Maintain - Blog

Maintain iPhone app has been released

We are happy to present our new iPhone app that lets you take all our tips and guides with you wherever you are! The app is full of articles ranging from quick tips about Apple’s and Maintain’s software all the way to full troubleshooting and problem solving guides. In short, this app is a perfect way to learn how you take the best care and get the most out of your Mac!

Maintain has been in the Mac support business for many years and we have now decided to share our favorite solutions with you. The articles in the app are divided into three categories to help you find exactly what you need, when you need it. The app also downloads and saves new articles as soon as they are available so that you can always get the help when you really need it.

Maintain iPhone app is available as a free download from the App Store.

Defragmenting or not defragmenting, that is the question!

People often ask us whether they need or should defragment their Mac’s hard drives. For those of you who love reading there are plenty of lengthy discussion floating around the internet in the form of Apple tech notes as well as other articles. We decided to go for the short and sweet answer instead:

Unless you do some very specific tasks that are uncommon for normal users then you don’t have to worry about it.

Mac OS X has several built in technologies which automatically optimizes how files are saved to the hard disk in order to minimize fragmentation. While this won’t stop your hard drive from becoming fragmented over time it will slow down the process to the point where you might need to defragment once a year or so. Incidentally, installing system updates will force Mac OS X optimize the operating system files and some commonly accessed files that are used during startup etc. As long as you stay up to date you never really notice any slowdowns at all.

So when do you need to defragment? According to Apple you only really have to worry about it if you often work with video editing or similar tasks where you deal with very large files and combine this with only have very little free disk space. In this case you might need to defragment manually, but usually it gives a very small performance gain considering the time it takes to defragment the drive. A better solution might be to just move the big files to another disk for a few days and let OS X work its magic.

If you do have a drive you really think needs to be defragmented we’d actually recommend backing up and restoring your computer from a Time Machine backup instead of defragmenting it using a commercial tool. It gives you a good excuse to start backing up your files, it is generally much faster than defragmenting and it can usually solve other problems with your computer too. Not to mention that unlike the defragmentation tools available online, it is also free.

Automate Cocktail

One of Cocktail’s most useful features is the built in pilot you can use to automate actions and schedule optimization of your computer. But that’s not all, Cocktail also lets you use Apple’s Automator to build your own workflows that can be more flexible and a great complement to the pilot built into Cocktail.

First, let’s get to know Automator, Apple’s excellent automation tool. Automator let’s you build workflows in a “Lego” fashion using simple actions, which you can chain together to create really complex applications without having to learn how to code. For example you can use it to resize, rename and upload pictures to your blog or to automatically sort files using Folder Actions. In this example we’re going to do something relatively simple to show how easy it is to interact with Cocktail and other applications to create fast and powerful workflows.

First, a little bit of background knowledge about what we are trying to do. Have you ever used a USB drive with Mac OS X, then plugged it into a Windows computer only to find a bunch of .DS_Store files? OS X creates these files and uses them to keep track of the folder icon, background and other things. Normally they are hidden from the user, however, when you plug the USB drive into a Windows computer they show up since Windows doesn’t understand what a DS Store file is. This can very quickly get very messy and confusing, so let’s use Cocktail to clean it up!

What we are going to do is create a service for Finder. Services allows you to expand the functionality of Finder and virtually every other application in OS X using Automator. In this case it will add an option to the menu when you right click a folder that lets you clean up all the DS Store files inside.

To do this, open Automator (in Applications) and when it asks you for what type of workflow you want to create, select Service. Automator will create a template for a workflow which can receive a number of different inputs from applications and lets you process these. In this case we want to deal with folders in Finder so make sure it says “Service receives selected folders in Finder” in the top of the right hand pane.

