Mac OS X

Adobe Lightroom update brings direct Facebook publishing; Camera Raw 6.2 released

For photographers who use Adobe's Lightroom program, there's an update available that fixes a number of issues with the previous version; it also adds new online publishing features. There is also an update for Adobe's Camera Raw plug-in, which brings new Camera Raw profile support to various Adobe programs that use the plug-in.

Before installing any of these updates be sure you create a full restorable system backup using Time Machine or a drive clone.

Lightroom 3.2

Additional camera support for several new camera models including the Panasonic DMC-LX5, Sony NEX-5, and Canon EOS 60D Numerous … Read more

AutoCAD returns to the Mac, mobile app offered

After an absence of more than 15 years, AutoCAD is finally back on the Mac.

Autodesk announced Tuesday the launch of AutoCAD for Mac, a new version of its popular design and engineering tool that will run natively on Mac OS X.

AutoCAD for Mac will offer many of the features familiar to users of the software but will also take advantage of Mac OS X, said Autodesk. The program's Cover Flow interface will help users browse through graphical previews of each file, while the Mac's multitouch gestures will allow for panning and zooming of each drawing. Users … Read more

Unix commands for managing HFS+ compression in OS X

A couple of days ago we discussed some problems that could arise with sizing files with HFS compression. This problem basically arises from there being a lack of consistency in the various utilities that are available in OS X, where some show compression status and size, and others show the uncompressed size.

If you regularly do scripting or other work with files on disk that require you to know details about the compression, there are some utilities available that can help you get the status of file compression, and apply or remove compression from files on disk.

Hfsdebug

Hfsdebug is … Read more

CNET TV Apple Byte: September 1st predictions and Netflix on your iPhone

CNET TV's Brian Tong discusses the latest in Apple news, rumors, tips, and tricks. This week Brian sorts out the new iPod rumors, Apple TV (or iTV) rumors, touch-screen iMac rumors, and Apple's patent for security devices based on sensor detection. You'll also learn how to retrieve visual voice mails that may not show up on your iPhone and get a look at the Netflix App for iPhone.

MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on missing "new message" chimes in Mail, installing iPhoto from another computer, Time Machine drives not being recognized despite being formatted properly, and how to set a system to boot to the 64-bit kernel by default.

Question: New message chimes in Mail

MacFixIt reader "Robert" asks:

I have an iMac that is 2 years old. When I purchased it I was running Leopard 10.5.8 I have since upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.4 I … Read more

Apple releases MacBook Pro EFI Firmware update 1.9, iWork 9.0.4

Apple has released an update for 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro systems released in mid-2010, which addresses a problem that could cause freezes and hangs during use, and more notably during start-up. The prevalence of this problem is rare, but has affected a few systems.

In addition to the freezes and hangs, the update addresses compatibility issues with external displays.

In order to install the update, you will need to have your external power supply attached and should expect a gray screen with a status bar appear when the system reboots. It is important that you do not interrupt this … Read more

File sizes not adding up in Snow Leopard

When you get information on a file in the Finder, you can see numerous attributes including the file size. Under some circumstances, however, the size reported in the information window of the Finder may differ from the size reported by other file-sizing utilities.

We were recently contacted by a MacFixIt reader who was trying to get the size of a selection of files via AppleScript, and in order to do so was using the OS X "System Events" to grab file sizes with AppleScript code similar to the following:

tell application "Finder" &… Read more

Console error message: 'Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds'

After running your system for a while and using various applications, you may receive an error stating, "Throttling Respawn: Will start in 10 seconds," over and over again. These messages are usually associated with a plist file and will repeat every 10 seconds for as long as the system is booted.

12/30/09 9:20:13 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 12/30/09 9:20:23 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.50186 (com.akamai.client.plist) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 12/… Read more

How to regain access to user files and folders after copying or migrating

There are times when you may copy files or folders to your system and cannot access them because the system does not allow you permission to them. In the case of folders, you may see a small "no entry" symbol to the lower right of the folder icon. This may happen after migrating or copying files, but it can also happen when accessing shared resources such as network drives, thumb drives, or external hard drives.

The reason these files are not accessible is a simple mixup in the permissions flags for them. Usually when you copy files, the … Read more

Extra Mac fonts included in Aperture, iMovie '09, more

Many of Apple's applications have gone the route of being self-contained packages, hiding their resources from the casual user to protect file structure integrity. This has also allowed Apple to include many interesting resources, such as extra fonts, with these applications.… Read more