I have a Mac and I'm worried

Ron_Tomkins said:
Ok it just happened a couple times. I have been running nothing but Safari, loading some websites and a couple times the computer froze for a little while and displayed the infamous multicolored spinning wheel on the cursor. So apparently I don't even need to be operating different programs at the same time.
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Disk Permissions. I have had the same problem with Safari in the past. What you need to do is reset, empty cache, and then go into Disk Utilities and verify and repair disk permissions. Chances are something as moved out of place, and caused the system to go wonky, and this would also effect the iLife apps as well. You should do a verify every so often if you are doing heavy work on the Mac.
 
I'm a mac user but to be honest, I've often found Safari to be a bit flaky. I use it as my main browser anyway because it's fast and I like the interface, but I always keep Firefox on my toolbar for the very occasional site that makes Safari choke and die.

No, I'm not talking about porn sites. Yes, I always install all software updates.
 
BenBurch said:
Macs ARE PCs.

I'm in Firefox on XP right now on my Mac. I also have Linux running and MacOS too...

Virtual machines rock.
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I have both a Mac and a PC, and I end up running virtual machines on both. 3ds Max is about the only thing keeping me from going Mac only. Parallels and the like are great things...beats running Virtual PC.
 
fullflavormenthol said:
Disk Permissions. I have had the same problem with Safari in the past. What you need to do is reset, empty cache, and then go into Disk Utilities and verify and repair disk permissions. Chances are something as moved out of place, and caused the system to go wonky, and this would also effect the iLife apps as well. You should do a verify every so often if you are doing heavy work on the Mac.
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Where exactly is "disk utilities"?
 
Macintosh HD->Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility


ETA: Computers should be able to find these things for you without mucking around in nested folders. So, for the easy way, type command-space (one finger hits both keys) then type disk in the Spotlight search box. If you are running OS X 10.5.4 it will highlight the Disk Utility application and when you press return, Disk Utility will launch.
 
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Ron_Tomkins said:
I have had a couple times when due to loading several things at the same time, or maybe doing it too fast, has caused the computer to freeze. The mouse cursor turns into the multicolored spinning ball and basically nothing happens. I am then forced to shut down the computer manually.
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That really sounds like you don't have enough RAM so the system is paging to disk. Since disk is several orders of magnitude slower than RAM the system will appear to grind to a halt (but that beach ball is spinning which is a clue that the whole system isn't frozen).

Activity Monitor is a good utility for seeing what's running and what resources your Mac is currently using. The only caution new users need to watch out for is when you are looking at the details of a process, the "Quit" button at the bottom of the window quits that process which is probably not what you really want to do.
 
Dan O. said:
That really sounds like you don't have enough RAM so the system is paging to disk. Since disk is several orders of magnitude slower than RAM the system will appear to grind to a halt (but that beach ball is spinning which is a clue that the whole system isn't frozen). ...
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My analysis too. I recommend at least 3 GB these days. (Which is maxed out for an iMac.)
 
Any clever clogs help with another Mac - problem? I have a network storage drive "Zen" and the Mac has (sort-of) been accessing it fine(ish) for sometime. However it's stopped working, ther server shows up as a server in Finder, but when I double click to access it Finder locks up (with the nice busy cursor). I've left the Mac for over 2 hours to see if it was just taking a very long time to access it. The server is working fine (I can access its control panel on my mac via its IP address in the browser). I've checked permissions for both as a guest connection and even tried a passworded user (all of which work fine on the Windows PC I'm running).

Any ideas?
 
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Dan O. said:
Macintosh HD->Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility


ETA: Computers should be able to find these things for you without mucking around in nested folders. So, for the easy way, type command-space (one finger hits both keys) then type disk in the Spotlight search box. If you are running OS X 10.5.4 it will highlight the Disk Utility application and when you press return, Disk Utility will launch.
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And if you want even more searchability (is that a word) there's QuickSilver: http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver

QuickSilver is more than a launcher but even just as a launcher it's imho better than spotlight. If not for anything else I like the interface better.
 
Darat said:
Any clever clogs help with another Mac - problem? I have a network storage drive "Zen" and the Mac has (sort-of) been accessing it fine(ish) for sometime. However it's stopped working, ther server shows up as a server in Finder, but when I double click to access it Finder locks up (with the nice busy cursor). I've left the Mac for over 2 hours to see if it was just taking a very long time to access it. The server is working fine (I can access its control panel on my mac via its IP address in the browser). I've checked permissions for both as a guest connection and even tried a passworded user (all of which work fine on the Windows PC I'm running).

Any ideas?
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Have you tried rebooting your Mac? Since you are also a PC user it's probably one of the first things you tried but I found it is something that many Mac only user will overlook.

Can you recall what changed when it stopped working? Was there a system update between the time when it was working and when it stopped?

Is there anything in the Console logs that hint at the cause of the problem?


I'm thinking the problem is on one of three places: Some configuration is wrong on your Mac, there is a firewall like block between your Mac and the network disk or some finder resource on the disk is corrupted. Finding the fix is a process of divide and conquer. Either try accessing the disk with a second Mac or build a clean system on a locally attached external drive to rule out local configuration problems. Attach directly to the problem disk to avoid network filters. And try accessing the drive from Terminal to bypass the Finder.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
I have had a couple times when due to loading several things at the same time, or maybe doing it too fast, has caused the computer to freeze. The mouse cursor turns into the multicolored spinning ball and basically nothing happens. I am then forced to shut down the computer manually.

What would be the equivalent to the Ctrl Alt Delete option on PC for this situation?

Also, what would be a good Anti-Spyware program recommended for making sure there hasn't been any malicious malware downloaded into the computer?
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It is not doing things too fast - your speed of clicking does not come anywhere need the bus or processor speeds in the machine.

You don't say what sort of machine, what OS so this is going to be pretty generic

a) Go to Applications>Utilities and launch Disk Utility
b) Select your HD
c) Click "repair disk permissions"

let it run. If you have never done this before it may take a while.

Then try your apps again.

Antispyware would be a waste. We have 400 mac users in our user base and in 5 years we have never had one instance of it.
 
If you are in the Boulder area, we have a small group of Mac enthusiasts that have been meeting monthly since before the Mac was released. The Next meeting is Thursday night (normally the second Thursday but we were bumped this month due to a scheduling conflict). For details, see the web site: http://www.comug.com/
 
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