On the left side of the Automator window you have the library which contains the building blocks for the workflows. We definitely recommend that you explore these actions when you have time but for now lets carry on with our example. Select the Files & Folders category in the Library, then drag the “Delete DS Store files” action into the workflow area on the right. When you drag it into the workflow area a few more options will appear, in this case we’d like it to search the subfolders on the drive too so make sure you tick the checkbox. When you’re done, save the service and name it “Delete DS Store”.




Voila, we’re done! Plug in a USB drive, then right click it and select Delete DS Store from the menu. Now go to a Windows computer and magically your USB drive will be a little cleaner! This works on any folder or drive so if you are emailing a folder to a friend who’s using Windows, you can clean it up the same way.

Automator lets you do much more than this, for example you can make custom Cocktail pilots and your own maintenance scripts which you can run whenever you want by saving them as small applications (just select Application instead of Service when you create a new workflow). Since you can interact with all sorts of software on your Mac there are almost an infinite number of different ways you can use Automator to save yourself time. For example, if you’re a photographer, how about having Automator bulk rename all your files after a photo shoot? Automator can easily do this and a lot more so go explore it!

Give your Mac X-Ray Vision

Here’s a quick tip on how to give your Mac some extra eye-candy. As a self respecting Mac user you should know about Quick Look, the handy file preview tool that comes with Leopard and Snow Leopard. If you haven’t, just select a file such as an image, a video or a PDF and press the Space bar. Voilá, a window pops up to give you a preview of the file your looking at!

If you try this on a folder however, the result is quite boring as Quick Look won’t show you much more than the name and icon of the folder. So... what do we do about that? We enable another one of Mac OS X’s secret settings to give it X-Ray Vision!

Open the Terminal (in Utilities inside Applications) and type the following then press enter:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1

After this relaunch Finder by holding the Alt key and right clicking the Finder icon in the Dock. From the menu choose relaunch then try out your new super power by using Quick Look on a folder. This time the icon will animate and slowly browse through the contents of the folder letting your find out what is inside. It may not be the most useful thing Apple has ever done but it sure looks nice! To restore the default Quick Look behavior just run the Terminal command again but replace the 1 with a 0.

OS X Highlight: Activity Monitor

There is a whole jungle of apps out there that show you the status of your computer in the menu bar, on your desktop or in the dock, but did you know that the best tool of them all comes with Mac OS X?

Activity Monitor is an application that allows you to monitor exactly what is going on with your computer at all times by showing you how much memory, cpu, network and disk space is currently being used. It can also show you which application is using the resources and it allows you to quickly kill a process that is going haywire or has stopped responding.

The handiest feature of all is that it can show the status in the Dock so that you can quickly see if something has gone wrong and prevent crashes. Open up Activity Monitor (in Utilities inside Applications), then select the type of information you want from the View, Dock Icon menu. To make the most of this we’d recommend setting Activity Monitor to automatically launch when you log in. This is done by right clicking the icon in the Dock and choosing Options, Open at Login.

Keeping Activity Monitor in the Dock also has all sorts of unexpected benefits, for example it is very handy if you feel that your computer is getting slow. Most Macs that are kept in good shape can live for many years and still be as fast as the day they were purchased. The key to this? Keep an eye on the memory usage.

If all the memory is being used up soon after booting up your computer OS X will start using the hard drive to give you more memory than what is physically available (this is called swapping). The catch is, swap memory is much much slower than real RAM memory so you will notice this by feeling that the computer gets much slower. The solution? Try cleaning up the applications that run in the background or install more memory.

Activity Monitor can also help you debug other problems. Battery life is directly dependent on how much load there is on the processor so if the battery in your laptop doesn’t last as long as you expect, have a look at how the processor is being used. Generally, to get anywhere near Apple’s specified battery life you should be around 5-10% usage (among other settings) so if the processor is averaging more than that some process is draining your battery.

Have you solved any other problems with Activity Monitor? Share them in the comments!

