Part 13. Maintaining Your Mac
Most of the time your Mac just hums right along, cheerfully complying with your requests and sitting quietly in the corner when you’re not using it. Every once in a while, however, even the best-behaved Mac needs a little maintenance or a minor repair. This Part covers the basics of keeping your Mac happy and healthy.
In this Part you’ll learn how to fix disk errors and reformat disks—both removable disks and hard drives—as well as ways to remedy problems with Classic. Also covered are updating your system software, setting the date and time automatically, and calibrating your monitor for accurate color. Some of these techniques are one-time jobs (calibrating your monitor) and others are things you’ll do on a regular basis (formatting removable disks).
Along the way, you’ll learn a variety of useful tricks, such as displaying system information, rebooting from a different system, and force quitting programs when necessary. Whether you’re a power user or a weekends-only Macster, the tasks in this part will teach you things every Mac user should know.
Mac Maintenance and Repair Kit
Fixing Errors with Disk Utility
Over time and with use, the formatting structure of a disk can become scrambled, either slightly or seriously. If you have trouble reading files from, or saving files to a disk, or if you experience other mysterious problems, it’s time to run the repair program Disk Utility. (To use Disk Utility on your startup disk, see the next task.)
Double-click Disk Utility to start it (it’s in the Utilities folder within Applications).
Select the disk to be repaired in the list.
Click the First Aid tab.
Click Repair Disk.
Tip: Verify or Repair?
If you’re concerned about modifying a disk in any way at all, you can check its status without making any repairs by using the Verify commands. And, it’s always good to have a current backup before you repair the disk.
Note: What Are Permissions?
Each program, document, and folder in a Mac OS X system has permissions describing who can open and modify it. Incorrect permissions can prevent programs from running or cause them to malfunction.
Repairing the Startup Disk
Disk Utility can’t repair the startup disk because the program can’t modify the section of the disk where it resides. If you have a second hard drive with a Mac OS X system installed, you can start from that drive to run Disk Utility or use your installation disc, as described here.
Restart from the Mac OS X Installer disk by restarting your Mac with the disc inserted and pressing C as the computer starts up.
Choose Utilities, Disk Utility.
Select your hard drive in the list.
Click the First Aid tab and click Repair Disk.
Note: What’s Going On?
The Disk Utility command (located in the Utilities menu when you start up from your installation CD) isn’t anything special. It simply starts up the Disk Utility program that’s installed on the CD, which is the same as the one installed on your hard drive.
Tip: Permission Please
Repair disk permissions each time you install new software or update existing software, including Mac OS X.
Updating Programs with Software Update
Software Update checks with Apple over the Internet to see whether it finds updated versions of your system software and preinstalled programs. Then it can download and install updates for you. You enter an admin name and password when you update your software. Mac OS X assumes only admin users are authorized to change software. Be aware that many system updates will require you to restart your Mac once they’re finished installing.
Tip: Behind the Scenes
If you have a broadband Internet connection, check Check for updates and choose an interval. Do this when you want the check to occur—Software Update starts counting the time interval from the time you make this setting.
Tip: Keeping Track
If you want to know which updates have been installed and when, click the Installed Updates tab to see a list. Click the column headers to sort the list by the date, the update’s name, or the version number.
Start System Preferences and click the Software Update button.
Click the Scheduled Check button and click Check Now.
If updates are located, click the name of each update to see information about it.
Check the boxes next to each update you want to install and click Install.
Enter an admin name and password and click OK.
If a license agreement appears, click Agree. Software Update downloads and installs the update.
Click Quit.
Note: Updating a New System
Some updates don’t show up until after other updates are installed. After installing system software from your original disk, run Software Update repeatedly until it doesn’t show any updates.
Tip: Don’t Go First
If you’re not sure whether to install a system update, take a quick trip to MacFixit (www.macfixit.com) to see whether other users who’ve already updated their Macs have reported any problems with the update.
Using the Date & Time Preferences
It’s important that your Mac know what time it is. Every file on your hard drive is timestamped, and the system uses that information to determine which files contain the most current data. Using the Date & Time preferences, you can ensure that the date and time stamps on your computer are accurate.
