Mac OS X Routine Maintenance

[Randy B. Singer]

Hi folks! It's been a while since I logged on here. I wanted to let you know one of the things that has been keeping me busy.

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!

[sew]

Thanks for all the info!!
 Randy is it hot enough for you? I also live in Sacamento.

[RHPConsult]

Randy:

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

[gunug]

Welcome Back Randy, I believe I've seen your website before, although perhaps with different content!  I wish I could've converted my father-in-law's law practice to MAC's as it would've saved me a lot of work on an old DOS computer this past few years.  He's retired and passed away but my mom-in-law is convinced someone might need those old records someday!

[Xairbusdriver]

Welcome back, Mr. Singer! 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! )!

[jcarter]

Thank you!   Also for all the great links.
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

[beacher]

MUCH appreciated, Randy, as usual!

[pendragon]

Randy,
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 2¢:

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-

[Randy B. Singer]

Wow!  Thank you for the warm welcome back!  It is much appreciated.

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.

[Xairbusdriver]

What I liked most about Randy's ( hope you don't mind the 'first name basis thing, we're more of a family here than a formal gathering ) site was that there was little or no "power user" techniques. It is written in a way that gets the job done but absolutely anyone should be able to do the suggested maintenance procedures. I think that is what makes the site unique. Plus the links to free/very inexpensive software. And don't forget the demo tools that can be used to check for problems but not purchased until you actually need to fix them. That's a different take on most shareware that we sometimes forget. And it's a unique service that we often don't thank the developers for. And all the more reason to 'pay up' when their work is useful!

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...

[Randy B. Singer]

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.

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.

[gunug]

Yep, I did the Randy thing as well, sorry for getting familiar!

[kimmer]

Hi Randy. Nice to see you here.

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

[krissel]

Hello Randy, nice to see you here.

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?

[Randy B. Singer]

Please *do* call me Randy!  The only folks who call me something else are either mad at me, or we are all in court.  

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.