How to Verify/Repair Disk Permissions in El Capitan

The new GUI for the long-time Mac staple Disk Utility in El Capitan no longer includes buttons for Verify or Repair disk permissions. Apple obviously believes that since El Capitan includes the new System Integrity Protection that prevents changes to critical system files that giving users the capability to check and/or fix disk permissions is no longer necessary. Well, that may be true for the vast majority of Mac users, but you and I don’t quite fall into that category, do we? People like us who install OS X on non-Apple hardware or add non-Apple cards and drives to our machines often need to turn off SIP to do the low-level monkeying we are apt to do. Never fear. It seems all Apple has done is removed the buttons from Disk Utility’s GUI. The functionality remains albeit via the command line only. These two commands get the job done just fine:

diskutil verifyvolume [your drive designation]

diskutil repairvolume [your drive designation] 

For [your drive designation] use the OS X mount point ( ie. /Volumes/Macintosh HD ) or device designator ( ie. /dev/disk0s1 ). This information is available via the Disk Utility app. Simply open Disk Utility and click on the volume/partition you want to work on.

That’s all there is to it. Verify and repair disks ‘til your heart’s content!

Disable El Capitan’s System Integrity Protection

After running Apple’s latest version of OS X (10.11, El Capitan) on a couple of my Macs for about two months I’ve become completely enamored with it. Now that the “Gold Master” seed is out for developers I updated all my Macs including my main production machine.* Even though El Capitan contains a few new features, it is (by Apple’s own admission) a “stability release”. By every measure, OS X 10.11 is rock-solid stable…

…and fast!

To further this notion of stability, Apple has introduced a new feature called System Integrity Protection that prevents changes to key OS components and critical applications like Mail and Safari even if you’re logged in with administrator credentials. This expands on the “gatekeeper” philosophy introduced in Mountain Lion that prevented installation of non-App Store applications by default. The idea behind System Integrity Protection (SIP) is to insure OS X’s stable operation by preventing modification of key system components and apps; be it accidently, inadvertently or maliciously. This is a great idea for 99% of users, but you and I fall into that last 1%, don’t we? My first encounter with SIP happened when I tried to change the icon for the Apple Mail app. Why would I want to do that you ask? Maybe I’m allergic to postage stamps. What does it matter? It’s just an icon, but Mail is one of the apps System Integrity Protection locks down. Virtually everything installed with the OS X installer and everything in the Applications folder is the same way. If you want to change anything protected by SIP you have to take very deliberate steps to disable it first. Here’s how:

• Reboot your Mac in recovery mode by pressing and holding command + R until the Apple logo is displayed.
• Once running in Recovery Mode, open Terminal from the Utilities menu and execute the command: csrutil disable
• Reboot your Mac normally

After you’ve done whatever it was you needed SIP disabled for, you have a decision to make. Should you re-enable this feature Apple thinks will save us from unwanted system tampering or leave it disabled? After all, you’ve lived without System Integrity Protection until now, right? Well, it’s up to you, but if you do want to turn it back on you simply reboot into recovery mode again and execute csrutil enable. Bingo. Your Mac is back in Cupertino’s loving, protective arms!

* I’m always anxious to try out the latest betas and I keep an older (2009) MacBook Pro available as a test machine for just that purpose. In fact, it’s the only way I recommend anyone try early betas. I’ve had to resort to “nuke & pave” on more than one occasion when an early OS X beta bites the dust, leaving my poor 17” MBP hopelessly rebooting to the dreaded ⦸ or booting successfully just to kernel panic a couple of minutes later.

Connect to Network Shares Automatically at Startup

I've spent the vast majority of my professional life as an IT person. Whether as a help desk person, app developer, sysadmin or manager, I was submersed in the Microsoft world for a lotta years. Add a MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) certification to all that tenure and I think I qualify as an expert of that realm. After buying my first Mac in 2006, I quickly realized how I'd cheated myself out of years of computing pleasure by not entering the Apple world sooner. I've grown to love OS X for its stability, ease-of-use and UNIX underpinnings. As owner of an IT service business, I still have to deal with Windows almost daily, but now its something I endure out of necessity. Enjoyment is derived from my Macs.