Tip: Blink Blink
Another useful setting in Date & Time preferences is located on the Clock tab. Check the box marked Flash the time separators. Then, if the colon stops blinking, you’ll know your Mac is frozen and you can restart it.
Note: Today’s Date Is...
To see the full day and date, click the menu bar clock to reveal its menu. You can also open the Date & Time preferences here, as well as changing the menu bar clock to an analog icon instead of the standard digital display.
Start up System Preferences and click the Date & Time button.
Click the Time Zone button.
Click the map near where you live.
Choose the nearest city from the Closest City pop-up menu.
If you have a constant connection to the Internet, check the box marked Set date & time automatically.
Choose the nearest timeserver from the pop-up menu.
Note: More About NTP
To learn more about how network timeservers work, you can visit the Network Time Protocol website at www.ntp.org. There you’ll also find links to lists of alternative timeservers, including servers around the world.
Calibrating Your Monitor
It wasn’t all that long ago that computers had grayscale monitors, but now it’s all about color. To make sure color looks right on your screen, however, you need to calibrate your system. Here’s how to create a color device profile that tells your Mac how your monitor displays color and makes appropriate adjustments.
Note: Managing Color
The software components that translate color between your Mac and your monitor comprise a color management system (CMS). In its full-fledged form, a CMS ensures consistent color throughout your system, from scanner to monitor to printer.
Start System Preferences and click the Displays button.
Click the Color button and click Calibrate. The Display Calibrator Assistant opens.
Click the Expert Mode box to create a more precise profile; then click Continue.
Make the monitor settings shown in the window and click Continue.
Follow the instructions on the Native Response, Target Gamma, and Target White Point screens, clicking Continue after each screen.
If you’re an admin user, check the box to make the profile available to all users of this Mac; then click Continue.
Enter a name for the profile and click Continue. The Display Calibrator Assistant saves the profile.
Click Done.
Note: Where to Start
The Color tab of the Displays preference pane includes a list of profiles. If one of those matches, or is close to, the monitor you’re using, click to select that profile before you start the calibration process. You’ll get a more accurate profile that way.
Note: A Step Further
If you’re in the market for truly accurate color, you’ll have to spend a little to get it. Look into a colorimeter such as Eye-One Display 2 (www.gretagmacbeth.com), which sticks to your monitor with suction cups to “see” the color itself as you create a monitor profile.
Note: Greek to Me
Native Gamma, Target Gamma, and Target White Point, used in the Display Calibrator Assistant, might sound very technical, but they simply refer to how your eye perceives the lightness, darkness, and overall color cast of your monitor’s display.
Forcing an Application to Quit
When a program isn’t working right, your first tactic should be to quit and restart it. But sometimes a program is so off-track that the Quit command doesn’t work. Then you can force the program to quit. It doesn’t affect the other programs that are running, but unsaved changes in documents within the problem application are lost.
Choose Apple menu, Force Quit.
Choose the program you want from the list and click Force Quit.
Click Force Quit again.
Click the Close button to dismiss the Force Quit dialog box.
Note: In the Olden Days
Apple used to recommend that you restart your Mac after force quitting an application. But in Mac OS X each program runs in its own area of memory so that when it malfunctions, no other program is affected. No need to restart!
Tip: The Key to Force Quitting
If you’re a lover of keyboard shortcuts—they’re definitely more efficient than using the mouse—then you’ll be thrilled to know that the keyboard shortcut to get to the Force Quit dialog is
+Option+Esc.
Reformatting a Hard Disk
There are three good reasons to reformat a disk. First, if you want to use the disk on a Windows or UNIX computer, it will need a different format. Second, formatting a disk erases all data completely. And finally, reformatting a disk is a last resort if you’re having problems opening or saving files on it.
Double-click Disk Utility to start it (it’s in the Utilities folder within Applications).
Choose the disk to be formatted in the list on the left and click the Erase button.
Choose a Volume Format option, type a name for the disk, and click Erase.
Click Erase again.
Caution: Sensitivity Training
Disk Utility’s Volume Format menu contains four options, two of which you should definitely avoid. Mac OS Extended is the basic Mac disk format, and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) enables your Mac to keep a list of system operations so that it can restore your disk to its previous state. Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive) should only be used to use the disk with UNIX programs that support case-sensitive file systems.