registration When you turn on your Mac for the first time, you? Unlike Windows, you will not be required to activate your copy of Mac OS X. Your keyboard and you Assuming you didn? A basic Apple keyboard. Of mice and men KVMs. Mac 101: Change your icons. Languages Every volume (disk), application, file, and folder on your Mac is represented by an icon.
Icons look like the item that they represent. For example, your hard disk volume icon (Macintosh HD) looks like a hard drive, a text document looks like a piece of paper, and a folder icon looks like a folder where you store papers. App icons are all generally unique, so they stand out from one another. Folders contain other files, like your documents or apps. File icons generally display a document with an app logo or image that lets you know what application created it or opens it. You can change some of the icons used in OS X. To change the icon of an app, folder or file, first copy an image or another icon to the clipboard (Edit > Copy). In the Finder, select the item you want to have a different icon. From the Edit menu, choose Paste or press Command-V to replace the icon. From the Apple () menu, choose System Preferences. Last Modified: Apr 14, 2014 One Moment Please. Change the default keyboard layout. While changing the keyboard layout for your user account is straightforward enough (System Preferences -> International pane -> Input Menu), changing the default keyboard layout is not so easy.
I use Dvorak almost exclusively (with US English enabled for when friends want to use the computer), but foolishly, I did not choose this keyboard layout when I ran through the initial setup. Every time I login, I must type my name and password in US English, before then being able to use Dvorak as I would like. The solution is simple enough: run Setup Assistant again. Open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities), and type: sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Setup Assistant.app\ /Contents/MacOS/Setup Assistant Type your user password and then follow the onscreen instructions as you did once-upon-a-time.
[robg adds: I ran the Setup Assistant, but didn't actually take it through to writing and rebooting, so I'm not sure if there are any downsides to this method.] Mac OS X System Startup. © Amit Singh. All Rights Reserved. Written in December 2003 This page briefly describes the sequence of events that happen when Mac OS X boots. Some details of the boot process from power-on until the kernel is up and running are covered in Booting Mac OS X and XNU: The Kernel. To recapitulate: Power is turned on.Open Firmware code is executed.Hardware information is collected and hardware is initialized.Something (usually the OS, but also things like the Apple Hardware Test, etc.) is selected to boot.
From here on, the startup becomes user-level: mach_init starts /sbin/init, the traditional BSD init process. init determines the runlevel, and runs /etc/rc.boot, which sets up the machine enough to run single-user. During its execution, rc.boot and the other rc scripts source /etc/rc.common, a shell script containing utility functions, such as CheckForNetwork() (checks if the network is up), GetPID(), purgedir() (deletes directory contents only, not the structure), etc. Macfusion. Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts. To use a keyboard shortcut you press a modifier key with a character key. For example, pressing the Command key (it has a symbol) and then the "c" key copies whatever is currently selected (text, graphics, and so forth) into the Clipboard.
This is also known as the Command-C keyboard shortcut. A modifier key is a part of many keyboard shortcuts. A modifier key alters the way other keystrokes or mouse/trackpad clicks are interpreted by OS X. Here are the modifier key symbols you may see in OS X menus: Startup shortcuts Press the key or key combination until the expected function occurs/appears (for example, hold Option during startup until Startup Manager appears). Sleep and shut down shortcuts Finder keyboard shortcuts Application and other OS X shortcuts Note: Some applications may not support all of the following application key combinations. *Note: If no text is selected, the extension begins at the insertion point. Universal Access - VoiceOver keyboard commands Full keyboard access. Tuning Mac OS X Performance. This FAQ provides recommendations for optimizing Mac® OS X performance. Additionally, it provides advice and links to advice for troubleshooting certain Mac OS X performance problems.
Comprehensive advice on this topic can be found in the "Performance" chapter of our book Troubleshooting Mac OS X. Optimizing Mac OS X performance RAM, RAM, and more RAM Mac OS X loves RAM. Maintain ample free space on your startup disk Mac OS X makes extensive use of Virtual Memory (VM), which requires free disk space on your startup disk, aka your boot volume. See our "Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space" FAQ to determine if you have sufficient RAM and free disk space to get the best performance from Mac OS X. Turn off the eye candy While I imagine everyone is impressed the first time they see a window minimized to the Dock with the Genie effect, this entertainment has a performance cost. Make the Dock less entertaining Open System Preferences > Dock.
Disable or remove unnecessary fonts. A brief tutorial on symbolic links. OS X's file structure mounts all partitions under the "/Volumes" directory at the root level of the filesystem. However, when navigating the filesystem with "cd" and other commands, it can be annoying to type "/Volumes/volume_name" each time you want to access a different partition. To learn about symbolic links and use them to add shortcuts at the root level of your filesystem, read the rest of this article. This assumes you are moderately comfortable in the Terminal, and that you have administrative privileges. What is a Symbolic Link? If you've ever made an "Alias" to a file in classic Mac OS, or a "Shortcut" to a file in Windows, you will easily be able to understand the UNIX equivalent (where "aliases" and "shortcuts" came from in the first place!) , called a "Symbolic Link".
Let's say you have two partitions or drives - "X" containing OS X and "Classic" containing OS 9. Cd / To navigate to "Classic", though, you'd have to type cd /Volumes/Classic cd /ln -s /Volumes/Classic/ Classic. Enabling Terminal’s directory and file color highlighting in Mac OS X | Geekology. Migrate from evolution email to Mail to Entourage. Using the shell (Terminal) in Mac OS X. 4 Help: Allowing remote terminal access to your computer. Mac-How | Uninstall Programs on Mac. Good Hard Drive Benchmark for Mac OS X? - Ars Technica OpenForum. Ditto(1) Mac OS X Manual Page. Create a RAM Disk in Mac OS X. Easily Mount an ISO in Mac OS X.
My MacBook Pro Goes Multimonitor: 4 Monitors At Once! Snow Leopard's System Preferences shuffle | Mac OS X. Show all files in the Finder | Software | Mac OS X Hints. Macs & Mac OS X: Revealing Mac OS X's Hidden Single-Application Mode.