As a well-versed Windows user, one thing that's always bugged me about OS X is it's lack of a few intuitive network functions I’d come to take for granted in Windows. The one that I had to find a fix for very early on was the absence of a "Reconnect at logon" checkbox when you connect to a shared network folder using the Finder's "Connect to server.." option from its "Go" menu (or CMD + K). I keep all my 300+ movies on a Seagate 4TB NAS (Network Attached Storage) to avoid soaking up over half my iMac's 1TB hard drive. This folder is shared across all my iTunes libraries. iTunes has no problem with this unless I forget to CMD + K before trying to watch one of these movies. OS X does allow me to connect to the "Movies" folder on my NAS when I login by dragging the mounted folder into the "Login Items" list in the System Preferences "Users" pane. When you do it this way, however, every time you log in, a Finder window showing the network share pops up for each share you connect to. It's not the end of the world, but it is annoying, especially if you connect to a few of these. As I added more shares, I wound up with a desktop full of Finder windows every time I logged in.

I eliminated this annoyance by using Automator to create an app to mount network folders, then adding that app to my login items instead of the individual attached folders. Guess what? Now when I log in, my shares are mounted and no Finder windows pop up. Here's the Automator build…

 

Here’s the steps to build it: 

1. Open Automator (/Applications/Automator) and create a new application.
2. From the “Files & Folders” section add the action “Get Specified Servers”
3. Within the Get Specified Servers action click “Add…” and add the path to the network share. (Hint: If you’re unsure of what this is, right-click the connected folder in finder and select “Get Info”  In the Info dialog the path will be displayed in General:, Server:)
4. Repeat for each share you’d like to connect to.
5. From the “Files & Folders” section add the action “Connect to Servers”
6. Save the application. (In this example I named the app “Vaults”)
7. That’s it. (You’ll notice in the example that I added a couple of extra steps to add a verbal message. That is completely optional and unnecessary. I just like to have a alert telling me that everything is done.)

After this I simply dragged my new “Vaults” app into my list of login items. Now, every time I login, my two NAS shares are automatically connected and I don’t have those pesky Finder windows to close. Simple.

Swap the Hard Drive in a 2009 27" iMac with a SSD

Crucial M4 512 GB SSD ($399 at Amazon)As I've said many times before, I love my 27" iMac (11, 1). I bought it as soon as it was available in late 2009. I ordered it from Apple with the fastest Core i7 available (2.8 Ghz), 2 gigs of RAM and the standard 1TB hard drive. I simultaneously ordered a 16 GB memory kit from OWC and it was waiting when my new iMac arrived. I upgraded the RAM before I turned on the machine for the first time. Note: Never buy RAM upgrades from Apple unless you're buying a machine (MacBook Air or Retina MacBook Pro) with non user-replaceable memory. OWC is a terrific resource for RAM chips at half the cost Apple charges and swapping memory is a pretty simple thing. (For now, that is. I think the days of DIY Mac memory upgrades may be numbered.)

With its beautiful 27" display and i7 horsepower, this iMac quickly became my favorite computer of all time. The only complaint I've ever had was about the hard disk. It came from Apple with the standard 1 TB, 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda. It is a fine hard disk and it has never given me any problems, but it is what it is, a hard disk. Before I continue, I need to give you a little background concerning my other Mac, a 2009 17" MacBook Pro. It's a 3.06 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 8 gigs of RAM. By all rights it shouldn't hold a candle to my iMac, but even though it has half the RAM and half the processor cores, it often felt quicker than the big boy. The reason: it has a 256 gig SSD. With less CPU, less RAM and less GPU than my iMac, my MBP booted much faster and apps launched faster still. I had to remedy this.

