Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computer and osx

Writer meets arthritis

grumblebee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:18:40 -0800

Mac voice-recognition software for a writer with arthritis. My father's arthritis is making it more and more difficult for him to type. This is hard for him, because he's been a writer for decades (over 25 books and countless articles). He is considering switching to voice-recognition software.

Here are some things to note:

- He is originally from England but has lived in the US since the 1950s. He is a very clear speaker, but his accent is a mix of British (cockney originally) and American.

- He owns a Mac.

- He is not highly computer literate, but he lives in a university town and could find people to help him set things up if necessary. He probably will have trouble if the voice-recognition software itself is overly complicated to use.

I am looking for any advice and experiences with this. What is the state of the art these days? What's available for the Mac? What is the experience like for people who are heavy users?

OS X: How to track down and kill a cron job. Or something.

al_fresco — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:09:39 -0800

OS X Unix filter: Please help me find and delete an obsolete cron job on an iMac running Leopard. I'm doing tech support for a small office. A previous provider setup a cron job or something to create an rsync backup to a MacMini server every day at the same time. The backup configuration has changed, but this one job keeps trying to run. I can't find the script to delete it and am getting a bit frustrated.

I've tried

crontab -e - which shows an empty crontab.

I've looked in StartupItems, looked in /usr/bin/, usr/sbin/ for a compiled script, looked in the logs to see if I could see the source of the job, but it doesn't log to system.log or console.log. I did find the log that was set up for the backup, but it doesn't say the path of the original script. I know it's running because it was set up to also send an email to the office administrator. She gets a failure message daily.

I'm pretty sure it's not a LaunchDaemon, as the job was set up by someone who was using old-style tools, and all of the LaunchDaemons I could find were stock OS X.

Any idea how I can track this thing down and kill it for good?

Thanks!

Choose Details in OS X

reenum — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:43:43 -0800

Mac OSX Filter: How can I change the details displayed for files in a directory while in list view? This may be a really easy question, but Google has failed me thus far.

When I used XP and viewed directories as lists, I could go to View and then click on 'Choose Details' to pick which file info I wanted displayed.

I can't seem to figure out how to do this on Mac OSX.

The reason I want to do this is because I listen to a lot of podcasts, and the title in the file info is often more instructive than the filename.

Is there any way to 'Choose Details' on Mac OSX?

Seeking a permanent solution for my Wacom tablet woes.

iamkimiam — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:09:30 -0800

Sometime around the beginning of this year, my Intuos2 Model 0608-U 6"x8" Wacom tablet driver stopped loading upon login and restart. I reinstall it every time I login/restart. All of the tips, tricks, workarounds suggested by both Wacom and Apple do not work. I am running Mac OS 10.5.7. Is there anything left to try? The tablet works after I reinstall. I have tried uninstalling, disk repair, permissions, reinstalling (various versions of the tablet driver) in all possible combinations. Is anybody else having this problem? What has worked for you?

I'm looking for a permanent solution that does not cost $$. I will reinstall indefinitely if I have to, but it is getting tiresome. Thanks!

Powerbook: No Logo

DiscourseMarker — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:41:28 -0800

Powerbook G4 won't boot up. I hear the chime, get a gray screen, but NO apple logo or spinning wheel. This is a circa- late 2003 1.25GHz PB running OS 10.5. something. Yesterday, my husband was trying to open some Word 2008 docs he had saved on this laptop. Word would not open, it just kept bouncing in the dock, and we could not get it to force quit, so he did a forced shut down of the computer. Ever since then I cannot get the computer to boot past the gray screen.

I have tried resetting the PRAM, but it still sticks at the gray screen, same with resetting the PMU and trying a safe boot. It never progresses to the Apple Logo, just stays on the gray screen. When I pressed my ear to the keyboard I heard a few clicks from the HD after trying to start up, but now there's no sound.

Any suggestions?

Upgrading a neglected Mac computer.

wiretap — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:02:11 -0800

Upgrading Mac OS X 10.2 to at least 10.3 on a dual boot machine. I bought a dual boot mac (os 9.2 and os x 10.2) in the earlier part of this decade, and never bothered to do any upgrades as the years went on.

Now I'm finding reasons to restart my previous graphic design career but 10.2 is so out of date that I'm having trouble using some websites (netflix streaming requires at least 10.3) or playing games (WoW requires at least 10.3), or even upgrading to the latest version of Firefox (!!?).

I have little experience with upgrading computers, so I have a couple questions about upgrading:

1. How do I upgrade JUST the 10.2 "section" (sorry, I don't know the technical term) of my mac? I'm imagining that I'll plop a 10.3 disc in and it'll install over both OS's.

