Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple news, tech tips, and more…

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  • Revert to iOS 9 Home Button Behavior

    Ever since upgrading to iOS 10 and getting my iPhone 7 Plus I have been amazed with how fast the fingerprint recognition works. I must admit, however, that I was a little thrown off with having to press the Home button before unlocking my phone.

    iOS 10 changes how you use the Home button to unlock your iOS device from the lock screen. Previously, you could unlock it by merely resting your finger on the Home button when the lock screen is showing. In iOS 10, however, you must press the Home button and then use Touch ID to unlock the device. With newer iPad and iPhone models, Touch ID reads your fingerprint so quickly that you can usually press the Home Button instead of just resting your finger on it.

    If you’re like me and find this to be more of a hassle than convenience and prefer to skip the requirement to press the Home button I’ve got good news for you. You can change it! To revert to the previous, and one could argue faster, behavior go to **Settings>General>Accessibility>Home Button** and enable “Rest Finger to Open.”

  • Working Together

    In a direct challenge to Google Docs, Apple has introduced collaboration to the iWork suite of apps. Pages, Numbers and Keynote now support collaboration through iCloud.

    You can use iWork collaboration with these devices:

    * A Mac with macOS Sierra and Pages 6.0, Numbers 4.0, or Keynote 7.0 or later
    * An iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 10 and Pages 3.0, Numbers 3.0, or Keynote 3.0 or later
    * A Mac with Safari 6.0.3 or later, or Google Chrome 27.0.1 or later
    * A Windows PC with Internet Explorer 11 or later, or Google Chrome 27.0.1 or later

    If you find collaboration is not available to you, make sure that you have the latest versions of the iWork apps. I have run into this issue a few times here at Small Dog. I am always a bit ahead of the rest of the team in terms of running Apple software so if I send a Pages 6.0 document sometimes I get push back from those that haven’t upgraded. I do recommend that you update to the latest versions in order to take advantage of the new features, especially collaboration.

    To invite others to collaborate on your document in Pages, Numbers or Keynote you must be signed into iCloud and have iCloud Drive turned on. I was struggling a bit as we were testing this because collaboration is very dependent upon iCloud addresses. You need to use the iCloud email address to invite someone or it may get stuck in the “verification link cannot be sent” bug.

    Keep in mind that the title of the document will be included in the link that you send so if it is confidential- like “www.icloud.com/pages/09aMdbLCQ5naCrMpHaqAfxUoQ#firingemily” you might want to tell the recipient to not forward that link.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4847.jpg!

    You can invite people to collaborate on your Mac, iOS device or from iCloud. To invite from the Mac simply click on the handy “collaborate” button in the menu bar. By default, people that you invite can edit your document. You can change share options and limit who can access it. If you set Who Can Access to “Anyone with the link”, and you want to add a password, click Add Password. Type your password and hint. You and other participants need this password to open the document.

    Then choose how you want to invite others to work on your document. If you choose to email your invitation, type an email address or phone number for each person you want to invite. Add any other information, then send or post the message.

    To invite from your iOS device, tap the ***, then tap Collaborate With Others. Again, you will be given the options to limit access or add a password. Click on Add People and you have the same choices on how to inform them via email, Messages, copying the link, Twitter or Facebook.

    Inviting from iCloud in Safari is the same as doing so from within Pages on the Mac.

    You may not want everyone to be able to edit the document but do want them to be able to read it. You can set this all up when you share. When you invite others to collaborate on your document, you can set restrictions on who can view and make changes to your document.

    In the Who Can Access menu:

    * Choose “Only people you invite” if you want only specific participants to access the document. To open it, those participants must sign in to iCloud or iCloud.com with an Apple ID. If they don’t have an Apple ID, they can create an Apple ID after you share the document with them.

    * Choose “Anyone with the link” if you want anyone who has the link to the shared document to be able to open it.

    In the Permissions menu:

    * Choose “Can make changes” if you want anyone who can access the document to be able to edit and print it.
    * Choose “View only” if you want anyone who can access the document to be able to view and print, but not edit it.
    You can change share options at any time by clicking or tapping the Collaborate button, then choosing Share Options.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4848.jpg!

    It is usually important to be able to track everyone’s edits on the document and know when changes have been made. If you click on the collaborate button you can see to whom the document is shared and who is currently viewing or editing it.

    Edits that you and others make to the document appear in real time. Look for colored cursors and colored selections of text and objects to see what others are currently editing. Tap or click the colored dot next to the person’s name in the participant list to jump to their cursor. If you don’t see a colored dot, that person has the document open, but isn’t editing.