Go completely wireless with your Laptop and iPhone

A feature that people commonly miss when they get an iPhone is tethering, also known as the end of ever having to pay for expensive internet at airports and hotels. Or, how about enjoying the beautiful spring weather by doing some work outdoors?

Tethering is one of those features that just makes sense, yet it only became mainstream when Apple announced that the iPhones were going to support it last summer. It allows you to connect your laptop to the internet via your iPhone, much like the USB dongles you buy from your operator today but without the additional contract and, well, the dongle.

To make it even better, Apple has made the setup surprisingly simple, just activate the feature on your iPhone, then connect via either USB or Bluetooth and you’re ready to go.

Want to try it out? To do it via USB, which gives you a faster connection and lets your computer charge the phone while you’re using it, simply connect your phone to your laptop. Next, go to Settings on your iPhone, press General and then Network. About halfway down you’ll find a button called “Internet Tethering”, press the button and then flick the switch to enable tethering. Voila, you are now browsing via your phone!

To go completely wireless you can also share the connection from your phone via Bluetooth. It works in the same way as via USB, but it includes a few more steps to enable and pair the laptop and iPhone via Bluetooth. Don’t worry though, you will only have to do it the first time!

To do the one time setup, enable Bluetooth on your iPhone by going to Settings, General, Bluetooth and making sure the switch is on. While you’re in the settings make sure you also enable tethering. After activating Bluetooth and tethering, go back to the Bluetooth menu and leave the iPhone there for now. This allows your computer to find the iPhone which is what we are doing next.

Head over to your Mac, open System Preferences and click the Bluetooth icon. First, make sure that Bluetooth is enabled (the checkbox On is ticked) and the “Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar” checkbox is checked, then have a look at the left side of the window. This shows a list of all Bluetooth devices you have used with your computer, and below it is a small button with a Plus sign. Press that button and follow the instructions to pair your computer with the phone.

Great! Your phone is now setup and paired with your computer. From now on, whenever you want to use tethering just enable it on the iPhone, then click the Bluetooth icon in the menubar on your Mac. In the menu that pops up, select your iPhone, then Connect to network and you’re online!

A few notes to keep in mind:

1.It isn’t always free. The cost varies from operator to operator so make sure you double check it before activating it. Also, if you are from the US, AT&T still does not support tethering. However, Google might help you find a way to enable it anyway!

2. Tethering can drain batteries quite quickly! That’s why we recommend using the USB cable instead, it gives you both a faster connection and it charges your phone.

3. If you prefer to be completely wireless, try disabling Airport while your phone is connected via Bluetooth. This saves power on your laptop and can sometimes solve the odd connection problem you might encounter.

Fix a burned in screen

Sadly, after all these years, screen burn-in is one of those problems Apple’s clever engineers haven’t been able to solve yet. Screen burn-in is what happens if you leave something on the screen for too long, after which you’ll see a ghost image of what was displayed before. This can easily be prevented by using screen savers or by automatically putting the display to sleep (which also saves some power), but what do you do if your screen is burned in already?

The solution is surprisingly simple, all you need is a completely white picture that you leave on screen for as long as the image was burned in. Say you left your computer on overnight and came back to find that iTunes has been burned into your screen. To fix it, just put a white image on the next night and by the time you wake up in the morning it should all be gone!

To make life a little easier we created some white images in the most common aspect ratios, you can download them here. To use them as full screen images open them with Preview, then select Slideshow from the View menu. When you put the image on make sure you get the right aspect ratio (the image must fill the screen completely, otherwise you’ll burn in black borders instead!). How do you know which aspect ratio you need? Simple, all of Apple’s Intel-based computers are 16:10, except for the new 27” iMac which is 16:9. Older Macs are normally 4:3.

Troubleshooting a Slow or Crashy Mac

Today we decided to make a guide to help you solve the two most common complaints people have: “my computer is slow” or “my computer/this application keeps on crashing”. There’s a good chance this could save you a trip to the Genius Bar so give it a try before you call Apple!


