I need help.

[nonuf2msup]

I downloaded a demo of NetShade from somewhere, not sure. I decided not to use it and "uninstalled" it. I thought. In an effort to make sure it was completely gone, I googled measures for getting rid of all files associated with an uninstall. Eventually, enough googling lead me to the TERMINAL. The following is what I get when I open it:


network name:~ username$ /Users/username/Desktop/NetShade; exit
-bash: /Users/username/Desktop/NetShade: No such file or directory
logout
[Process exited - exit code 127]



Now, I got hold of iTerm and can open and use terminal.app under the same username with it. In addition, I can utilize terminal.app through another account on the same computer.

What is causing this and how do I rid myself of it?

Thanks,

Know Enough To Mess Up

[Jaysen]

So when you click on the terminal icon that shows up before you can type anything?

If so then open your terminal replacement, and make sure you are in your home directory (pwd should show /Users/username). We want to look for that line in any start up files in your home directory. I don't think we will find anything but lets look.

cd
grep -r exit .??*

hopefully you will come right back to your prompt. If you have any hits let me know about those.

I expect that what we will find is that your terminal plist file has a StartupFile. You can get to it quickly by open Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist
if there is anything listed in the StartupFile field note it then delete it. Save the plist file and close the Property list editor. You should be able to open terminal now.

No go back, locate the file and remove it. you don't need it.

Let me know if this works.

[nonuf2msup]

Thank you so much! The first code didn't pop anything up, but opening the library and identifying that string was a FIX. I'm just getting into unix at 37 years old and I'm finding it quite addictive. Funny thing is, I have opened that very same .plst several times by identifying it straight out of the finder and opening with prop list ed but didn't know what to look for and was concerned about messing something up.

Thank you again.

Daivd

[nonuf2msup]

1. I have several different Macs but the one I'm on most often is my G4 laptop. I ran ShreditX yesterday which said I needed to free up some space on my startup disk. I'm a little confused on this. Is my startup disk my entire HD or a particular part of it? And what files or programs are safe to delete? I read that getting rid of all the languages accept english can be done but the program offered to do this was not for 10.4 and above.

2. I ran CPU Speed Accelerator and liked it, but uninstalled it due to security concerns. They required my user name and password for operation. I really did like the software and it sped up my computer on a grand level, but the more I though about it the more I didn't like my info being out there. Are they legitimate? Is there another way to do what CPU SA does through terminal?

Thanks,

David

[Jaysen]

Glad to hear the plist fix worked.

The boot disk is the slice used to boot your mac. For most users this is the entire internal hard disk. Advanced users my put multiple slices on the internal drove to all multiple OS or data separation (I have 3). Let's assume that you are using a simple config.

The system is indicating that your disk is getting full. You have a couple of options. One is to strip stuff from the OS (removing the languages). This can be done, but may nor actually help you all that much. Another is to make sure that you run that various cron jobs that help remove excess logs (look into macjanitor in the apps section). The last option, and the one that I will recommend, is looking to see if you jsut have too much stuff left in your home directory.

Some things to look at

old email. If you have a lot of old emails with attachements consider deleteing or arhiving to an external disk
DMG files. Have you downloaded a bunch of DMG files that you don't use? archive them to external storage or delete them.
iTunes. Do you really need all those songs that you never listen too? if they are on a purchased CD you can always reload them. If purchased from iTunes store you can archive them to external.
ripped media. this is basically the same as itunes, but you may have use handbrake to get a dvd that you don't watch. Archive that sucker to external media.
log files from varisou utilities. Some utilities write log files to your home dir. Check to see that there is not large log files in your home dir. Either use the tool to purge the file or delete it.
Clear safari caches. lots of cruft builds up as you surf the net. clear it out every now and then.
Run disk repair. It is possible for unix file systems to get "confused." The "old guys" (I have been mainting unix boxes for 15 years now) use a tool called fsck to repair file systems that are in trouble. Apple loves you enough to provide disk utility. It is in the utilities folder. Open it and click the verify and repair buttons. it might find some files that were supposed to be deleted but were not
empty trash. If you don't empty the trash the files are not deleted and are jsut taking up space.