    If you are really confident in the editors you can hide collaboration activity on your Mac by going to Choose View->Hide Collaboration Activity or View->Show Collaboration Activity. On your iPhone or iPad tap *** and turn Collaboration Activity on or off.

    You can continue to edit even if you are offline but others will not see your edits until you have re-connected.

    You should note that currently not all functions are available in collaboration mode. As an example, in Pages you cannot insert, cut, copy, paste, delete, duplicate, reorder or edit sections. You cannot adjust margins, use “replace all”, create delete or reorder styles.

    Once you have had enough of the sharing edits on the collaborated document you can turn off sharing by clicking on the collaboration button and hitting Stop Sharing. When you stop sharing it is removed from iCloud drive for all participants.

    iWork Collaboration is still in development and I expect we will see a lot of improvements before it is a real competitor to Google Docs but it is coming along. Check it out and let me know how it works for you!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    The leaves are falling and this morning when I took Pirate out for a walk he couldn’t resist diving into piles of leaves and burrowing. He was having so much fun that I just had to stand and watch him enjoy autumn. If it is October it is MLB playoffs and a couple of late nights as I watched my Cubbies beat the Giants to advance to the National League Championship series.

    I am growing my playoff beard and will not shave until the Cubs win or are eliminated. Last time I had a beard it was dark black. It seems to be a lot whiter this time around. We have a number of baseball themed specials running this month for the boys of October and boy oh boy if the Cubs should happen to win the World Series we will have to do something really special.

    Apple and Samsung are locked in a battle before the Supreme Court regarding Apple’s design patent but Apple has been enjoying some unexpected benefit from Samsung as their Galaxy Note 7 phones can’t seem to stop exploding. This will certainly increase Apple’s market share. And it should because the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7+ are really state-of-the-art handheld computers. It seems a bit inappropriate to call them phones anymore. I would say that use as a telephone is about 20% of my use of my iPhone 7+. From alarm clock to calendar, to Siri and Maps the iPhone is a digital companion more than a phone.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features an Apple Factory Certified Refurbished CTO 12-inch MacBook. This Space Gray unit has an upgraded 1.3 GHz processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB drive. It carries the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Apple products and we are bundling it for “**Kibbles & Bytes readers**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002406 with the AppleCare protection plan that not only extends the normal 1-year Apple warranty to 3 years but also extends the 90 days of free Apple technical support to 3 years as well. This week only for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can buy this MacBook and get AppleCare for free! Get the MacBook with AppleCare for only “**$1385.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002406

  • See the world through an Olloclip

    Taking pictures is a daily occurrence for me. For years, I have enjoyed taking my DSLR camera for a walk to see what I could find. Seeing the world through my camera’s viewfinder always makes things simpler. I wanted a way to get this experience, but in a way that was more portable. I looked at one of the products we sell, called Olloclip, and wondered how well it worked. I talked to Will, our purchasing Manager who has an Olloclip, and I decided to try it out. I am so happy with my decision. The reason I was searching was because my husband and I were headed on an Alaskan cruise. I didn’t want to lug my big camera around and knew there had to be a better option. The Olloclip is amazing. I have an iPhone 6S Plus and the clip was so easy to use. I got those once-in-a-lifetime pictures I wanted and didn’t have to carry around a huge camera. My favorite lens is the wide angle. I use it for everything from selfies to panoramas and landscapes. The trip was great and by using the Olloclip I got details I would have missed without it.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4841.png!

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4842.png!

  • I am taking a drive to southern Vermont on Sunday to deliver some winter tires I am selling since I won’t be needing those. I’ll try to find the roads that the leaf peepers can’t find or it might take me a lot longer than usual. We’ll probably have to stop at our favorite burger joint on the way in S. Royalton, Worthy Burger.

    With just a couple weeks before we head south, we have a ton of chores to do. I think I’ll be busy this weekend but if the remnants of Matthew avoid Vermont I will have to get out for a ride, too.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy_

  • Electromagnetic Buddy Cops

    Was last week’s electricity safety article enough of a break? Hopefully it was because I think my topic this week might break even me. The study of electricity falls under the immensely broad scientific category of physics. When we talk about it though, we usually refer to it as electromagnetism which is itself part of the “**four fundamental forces**”:http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/funfor.html. These include the “strong” force (also called the nuclear force), the “weak electric” force (think subatomic particles), the gravitation force (what’s holding you to the earth right now), and finally the electromagnetic forces, which are of interest to us here. So far I’ve focused almost exclusively on the “electro” part of that topic but not so much on the “magnetism” part.

    Electricity and magnetism are like two buddy cops in the best buddy cop movie ever. You might have noticed that I haven’t really discussed exactly how electricity is generated yet aside from a few hints about it, and that’s because it depends entirely on concepts within magnetism. I’m sure we all know about magnets. They’re just as relatable as electricity in many ways. There are magnets holding my car keys to my refrigerator as I write this. Magnets have a north pole and a south pole. Opposite poles attract and like poles repel. Nope, nothing about electricity yet.