Verify your hard disk

First up, the most important thing to check is your hard disk. A failing or corrupt hard drive can cause a lot of very unexpected crashes and problems so if this is the culprit you need to deal with it as soon as you can to avoid loosing your data. Fortunately it is very easy to check the disk, just open up Disk Utility (it’s in the Utilities folder in Applications) and select the disk in the left hand pane. Next, press Verify Disk under the First Aid tab and within a few minutes Disk Utility will tell you whether the disk is ok or not. If everything is fine you can skip the rest of this section and move on the next step, Identify the problem.




If there is a problem with the disk, you’ll notice that it can’t be repaired while you are using it so you have to restart your computer and boot up using the Mac OS X Install DVD that came with your computer. To do this, just put the DVD in the Superdrive, reboot your computer and hold the Alt (Option) key while it is starting. When OS X shows you a list of drives you can start from, pick the DVD and wait until it has booted. From the Utilities menu, you’ll be able to choose Disk Utility and do the same thing again, only this time it will allow you to repair the disk. If the repair fails or Disk Utility keeps reporting errors on the disk you most likely have a physically damaged hard drive in which case the only solution is to backup your data immediately and take it to Apple for a replacement.

It might also be worth checking out Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro, two paid alternatives to Disk Utility. Disk Warrior is generally better at repairing and optimizing a corrupt disk while TechTool Pro can run a full surface scan which will tell you if the disk is physically damaged or not.


Identify the problem

Now that we have ruled out the most urgent problem we can start the actual troubleshooting. First up, check that you have at least 1 GB free on your hard disk. It sounds like a simple thing but you’d be surprised by how slow and weird Mac OS X can get when it runs out of disk space. Also try to disconnect all external devices you have connected, faulty external drives can cause Time Machine to crawl to a halt for example.

Next, we need to find out if the problem is related to your user settings or a problem with the Mac OS X install. To do this, create a new user account on your computer by going to System Preferences and then click Accounts. In the left pane you’ll see a Guest Account, select it and ensure that “Allow guests to log in to this computer” is checked (if all the settings are grayed out, click the padlock in the bottom left corner to unlock them). After this, close all your program and log out, then log in with the new guest account and see if the problem persists.

If the problem is gone it is likely due to a corrupt settings file in your user account so log back in to your normal account, then read go to the next step “Fixing a user problem” for some ideas. Otherwise, the problem is likely related to your Mac OS X install so skip to “Fixing a broken Mac OS X Install” for more help!


Fixing a user account problem

The trouble here is that a problem with an individual user account can be caused by a large number of things so the best we can do is give you some pointers to where to start and how to find out what may be causing it. The first thing is to decide if it is a system wide problem or if it is just an individual application which is acting up.

If it is only one application that is buggy, it could be due to a corrupt plist file. plists are preference files for applications and on the odd occasion they may become corrupt. If the application can’t deal with this it sometimes leads to a crash or unexpected behaviour which can make the entire application unusable. To solve it, open Finder and in your user’s folder go to Library then Preferences. In here you will find hundreds of files named as com.CompanyName.Application.plist, so for example if I have a problem with iPhoto the file I am looking for is com.apple.iPhoto.plist. Find the one that corresponds to your application and temporarily move the file to the desktop, then launch the application and see if the problem has disappeared.

You can also automate this using Cocktail by making it automatically verify the preferences, but remember that a file might check out in Cocktail yet still contain data that the application doesn’t expect.

If the problem occurs in other applications too it might be related to corrupt fonts or it might after all be related to a more serious problem with the Mac OS X install. Open Font Book in Applications and select all the fonts, then choose Validate Fonts from the File menu. Font Book will likely report some minor problems but if you receive an error make sure you at least temporarily remove the font causing it.