2. Will 10.3 still work with 9.2 (classic mode)? I'd like to keep 9.2 due to some ancient software that works only in 9.2.

Also, could I upgrade to an OS higher than 10.3 or would I need at least 10.3 to move to 10.4 to move to 10.5 etc?

No mo' Nomadix?

jacob — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:59:00 -0800

Is there a way for me to disable/block Nomadix interstitial pages? I'm staying at a hotel for the next several weeks, and while there's a relatively speedy Internet connection here, the hotel's Nomadix hotspot software inserts an interstitial page titled "Launch the Nomadix Console" after every few requests.

This interstitial page is a minor inconvenience for general web browsing, but when I use other apps (Transmit FTP, Lightroom upload to Flickr, etc.), the page often leads to stalled requests and stopped transfers.

Does anyone know of a way to instruct my computer -- OS X, Leopard, btw -- to ignore these interstitial pages?

Dual-Boot Blues

rtimmel — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:13:54 -0800

Has anyone installed OS X on a windows laptop? How does it compare to a Mac Book? Is it as stable and/or fast? I would like to put together a Windows/OS X dual-boot machine to take advantage of both operating systems and while it sounds good theoretically I an curious about how it works practically. (Plus, I would rather not pay Apple laptop prices)

Hackintosh + MSI Wind?

loquacious — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:20:36 -0800

Anyone have any recent experience with Hackintosh or OSx86 on the MSI Wind netbook? I'm preparing to try out OS X on an MSI Wind, which has recently released hardware drivers for OS X negating the wifi hardware swap required for it to work.

I'm looking for links, personal experience and information about pitfalls.

Mac mini's mind molten

adamrice — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:36:07 -0800

Mac meltdown: my wife's Mac Mini seems to have bitten the dust. Before I take it in for repair, I want to query the hivemind for anything I might be overlooking. Details on symptoms and efforts so far within. Last night, her mac shut itself off for no apparent reason. It was idle at the time. It's a G4 Mini, a little over 3 years old.

Today we try to boot it. Blank gray screen (no Apple logo). I try booting into open firmware. That works. I do a reset-all and then boot-mac. Blank gray screen again.

I decide to re-install the OS from the DVD. I attempt to boot to the DVD. I get the "prohibitory sign" (circle with slash) and it sits like that for a loooong time, but eventually the first install screen appears. As I step forward with the install process, I discover it's not registering the hard drive as present. I launch Disk Utility from there, and discover that the disk (purportedly) has no partitions. After much gnashing of teeth, I decide to create a partition (nuking whatever might have been on it).

That seems to work. Even before the process is complete, her computer becomes visible over the network to my machine.

I proceed with the OS reinstallation on what should be a virgin drive. It chugs away for a little while without making any progress, and then I get the multilingual kernel-panic screen. At that point I throw in the towel and throw myself upon the mercy of my fellow mefites.

At this point it seems like a hardware issue to me. Perhaps it would be cured by a new hard drive, but I don't want to spend money on that without knowing for sure.

Software Update has no permission

silsurf — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:00:57 -0800

G5 PPC Tower never lets me auto update software? I have two computers, a G5 tower and a Macbook.

They are running the same OS X level, except one is Intel and hte other PPC. For as long as I have had these two computers, the PPC never allows any software (other than the Apple Software Updater) to auto update, like when the software does a version check and a dialog box comes up to ask if you want to update. I say yes, it downloads the updates, prompts me to install and restart the software, then I get a dialong box that basically says I do not have permission to execute. The wording is not alwasy exactly the same. Here is a screen shot from the CyberDuck attempt this morning:

Any thoughts appreciated.

Henry

How to get rid of the phisher?

iconomy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:12:40 -0800

Someone went phishing, and hooked my daughter. What can she do now? I'm asking this for my daughter. Macbook, OSX. I know nothing about phishing so couldn't help her with this. I've been bragging about AskMe for years, so I offered to post this here. The rest of this post is from her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 10/10 I realized that I couldn’t log onto a couple of wesbites I normally visit. Facebook wouldn’t accept my password, Hotmail
(different account than the email linked with facebook) wouldn’t accept my password and my bank’s website wouldn’t recognize my log-in name. I got confirmation from the bank that nothing was being used and I changed my Facebook password (which sends an prompt to the uncompromised email address) and was able to log on and use it until 10/15.

