Post by: Randy B. Singer on July 24, 2006, 10:49:49 PM
Over the past few weeks I've drastically updated my Web site:
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
It is a free, non-commercial, reference designed for ordinary Macintosh users (not power users) to tell you how to do effective routine maintenance on your Macintosh running OS X. It not only tells you what to do, it tells you which utilities to use (with an emphasis on easy to use and free utilities) and where to get them.
I hope that you find this site helpful!
Post by: sew on July 25, 2006, 12:11:52 AM
Randy is it hot enough for you? I also live in Sacamento.
Post by: RHPConsult on July 25, 2006, 02:34:18 AM
How nice to see you 'round these parts again.
Thanks for the "gift" URL. We'll see it gets passed around.
I haven't been in Davis for months, but will plan to call you in late August to see if you've time for lunch, when I next expect to be in the "neighborhood".
DP
Post by: gunug on July 25, 2006, 07:54:27 AM
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 25, 2006, 07:57:32 AM
Don't stay away for so long again! But the site he mentioned might be worth some of his absence! 
I highly recommend his site and the dozens of links to free and useful apps and techniques!Mr. Singer graciously allowed our local MUG ( Mac User Group ) to use his site as the basis for this months program. It was very well received, everyone learned something and many learned a lot! It generated more discussion than any other meeting this year ( a fair measure of the value seen in any topic ). BTW, Mr. Singer is very active in the MUG area, you might want to look around from one in your area. The personal, face-to-face contact with other Mac users is very valuable. It's the only thing better than TS ( sometimes!
)!
Post by: jcarter on July 25, 2006, 07:58:22 AM
Ive got your older site bookmarked on my older Macs, so Im glad that you reminded us of the new site for the new OS.
Jane
Post by: beacher on July 25, 2006, 12:58:02 PM
Post by: pendragon on July 25, 2006, 01:48:04 PM
Home! Well, one of your other homes...No doubt you receive many suggestions re Routine Maintenance. To preclude you from concluding I am not involved, my 2ยข:
1. Many OSX problems are font related:
Launch Font Book, select all the fonts in the FB window, then go to File>Validate File. This will give you a list of corrupt fonts and some options.
2. Many OSX problems are printer related:
Use a utility such as TinkerTool System to Repair CUPS.
Should you decide to discount (ignore) my input, be assure you are in very good company (quite sizable too).
Best of cheers and thanks for stopping by and sharing-
Post by: Randy B. Singer on July 25, 2006, 03:15:06 PM
I've started to wean myself from participating on Macintosh e-mail discussion lists. Basically the story is that I have encountered one head case too many and I just don't enjoy it anymore. I also find that my participation isn't as appreciated as it once was. In addition, my presence often intimidates other helpers and sometimes causes them to act out. (Which probably explains why you don't see any other Mac authors contributing to Mac discussion lists.)
I've also been withdrawing from participating in MUG's. I think that I've gotten too old for them. Or at least the combination of being too old and too well-known isn't a good one.
So, instead, I've been slowly updating my Web sites. I think that is how I can best contribute to the Macintosh community. My next site will be a FAQ about viruses. I get asked about this topic constantly, and there is a ton of misinformation about Mac malware going around.
If you are in my area and want to get together for lunch or to chat, please send me a private e-mail for my phone number.
Yes, it is plenty hot enough for me here in Sacramento! I recently purchased a new motorcycle, and it is sitting in my garage unused. (Which is making me miserable. I thought that I would be able to ride it a lot this summer.) A ride in this weather would quickly turn me into a mummy!
Pendragon, your tips are right on! However, my Mac OS X Routine Maintenance Web site is for "routine maintenance" items, and I'm not sure that those are routine maintenance items. They are more troubleshooting items. They would have been perfect on the "Tiger Problems" Web site that I started to create, but which was still-born. Thank you, though.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 25, 2006, 04:45:51 PM
And don't get us started on the 'age' thing! One nice thing about many forums is that you can be almost any age you want!
Fortunately, some of us don't have to act our age! 
On the other hand...
Post by: Randy B. Singer on July 25, 2006, 09:47:12 PM
QUOTE(pendragon @ Jul 25 2006, 06:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
2. Many OSX problems are printer related:
Use a utility such as TinkerTool System to Repair CUPS.
Use a utility such as TinkerTool System to Repair CUPS.
Apple clearly agrees with you on this. In Tiger (OS X 10.4) in Apple's Printer Setup Utility, they have included the function Reset Printing System to take care of this.
Post by: gunug on July 25, 2006, 09:48:19 PM
Post by: kimmer on July 25, 2006, 09:52:47 PM
You don't remember me, but I remember you. Sat next to you a few times at Davis mug meetings -- until we moved here to the central coast of Oregon -- where it's cool and I wore a jacket today.