Fixing a broken Mac OS X Install

Problems with OS X can usually be related back to two main things, either a corrupt system file or incorrect hardware settings. The easiest way to make sure that your system is doing fine is to install the latest combo update from Apple and then run Cocktail to repair the disk permissions. We have written about this before so have a look here for more info!

If the problem is caused by corrupt hardware settings there are two more things to try, resetting the PRAM & NVRAM. It sounds scarier than it is, the PRAM & NVRAM is where OS X stores basic information such as the date and time, which startup disk it should use and so on. The process to reset it is slightly different for the various generations of Apple computers so have at the official Apple support document for more details.


Identifying Hardware Problems

The last thing to do before giving up is to verify that the hardware in your Mac is okay. Sometimes problems can be caused by faulty RAM memory or problems with the logic board so to test the components insert the Mac OS X Install DVD and reboot your computer. As it starts booting press and hold the D key until the Apple Hardware Test starts to load. For detailed instructions on how to use the Hardware Test refer to this Apple support document.

If the hardware test indicates that the RAM memory is faulty you should be able to find instructions on how to replace it in your computer’s manual without voiding the warranty. However, if the problem is related to any other component the only option is usually to hand over the computer to Apple.


Conclusion

In addition to this guide there are also a lot great Mac forums around the world where people are happy to help you solve problems with your computer. One of the best resources is the official Apple Discussion Forum but there are also a lot of other forums (many of them international so you can get help in your own language) so do have a look around!

iCal’s Hidden Setting

When you create a new appointment in iCal the default duration of the event is an hour, but what if you usually have 20 minute meetings? Apple doesn’t let you change this anywhere, however it does get annoying after a while so let’s see how we can change this.

The key here is that Mac OS X is packed with secret settings that can’t be modified through the normal preferences, instead they are edited using the Terminal application. For example, to change the default duration of new events in iCal, open the Terminal (you find it in the Utilities folder in Applications). In the Terminal, type the following and press enter:

defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event' 20

where 20 is the new duration in minutes. Now restart iCal to have the settings take effect and try it out by creating a new event. To restore the default iCal settings, run the same command but set the time to 60 minutes. Simple!

Stuck CD/DVD?

So that CD you wanted to copy to iTunes got stuck in your SuperDrive and no matter how hard you press the Eject button it won’t come out? Don’t worry, here are a few easy things to try before you drop off the computer at one of Apple’s Genius Bars.

The problem is usually that Mac OS X sometimes prevents a disc from being ejected if it thinks the disc is in use. To force Mac OS X to eject the disc anyway try this first: open Disk Utility, which you find in the Utilities folder inside Applications. In the left pane of the window there is a list of all the drives installed on your computer. One of them will look like a DVD, simply select it and press Eject in the toolbar.

If that didn’t work it is time to get a bit more technical. Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal this time, you find it in the same folder as Disk Utility. Now you are presented with what is probably the scariest thing known to most computer users, an empty terminal prompt. Don’t worry though, just type in the following, press enter and the disk should be ejected:

drutil tray eject

Still stuck? The next few solutions requires you to restart or shut down your computer so make sure you save everything you have open then reboot your computer. As soon as the computer starts up, before the Apple logo shows up, press the left mouse button or click the touchpad and keep it pressed until the disc is ejected. Failing that you can also try to hold the Alt (option) key immediately when the computer powers on. This will display all drives your Mac can start from, including the Superdrive. Select the DVD then press and hold the Eject button until the disc comes out.

For you guys with laptops there is one last thing to try before you give up. Turn off the laptop and put it in a cool place for a few minutes. After the computer has cooled down, switch it back on and immediately eject the disc using any of the methods we mentioned earlier.

If you have gotten this far without being able to eject the disc there is a good chance that it is physically stuck in the drive and won’t come out no matter how many times you try. Unfortunately the only solution in this case is to open the Superdrive, something you can’t do on your own without voiding your warranty. The best thing to do now is to book an appointment with Apple who should be able to get it out for you.