I've been window shopping for the last couple of years for an SSD to put into my iMac, but prices were just too steep. I wanted at least 500 GB of storage before going to all the trouble of ditching my original 1TB Barracuda. Two years ago, SSDs of that size were over $700. Too much. I could have gone with a $425 256 GB drive, but just didn't want to give up 3/4 TB of storage. Thanks to price erosion in the SSD market, the 500+ GB drives just tipped below the $400 mark. Time to strike.

I bought a Crucial M4 512 gig SSD and a Thermaltake 3.5 - 2.5" adaptor from Amazon for $428 a couple of days ago and began studying how to disassemble my precious 27" machine and replace the boot disk. As always, I found all the information I needed at iFixIt.com. Note: If you ever need to fix or upgrade a Mac, check with iFixIt.com. They have an extensive array of on-line Mac repair and upgrade procedures complete with high-res photos, videos and instructions even a novice can understand and follow. 

One thing I learned was that Apple uses the temperature sensor built into the factory hard disk to control the hard drive cooling fan. There is a separate cable to this sensor that plugs into the logic board. Unless you buy a replacement drive from Apple, disks don't come equipped with this sensor. Leaving this cable unplugged will cause the hard drive fan to run at max and sound like a vacuum cleaner. After bouncing around a few forums and help documents, I learned of three solutions to this problem. One is to buy an external sensor made for the optical drive and tape it to the side of the new disk as a replacement for the on-board sensor. The second is to create a jumper and short the pins on the sensor cable to fake-out the machine into thinking the drive was cool. The third was to install the $29 HDDFanControl app that tells your Mac to use the drive's S.M.A.R.T. sensor instead of the on-board one. I chose option three.

Apple's oddball temperature sensor.

This morning, with parts and tools in-hand, I shut down and unplugged my iMac, placed it on my bed and followed iFixIt's instructions. Forty minutes later, the machine was back on my desk, plugged in and ready to go.

What happened when I pushed the power button put a huge smile on my face that is reappearing now as I write about it. The familiar Apple startup chime sounded, then a couple of seconds later the Apple logo appeared. I looked for the progress "spinner" for a second, but then the desktop appeared instead! In another three or four seconds the machine was completely booted. I couldn't believe it, so I restarted. This time I used the stopwatch on my iPhone to see just how quick it was. 31 SECONDS from startup chime to fully running. Also, launching most apps happens so quickly their icon doesn't bounce in the dock! This iMac runs better now than when it was new. The HDDFanControl app works as advertized, keeping the drive temperature between 105º - 125º by controling the fan speed properly. My only regret was not doing this sooner.  Anybody need a 1TB iMac disk?

Run the New iPhoto on Original iPad

Apple has a way of kicking owners of dated hardware to the curb when it comes to new software. I own an iPhone 4S and really enjoy the new iPhoto app Apple released last week. It really pissed me off to learn it wouldn't install on my original iPad (at least not the conventional way). If you own an original iPad (iPad 1?), there is a way to get iPhoto installed without jailbreaking your device. First, you need to spend 5 bucks and buy iPhoto from the App Store. Second, you need to download and install Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility 3.5. It's free and you can download it here. Next, with your iPad connected to your Mac via USB, run the utility. Your iPad should show up under "Devices" in the sidebar. Select your iPad then click the "Applications" tab. You'll see a list of all the apps installed on your iPad. Click the "Add" icon in the upper-left corner of the toolbar and browse to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications and select "iPhoto 1.0.ipa". iPhoto will then show up in the applications list with an "Install" button on the right. Just click the install button and wait for about 30 seconds while iPhoto installs. When finished, the "Install" button will change to read "Uninstall".

That's it. iPhoto runs fine on the original iPad. It looks like Apple just wants to keep us buying new hardware and withholds apps to give us the proper motivation.

Note: This may not be a good solution if you sync your iPad regularly. iTunes will force iPhoto's removal before it will allow your device to sync. I only sync my iPad every couple of weeks or so. When I do, I simply start the utility after I finish and click the "Install" button again.

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