My friends in Vacaville wrote and said it was 123!!!!!!!!!! Way too hot. Way, way too hot. Hope you folks cool down soon!I've always found your site useful, and love the new revamp.
Emails lists ... such interesting creatures.
Anyhow, hope you drop in when you can.
kimmer
Post by: krissel on July 25, 2006, 11:28:49 PM
I just read through your page and downloaded some of the recommended apps to try.
Had many of them already but a few others looked helpful.
One of them MainMenu has a dead link. The site doesn't load, neither does the download from Version Tracker work. Nor does their home site http://www.santasw.com/products.html
I had that product on my machine recently and had a lot of trouble with a complete and total crash taking down everything and couldn't boot afterward. When I finally restored things, the console crash report showed a hangup with it and the menu cracker that apparently was installed with Mainmenu. I'm not absolutely sure it was the cause of the problem but I trashed all related to the app.
Now I'm wondering what happened to the site?
Post by: Randy B. Singer on July 26, 2006, 12:15:23 PM
Kimmer, DMUG was great in the old days. Unfortunately just about everyone I knew in DMUG is now gone...including you! I unsubscribed from their e-mail list a few weeks ago.
I just tried Main Menu's site and it is still down. But I don't think that it is anything to worry about. Power outages due to the heat have caused several sites to go down temporarily. Intego's site was down a couple of days ago and lots of folks freaked out about that. But it was back up a day later.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 26, 2006, 12:36:40 PM
Post by: sandbox on July 26, 2006, 12:39:12 PM
QUOTE
Yes, it is plenty hot enough for me here in Sacramento! I recently purchased a new motorcycle, and it is sitting in my garage unused. (Which is making me miserable. I thought that I would be able to ride it a lot this summer.) A ride in this weather would quickly turn me into a mummy!
When I resided in Sac Valley I would scoot up 50 to Placer or take the highway to Truckee. Getting Up in the hills has a cooling effect..... some would say!
Of course a short ride into Old Sac and Fanny Ann's on a hot day always had a cooling effect. And they have one of my favorite T-Shirts too
Post by: beacher on July 26, 2006, 01:30:59 PM
:
Post by: krissel on July 28, 2006, 12:28:42 AM
QUOTE(airbusdriver @ Jul 26 2006, 01:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Kris, not sure which machine you had trouble with using MainMenu, but you might want to take a look and <MaxMenus> and maybe <Apple System Menu>, as well. I really like MaxMenus and have had absolutely no troubles using it on my iMac iGloo and my wife's iBook G4. Both are Pref panels and seem to work very well with everything. As you know, I dislike the Dock and these two apps make it a very seldom used 'feature'.
I have FruitMenu for those activities.
MainMenu is for different purposes:
QUOTE
MAIN MENU (Provides a menu bar menu for running system tasks, including repairing disk permissions, running maintenance scripts, updating prebinding, cleaning caches, flushing the lookupd cache, rebuild Spotlight indexes, verification and removal of .plist preference files, and more.)
I only used it for a week or so until I encountered this problem. It may not have been the reason for the crash but I didn't want to take any chances.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 28, 2006, 11:22:09 AM
I recall one called Diablotin. It was some kind of utility ( that seems to be what I download more than anything else ). What I don't remember is why I tried it, what it did, or anything else about it! BTW, MaxMenus has just been updated. You really should use it, it's much better named than "FruitMenu"!
Post by: kimmer on July 28, 2006, 01:54:39 PM
QUOTE
What I don't remember is why I tried it, what it did, or anything else about it!
Serves ya' right.
You got me to download some utility, talked me through setting it to take care of whatever prob I was having - which it did - and now I see this "thing" in my system pref window, I don't know it is, what it does, why I set it up to start with, I couldn't uninstall it if I wanted since I don't know what it is, and when I asked you several months ago you couldn't remember either. So - it serves ya' right. 
Post by: Xairbusdriver on July 28, 2006, 03:55:02 PM
So, is <this> what you're screaming about?! I still think it's a stupid name...
It could be the developer has an interest in a <certain volcano in Dominica>...
Or he is an avid reader of <Foucault's Pendulum>...
Or it could be the name for the brains tendency to forget or lose connection with memories as it ages...
Post by: Randy B. Singer on July 28, 2006, 08:15:20 PM
I'd like to go for a night ride, but this week it has only cooled down to somewhere in the 90's in the evening. It has gotten cooler today, maybe I'll be ablel to go for a nice ride this weekend.
A friend from DMUG and I went for a ride along the Sacramento river a couple of weeks ago, and ended up in Old Town. That was fun. Especially looking at all the bikes parked in Old Town.