The Mac Admin's Blog

How to force quit an application in Mac This post will update you process to force quit an application if in case it is creating any issue or is freezed. Just as we used ctrl+alt+del in PC we use force quit in Mac. The process to force quit an application is by pressing command+option+escape which will take you to the window to select the application that you want to force quit. Using Force Quit with Finder : Unlike the applications force quit can never be used to quit the Finder. Mac has designed Finder to be open evey time no matter what are you doing on the machine it will be running at the background. On force quit window in front of Finder you will find an option of restart rather than force quit. So the idea is, never waste time searching option to quit finder, Mac will never allow you.

Unable to trash/delete items Sometimes you might face the issue that you are unable to delete items on your Mac. If this happens the reason would be in right on that file which means the permission assigned to your id is 'Read only'. All you have to do is, change the permissions and you will be able to delete/trash the file. The steps are: 1. Open 'Get info' of the selected file by pressing Command+I in combination. 2. In this window, where the option Sharing & Permissions is mentioned, expand it and change the rights from drop down menu. 3. Once done reopen try to trash it and will be deleted. This could be done only if you have made changes in the rights or you are admin on the Mac machine. This will surely resolve the issue of being unable to move items to Trash.

While trying to save settings in IE it does not saves it Sometimes when you make changes in your Internet Explorer and when you restart the machine next time it resumes old settings and you find that your settings are gone. The solution is very simple, find the .plist file saved in the library and delete it. Now launch IE all over and then try to make changes as soon as the application is launched. This is one of the most annoying act of IE while working on a Mac and I suggest using Safari or the choice of webmasters... Firefox.

How to recover text from a damaged document in MS-Office Launch MS Word in Mac OS X. In the Word menu, click on Preferences . Now under Authoring and Proofing Tools , select General . Please don't forget that the Confirm conversion at Open check box is selected, then OK . Click Open on the Standard toolbar. On the Enable pop-up menu, you need to click Recover Text from Any File . Open the document and its done. This is no trick, Microsoft has given this option if any of the file gets corrupted.

How to connect to FTP using Safari Ever thought while working on an important project what will happen if your Interarchy or any other FTP application stops working? Now if you have Tiger or later version you can use your Safari to connect to FTP and transfer files without dedicated FTP client. The step is very simple, all you have to do is type the details of the FTP site as below and hit return/enter key. The format is ftp://username:password@domain.com , by using this trick you can get your project moving on till you IT guy comes to fix the FTP client issue. SFTP might create issue while connecting, FTP is recommended.

How to change permissions on a file Here is the simple step to change permissions on a file. If read access is given to a user it can be converted to read/write access. In order to do this, we just need to open 'Get info' window, down the bottom there is an option of ownershiop and permissions. Select the drop down and change the permissions on this file as per your requirements.

How to change default application to open a file Sometimes we need to open a .pdf file and it opens in Word. It could be an error and sometimes it could be a necessity to change the default opening application as per your choice. Here is the simple way to do it. We have to use ' Get info ' in order to make this change. To reach ' Get info ' just select the file and hit Command+i . Once you get this window, you have to select the "Open with" and choose the application that you need to set as default application to open a specific file type.

How to change icon size in Mac The tip of changing icon size on Dock will really be beneficial when you have lots of icons scattered all over your desktop. It is really simple to do this: Going to contextual menu (right click or command+click) on the desktop and select “ Show View Options ” a new menu will appear. This is used to organize the size and spacing of the icons. Apart from changing the size and space between icons, this window also helps you answering these questions: How to change spaces between icons on Mac? How to change font size on icon labels? Position of icon label i.e. bottom or right? Icon preview to be enabled or not? How to change 'Arrange by' type?

How to map a printer on a Mac In this post we will talk about mapping a printer on a Mac. The process to configure a network as well as local printer will remain same hence perform same steps to map either type: i. Goto Preferences and open Printer & Faxes. ii. Click on " + " on the next screen select IP tab. iii. Enter the IP Address and click on Add. iv. Mac will collect required information and add the printer automatically. If in case this does not works we need to add the drivers: Go to Preferences > open Printer & Faxes > IP > goto Print using & select the driver from the menu. Though all the drivers are preloaded whle installation of OS X but sometimes we also need to add the drivers.

How to clear DNS from Mac OS X Every time when you open a web page its DNS gets stored in cache of the computer. If you want to know what is DNS, read this topic to clear the concept. When these DNS cache become old, in some of the cases they start creating problem. The idea is to delete DNS cache saved in the system. The command has to typed in Terminal, for Leopard it has to be: dscacheutil -flushcache If you still have Tiger running on your Mac, then type the following: lookupd -flushcache After running this command, cache will be clear and it may take a bit longer to open web pages. It is not recommended to constantly flush your cache, once a month or once every two months would be good enough.