Archives for the 'How To...' Category
Using Keychains With .Mac; Troubleshooting Issues
Using keychains with .Mac; troubleshooting keychain issues: You can use keychains with .Mac. This article applies to Mac OS X 10.4 or later and contains troubleshooting information that you can use if you encounter keychain issues.
Fresh on the heels of my last post about keychain troubles, Apple was good enough to release a far more detailed article on the topic. This is definitely one of those “Utility”1 bookmarks you want to keep in your browser. The article covers mostly troubles when syncing your keychains via .Mac, but it has some good points for troubleshooting none-the-less.
However, based on my past experiences syncing keychains with .Mac, there’s only one thing I can say about it — just don’t do it!
- I like to keep a folder in by browser favorites named “Utility” where I store handy tidbit such as this. It’s a time saver when something goes wrong. ↩
Apple KBase Article: Resetting your keychain in OS X
Resetting your keychain in Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: If Keychain First Aid finds an issue that it cannot repair, or if you do not know your keychain password, you may need to reset your keychain. (Resetting a keychain deletes a keychain reference while preserving the keychain file.)
Here’s a good Apple Knowledge Base article about resetting your login keychain to keep on hand in your browser favorites. The only thing I would add to it, which isn’t made clear; resetting your keychain in this manner will rename your old keychain to “login_renamed#.keychain” (where # is a number), which can be opened manually in Keychain Access again to copy digital certificates and other passwords to the new login.keychain — this is presuming, of course, that your old keychain is not so corrupt that it can’t be opened.
Resolve Startup Issues and Perform Disk Maintenance
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck: If your computer won’t start up normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. Mac OS X includes two utilities for this—Disk Utility and fsck. You can also use these even when your computer starts just fine but you want to check the disk for possible file system issues…
A decent Apple Knowledge Base article which covers repairing your start up disk using either “fsck” or Disk Utility. Tiger users should note that Apple recommends using Disk Utility whenever possible instead of the “fsck” (Unix “file system check”) command for performing repairs and/or maintenance.
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance
Mac 101: Miracle Maintenance: Following are three key things you can do to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. We also tell you what you can do to get the best performance from your Mac.
This is a decent Apple Knowledgebase article which was posted (or updated) today. It covers what I would consider to be the very minimum a user should do to keep their machine in order. I repeat — this is the VERY LEAST you should do to keep your Mac happy! If you’re not even doing this much, then you’re just asking for trouble.
Another decent kBase article covering Mac Maintenance is 303602. It expands a little bit more on the topics in article 304751, but is still only what I’d call a bare minimum for keeping your Mac in tip-top shape.
Be on the lookout for my version — where I’ll go into just a wee bit1 more detail — sometime after the first of the year…
- Actually, it’ll be way more detailed — but still easy enough to stick to on a regular basis. ↩
Here’s a Great CSS Trick
While I’m handing out tips, I think I’ll share a CSS trick that I picked up somewhere (but can’t remember where) not too long ago. This cool little method will pre-load the images for your site theme without the need for any JavaScript. It’s too simple not to use it!
First, add an id selector to your stylesheet similar to the following:
#preload {
width: 0;
height: 0;
display: inline;
background-image: url(images/background.gif);
background-image: url(images/banner.gif);
background-image: url(images/logo.gif);
background-image: url();
}
The critical thing here is the size (width/height: 0), to display it inline (no box of it’s own) and that the last background image url be empty so nothing shows as a background (even though the width/height is 0).
Then in your page, right after the “<body>” tag, add an empty div element as such;
<div id="preload"></div>
That’s it. As soon as your page loads, the style images are downloaded and stored in the browser cache. No need for a JavaScript function to do it anymore. Slick, huh? Works great for those who prefer to browse with JS disabled too.
Yes, it adds just a little superfluous code to the page, but it’s far less cumbersome than the JS alternative, and far more manageable when you want to add or remove images.
There you have it. Enjoy!
