how to see recently accessed files

While professional troubleshooters will use software like fseventer or the Instruments.app that comes as part of Xcode, there’s an easy way for anyone to see which files have recently been accessed on their Mac.

1. Open any Finder window and hit ‘command-F’.

2. Click the ‘Kind’ button and choose ‘Other’ at the bottom of the menu:

3. Next, scroll down the list till you see ‘System files’ and check the box and hit ‘OK’.

4. Change the button that says ‘aren’t included’ to ‘are included’.

5. Now hit the little ‘+’ button over on the right side of the window.

6. Again, change ‘Kind’, this time to ‘Last Modified’ and change ‘within last’ to ‘today’.

7. Finally, go to Finder > View menu at the top and choose ‘Arrange By > Date Last Opened’.

You can save the search in the Sidebar for convenience. Give it a more useful name like ‘latest changes’ or ‘fs events’ (“fs” stands for filesystem) and click on it whenever you need to check what’s just happened to your Mac! 🙂

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unable to turn Bluetooth on or off

If Bluetooth is stuck in the on or off setting, this simple procedure should cure the problem.

You may have already tried clicking in the Status bar icon or the System Preferences pane; perhaps you even did a Restart, all without effect.

The surprisingly simple answer is:

Shutdown the mac, and power on again.

Shutdown works whereas Restart doesn’t because – unlike Restart – Shutdown puts the Bluetooth power manager through a complete power cycle.

🙂

More Bluetooth problems? Drop a comment below!

how to log time spent using apps

If you are looking for a way to log how long a user (such as yourself!) is spending time in a given app, or to collect data on your pattern of work over time, this little script should do the trick.

Update: I’ve recently written a Cocoa-app that includes this function. Take a look at OSXClock here. 🙂

It will create and keep a running log file (called ‘log.txt’) on your Desktop indicating which apps have been in focus on your machine and for how long each time. This could be ideal if you want to keep track of how long you spend working on a particular project either for billing a client or just for checking your own productivity.

How to use:
Open AppleScript Editor and paste the text below into the Editor window. Click the ‘run’ button. When you’ve had enough click the ‘stop’ button. It would be possible to automate running and stopping this, but I’ll leave that for the comments or maybe a later post.

*Note: be sure to click out of the app you’re using and activate Finder before you put the machine to sleep, otherwise the log will include the sleep time in the app’s duration

(see the script on pastebin)

--start of script
set front_app to (path to frontmost application as text)
set _start to current date

repeat
delay 5
set current_app to (path to frontmost application as text)
if current_app is not equal to front_app then
set _stop to current date
do shell script "echo " & front_app & " was active from " & _start & " until " & _stop & " >> ~/Desktop/log.txt"
set front_app to current_app
set _start to current date
end if
end repeat
--end of script

Example log:
You will see the log looks something like this:

Seagate DP1:Applications:Utilities:AppleScript Editor.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:20:30 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:20:35
Seagate DP1:Applications:Adobe InDesign CS6:Adobe InDesign CS6.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:20:35 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:21:15
Seagate DP1:Applications:TextWrangler.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:21:15 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:21:25
Seagate DP1:Applications:Adobe InDesign CS6:Adobe InDesign CS6.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:21:25 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:24:46
Seagate DP1:Applications:TextEdit.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:24:46 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:26:26
Seagate DP1:Applications:Safari.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:26:26 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:45:03
Seagate DP1:Applications:Adobe InDesign CS6:Adobe InDesign CS6.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:45:03 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:46:03
Seagate DP1:Applications:TextEdit.app: was active from Monday, 17 June 2013 17:46:03 until Monday, 17 June 2013 17:46:13

On subsequent runs, you can keep the same log (the script will continue to add to the log on each run) or roll it over by renaming the log.txt on the Desktop and saving it off to somewhere else. If you rename or move the log.txt, then the next time you run the script, it will create a fresh log.txt on your Desktop automatically.

🙂



Featured picture: My Work Desk by ~RianGonzales

can’t create kext cache error

If Console is reporting the ‘can’t create kext cache / owner isn’t root‘ message, complete the following procedure.

1. Run ‘Repair System Permissions‘ in Disk Utility.
Repairing system level permissions won’t solve the kext cache problem, but you’ll want to make sure they are all in order first. There is no need to repair ACL permissions for this procedure.

2. Open Terminal.app
Copy and paste the following:

sudo chown root:admin /

Hit ‘return’ and type in your admin password. This step ensures that the admin user has ownership permissions for everything on the startup disk.

3. Fix the kext cache permissions
Paste the following code into Terminal.app, hitting ‘return’ again and supplying the password if requested (if you do this shortly after step 2 you may not be asked for the password again):

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

4. Clear Console log and restart
The next two steps aren’t strictly necessary, but are good practice. Open Console.app, click ‘All Messages’ in the sidebar and hit the ‘Clear Display’ button in the Tool bar. Now, restart your mac.

5. Check for the problem
See if the procedure was successful by opening Console.app again, choosing ‘All messages’ in the sidebar and typing

can't

in the filter/search bar over on the right. If you carried out the procedure above correctly, it shouldn’t return any ‘can’t create kext cache / user isn’t root’ messages since the restart time.

🙂

Featured picture: I’m not a balloon owner anymore by ~starwink