Last night I tried logging onto Facebook but the same problem arose where it wouldn’t recognize my password. I tried changing my password but still couldn’t log on. This morning I changed my password again and when I finally logged in I saw that there were about 15 messages sent from my name to various individuals. All of these messages looked exactly like this:

Hello Seller.

Good Day..How are you doing and hope that everything is okay...Actually i come across this your item you placed on site which i have interesting on buying it , kindly may i know present condition of this item including your latest price you are willing to sell it to me...in other for us to be able to able about this item i will be happy to read back from and you should kindly get back to me vai this email address...******@hotmail.com

Cheers

All of these messages were sent to people posting laptops for sale and the email was different than my own. I changed my bank log-on through the phone but I still cannot access my email (because I can’t remember the access question “who is your favorite teacher?” from when I started my email in middle school!). So I’d like to know if anyone has any advice or insight into my problem, or even something I could run to find/get rid of what is compromising my computer. Thanks so much for any help!

External hard drive keeps waking up

one_bean — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:15:24 -0800

Why does my external hard drive (OS X) keep spinning up? I have a Mac Mini connected to a Lacie external hard drive. I've had them for about a year and a half, but about two weeks ago, the hard drive started spinning up every two minutes or so. All the time. How should I go about investigating this?

Best place to buy a used Mac?

OTA — Sat, 31 May 2008 03:56:53 -0800

What are some of the better places to buy used Macs? What are good models to buy? I'd like something that can run OS X and still has some life left in it, but also hoping to keep the cost down. I've used both Macs & PCs for quite some time. Finally went 100% PC in the late 90's. Now that it appears MS is incapable of delivering a decent OS and will be discontinuing support for XP (and Windows 7 looks like absolute rubbish), I'm looking at possibly switching back over to a Mac. Not a real fan of the Mac GUI, but having one around to tinker with might let me get accustomed to it.

Also, what are fair prices for various models? I've flipped through the local CraigsList listings and the prices seem terribly high (often more than retail!).

Locked Myself Out Of XAMPP !! - Mac OS X

ISeemToBeAVerb — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:08:25 -0800

I installed XAMPP on my laptop a while ago and just got around to configuring it. The only problem is that when I enter http://localhost/xampp/splash.php into my browser I'm prompted for a user name and password, which of course I've managed to forget. Anyone out there know how I can remedy this? I'm running OS X 10.5

Looking for a language hack.

Gordion Knott — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:46:53 -0800

Tweaking the Mac: Is it possible to configure the OS X GUI so that changing to a different language input is visible at the cursor? If you've used OS X to write in more than one language, you've experienced it.

You're puttering away, writing in English. Suddenly, you decide to send an email in a foreign language. You open your email client, begin typing . . . and the words are still in English.

Oops! You've forgotten to click on the flag in the upper-right corner, to switch into your intended language!

I do this all the time. Sure, I know I'm supposed to look in the upper-right corner to verify the language I'm typing. But I'm so used to switching languages with "Space-Command," that I sometimes forget.

Is their any way to configure OS X so that switching to a different language is visible at the cursor?

An ideal hack would be one that changes the cursor into a different color. For instance, a red cursor would indicate English input and a blue cursor French. But I don't know if such a shareware program exists (or could be written).

Which is why I'm asking you guys for advice.

No more bounce! Damn ye, Mac dock!

grumblebee — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:42:45 -0800

Does anyone know a way to stop icons from bouncing on the OS X doc? I'm NOT talking about unchecking "animate opening applications" in the dock preferences. That only stops opening-app bounces. I want to stop warning bounces, too. They drive me crazy. Please note that I'm using an INTEL Mac (Leopard). I've only been able to find solutions for PowerPC Macs.

Photoshop is suicidal when I try and save. Errrr....

actionpact — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:48:58 -0800

Photoshop CS keeps crashing when I try and save a file. WHY? I run OSX and Photoshop CS, a 6x8 Wacom Graphire4, and a Epson Perfection 4850 scanner. Since I bought my iMac two summers ago, I've had zero trouble with Photoshop-- eerily so. But about two weeks ago I started trying to scan in multiple files with my scanner, and I started having Photoshop crash any time I tried to save more than two files. OK, I got over my annoyance with that, thinking it was some bizarre new glitch when I scanned and saved, but now I was working on one file, saved it twenty minutes ago, tried saving it again just a minute ago, and it's crashed.

To my knowledge nothing new has happened in the last month or so, like an update or something. No new programs were installed, it's been a pretty uneventful time lately. I am baffled at why it just keeps crashing before I can save. It doesn't seem to matter whether I save it as a PSD or as a TIF, it just crashes when I save something more than once or twice.