For the record, archive to external storage can be a physically attached external disk (firewire, usb), a network drive, a flash disk, or a dvd/cd media.

For the record, stripping the OS is only a good idea if done during install (by deselecting options). I would look to remove unneeded files long before something like striping OS files. My rule of thumb is if I didn't read, play, edit, create in in 4 months it comes off the drive. I have a 120GB drive and have yet to get over 30 GB used. My external 300GB is sitting with 230Gb of misc media like mp4, mp3 and dmg.

[Jaysen]

I separated this from my last post as to differentiate a technical issue from a personal/philosophical issue (technically informed but still OPINION).

3 words -- don't use them

I know, don't is technically 2 words, but I seem to like the "3 words" open more than "4 words." A contraction is technically one word made from 2, but most folks still think of them as 2 distinct words... I digress.

CPU accelerators really don't speed up your CPU. It isn't like you are turning up the clock speed on the processor, or adding a second processor. My OPINION (not the preceding word) is that these programs falsely advertise their function. This makes them suspect as their opening volley is a lie.

What these programs TYPICALLY do (notice the word in caps) is to optimize systems performance by altering disk tuning parameters, flagging frequently accessed files for disk caching, forcing frequently access memory segments from virtual memory into physical RAM, and occasionally creating binary caches of micro code to speed up execution of some software. While none of this is bad in theory it is not always so good in practice. Here is why.

Disk cache is limited. if you fill it with large numbers of small library files you will see degraded performance reading time sensitive files. Think iTunes, MP4, DMG, file safe etc. That would actually slow your system down.

Memory management is no simple task. OS kernels are pretty good at knowing which memory needs to be allocated to what process. Video intensive program need ram due to their need to quickly change data elements. While most memory managers can tell the difference between your screen saver and photoshop it may not be able to properly prioritize between photoshop and itunes. The kernel put the data at a location for a reason. Let that decision ride if you want your system to function as designed.

Binary caches of micro code are dangerous. disk media errors are common and you rarely know when one happens. If your micro code cache flips the one bit that says "let me erase the hd" how will your tool know the difference? (for those who may read this and feel the need to explain don't bother. I know the technics. they are fallible. the example I provide actually happened with a code cache that I wrote.) Don't play with fire and you don't get burnt.

If you paid attention you noticed that I did not mention disk parameter tuning. this is the one thing that I find these tools are pretty good at. Problem is tuning is best done BEFORE you fill up a disk. So by all means tune the disk parameters, but do it the right way. i can tell you how to do this on just about any platform except OSX. I have not figured out where I set the inode, block, or interleave prior to filesystem creation in the installer. Frankly, I think Apple does a pretty good job so I haven't bother to look all that much.

So much for technical. Let me raise a point that I think bears some consideration. As I stared in my previous post I have been a Unix administrator for 15 years. I remember writing code for linux kernel 1.0. I have used Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, AIX and Dec Unix for a fortune 500 company as well as built my own business. In all my time doing this I have never known a single platform to run an optimizer in a production setting. It is universally accepted as a "bad idea" to use these thing for anything other than getting a rough idea where to start tuning a system. Unix administration means taking control and DOING it, not turning it over to software. If I were to propose running an optimizer on a production systems I would probably lose my job. I would deserve it.

Now let's talk apple for a minute. When it was time for me to buy a personal laptop I was given a 3K budget. I could choose any system I wanted. there are some FINE Linux systems, windows systems and some more esoteric ones, that fit my budget. But I bough a Mac. Why?

Because I wanted a system that would give me what I wanted with out needing me to work for it. Several technical investigations and I bought a mac because it works. All the time. and when it doesn't work Apple fixes it. As a person responsible for a multimillion dollar IT budget the best ROI in time and $$ is Apple. no questions. end of story.

What am I saying? If you need to optimize your system and don't want to do it yourself, pony up a couple of bucks and ask apple to do it. Otherwise leave it alone.

Sorry if that seems harsh, but as I stated several time this is my opinion based on experience and technical knowledge. Feel free to do what you want. Just remember to have fun.