Mac OS X 10.0.4 follow-ups: Kill Dock; Puff of smoke; Disappearing cursor work-arounds

Dock responds to AppleScript In response to our coverage last week on ways to kill the Dock in order to remove the puff of smoke drawing artifacts, we noted that there are more than a few ways to skin a cat via Unix. However, the Mac is no slouch when it comes to finding more than one path to the destination. With that in mind, we were still a little surprised when a reader pointed out the Dock application responds to AppleScript. There does not appear to be a dictionary, but a simple 'tell application "Dock" to quit' statement will also restart the Dock. (Thanks, Charlie Austin and Chris Bartlett.)

Puff of smoke glitch not related to Classic Also in response to Friday's item on the puff of smoke drawing glitch, Pieter Coolsma reports that the problem may not be related to Classic running, as he has encountered the glitch on a Rev. B iMac without Classic running (or even installed).

Disappearing mouse cursor fix Regarding the continuing problem with a disappearing cursor, Eric Taylor writes: I've been using this trick for disappearing mouse cursors for years. I define a sleep now corner of the screen (in Mac OS X, its in the Screen Saver module Hot Corner Tab - a check box means sleep now.) Whenever the mouse disappears, its usually possible to get the mouse to move to the sleep corner, and after waking the Mac back up, the mouse almost invariably returns.

Update: Still other suggestions:

Mike Fox adds: "Somehow after opening the Force Quit box I got the invisible cursor over the relaunch button and relaunched the Finder (I guess, since that was what was highlighted). Anyhow, that cleared up the problem. It is kind of like driving blind, however."

Mike Levine writes: "When you bring a Classic app to the front your mouse disappears. To fix, guess where the mouse pointer is and click an OS X application, the mouse returns. Now go to the Dock and then choose the Classic app you want to use by clicking its icon once. The mouse, along with the app will come to the front and work. This work-around has never failed me since version 10.0.0."

Kelly Guimont notes: "I have found the best way for me to fix it (since my keyboard is plugged into a USB hub and my mouse into my keyboard) is to unplug the power from the hub and then plug it back in again. It appears to make the computer check for new devices and it clears up."

Richard Clark found: "When the disappearing cursor occurs, I use Command/Tab to toggle to another application. Every time this has been done the pointer comes back."

Another reader offers: "My fix is to press Command-option-Escape to bring up the Force Quit dialog box. That also brings back the mouse pointer."