Any idea what could cause this? I know it's probably a longshot, but maybe there's something I totally am not considering that would cause this. Nothing else has problems, except for the occasional Firefox lockup. I am hoping I don't have to go and shell out for a new copy of Photoshop....it's getting pretty frustrating after a while.

MBP: I cloned my old HD to a new (larger) one, and OS X only sees the older (smaller) space.

dhammala — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:29:43 -0800

The disk in my MBP was upgraded from 100GB to 250GB. They used a hardware disk to disk copier that just cloned the drive, bit for bit. Now, I want to grow my 100GB partition to fill up the new space, however Disk Utility only sees the drive as 100GB. I know there are some $100 utilities out there, but I am a geek and want to do it for free. We have tried to boot into Linux, use tools like gParted (which see the full drive, but only let us create a 128MB partition), rEFIt (to sync the partition maps), etc. but to no avail.

How do I reset the partition map so that it sees the full drive?

A poem/tune: Possible to publically perform?

umbú — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:22:29 -0800

What is the easiest way to have one program running in Mac OS X while another displays keystrokes in real time? I'll explain the details inside... I've been playing around with the Native Instruments B4 II Hammond B3 organ simulator on my Powerbook G4. It allows the user to play the computer keyboard as a piano keyboard. Zxcvbnm,./ and qwertyuiop[]\ line up as rows of white piano keys, while sdghjl; and 2356790= serve as the adjacent black keys. Typing into the organ, it turns out that certain words, such as 'something,' can be made into catchy, albeit fairly dissonant, melodies.

So here's my question. If, using this system, a song was written so that typing the 'lyrics' would simultaneously provide the song's melody, what would be the easiest way to display the letters being typed on one monitor/digital projector while the NI B4 was running on another monitor?

Help me figure out my Macbook Pro!

unexpected — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:52:02 -0800

Help me figure out my new MacBook Pro! I recently took the plunge and bought a new Macbook Pro. The experience has been great, but I've been having several annoying issues:

General lack of right click: While I've been able to find many of the options you'd usually expect with right click elsewhere, for some things, I have come up empty. Specifically:

-Thunderbird. In Windows, you can right-click on your inbox and mark everything read. How can you do this in OS X.

-Firefox: The bar with the favicons underneath the nav bar. How do you delete the current items already there in OS X?

I feel like there's a hot key I'm missing because these aren't available in any of the menu options.

Networking: The computer refuses to connect to my wireless. Every time I get a connection error. I don't mind troubleshooting, but is there a way I can get better diagnostics?

Pages/Office. Pages looks great, but I don't hear many people talking about it- everyone seems to alway talk about Keynote. Since this is just a personal computer, I'm not going to be doing any presentations, but I am an avid writer. Should i stick with iWork or get Office?

Building my own Mac?

Aanidaani — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:48:40 -0800

I am going to be buying/building a new computer soon to replace my Powerbook G4 and I am debating whether to get a Windozer or a new Mac. I thought I might be able to build my own X86 machine and install OSX on it using something like OSX86. Has anyone done something like this? I really enjoy OSX but I am fed up with Apple's subpar graphics chips and their expensive customization options. I want to get a new desktop to replace my Powerbook and, if I choose to go with Windows, I can build the computer myself. However, I recently read about projects that allow users to install OSX on X86 machines (admittedly illegally), so I thought this might be a good solution: I build the computer myself and install OSX on it. I just wondered if anyone else had done this or has any experience with such a setup. Or am I stuck with buying Apple's beautiful, expensive hardware? Thanks!

Quick fix iMac as monitor for another Apple.

Bengston — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:16:32 -0800

Is there any way that I can easily use my iMac Desktop (Current Intel Model) monitor as a second or primary monitor for my Powerbook using either the wireless network or a monitor adapter? Would using some sort of remote desktop allow me to utilize all the extra monitor space? I just want to use some software that I have on my 12" Powerbook on my friends much larger monitor that is unfortunately also attached to his iMac. Thanks.

What did my computer do on 1/31/06?

xo — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 11:47:23 -0800

Does OSX (10.4.8) keep a record of the CDs I burn? I recently applied to a competition by sending a CD of three jpegs. I know which date I burned the CD, but I can't remember which jpegs I applied with. Is there a record of this information anywhere on my computer?

Scanning XBox disc for bad sectors

Aanidaani — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:37:26 -0800

Is there any software (preferably for OSX) that I can use to scan a used XBox disc for bad sectors? The format is DVD, so I suppose a normal DVD scanning program could do the job. I just want to be sure that the whole game works before my guarantee expires and I'm unable to return it.