    So where do magnets come in? Well, surrounding every magnet there is a magnetic field. You might remember this being demonstrated in school with iron filings grouping themselves in a very specific pattern around a magnet. The filings group themselves along the magnetic field lines. When talking about these field lines in the context of interacting with them on any given plane, they will often be called lines of flux or magnetic flux. This is the key. These lines are what you need to generate electricity.

    Imagine I have a simple rectangular bar magnet suspended on its center. I take a copper wire connected to am ammeter (a device for measuring current) and I pass the wire straight past the end of the magnet (north pole or south pole, it doesn’t matter). The ammeter needle will briefly wiggle indicating that a current was present. The current in this test is very small, and it only occurs for a brief moment, but it is there. How did this happen? When a conductor cuts through a line of magnetic flux, the electrons in the atoms of the conductor are compelled to move. How exactly are the electrons compelled to move? At that level, you’ll have to read up on it yourself as it’s totally beyond a short article here, but it is covered under the field of “**quantum electrodynamics**”:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics. Have you ever heard of Richard Feynman? Quantum electrodynamics was his playground (one of many actually).

    Ok, so if we abstract away how exactly the electrons are compelled to move and just accept that they do, we arrive at the conclusion that cutting through lines of magnetic flux with a conductor creates a current. In my example, we used one magnet and a single copper wire. To generate more current, you need to cut through more lines of flux. You can do this by adding more magnets (to increase the flux), more conductors, or both, which is what we generally do. This whole theory of cutting lines of magnetic flux is the operating principle behind every generator (direct current) and alternator (alternating current).

    In a basic alternator (yes, just like the one in your car) there is a circular casing that holds coils of conducting wire. Why coils? Again, more wires, more lines of flux cut. Coils also help to concentrate the lines of magnetic flux. Basically the purpose of every single design element is to ensure that the most lines of magnetic flux are cut for a given area. The fixed outer area with the coils is called the stator. The inner area that rotates is called the rotor, and in our example here, it simply contains spinning magnets. Each time a pole of the spinning magnet passes one of the many coils in the stator, a current is generated. By having enough coils covering all radial angles, the alternator will be generating a current during pretty much it’s entire rotational cycle, though the current will be alternating. Typical alternators don’t use permanent magnets on their rotors. They actually use electromagnets, but the theory of operation is exactly the same.

    Once again, I’m out of space to continue about all of this here. The reason I went into this topic was so that in subsequent weeks I’ll have a foundation to talk about electromagnets, multiphase power, induction motors, and some other high-level interesting stuff that just won’t make sense if you don’t have an understanding of the fundamental interactions between electricity and magnetism.

  • Enter the 3rd Dimension and Push!

    I got my first experience with 3D Touch or Force Touch as it was known then on my Apple Watch. I noticed that Grace was able to answer calls on her watch like Dick Tracey but for some reason I could not. So, I called Apple support and learned the difference between a tap and a press. Apple took this one step further with when Apple first unveiled 3D Touch in iOS 9 with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, giving users of those iPhones a new way of interacting with apps, but 3D Touch never really caught on. Now, with the release of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and broader support in iOS 10, 3D Touch is worth learning if you have one of the supported iPhones.

    3D Touch works in two ways: “peek and pop” and “quick actions.” Apps use peek and pop to let you glance (peek) at an item by pressing down on it (not just a touch, but a press into the screen), and then jump to that item (pop) by pressing harder still. In Safari, for instance, you can preview a link by pressing it, and then either release to dismiss the preview or continue to load it in its own tab by pressing harder. Or move your finger up on the screen without letting go or pressing harder to get controls for opening the link, adding to your reading list, or copying the URL. This trick applies to links in other apps like Mail, Messages, and Notes, too.

    You can also use peek and pop with email message summaries in Mail, headlines in News, thumbnails in Photos, people in Find My Friends, dates and events in Calendar, and even the previously taken photo box in Camera. Support for peek and pop in third-party apps isn’t as widespread as it is in Apple’s apps, but it’s still worth trying whenever you want to preview something.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4834.png!

    More interesting are quick actions, which present a menu of common actions when you press down on an app’s icon on the Home screen, or on various controls and other items throughout iOS. Home screen quick actions are great, since they let you kickstart an app into doing something with just a hard press on its icon. If the app has a widget, a 3D Touch press shows that as well.

    For instance, using 3D Touch on the Phone app shows its widget, which gives you buttons to call people in your Favorites list, along with actions to view the most recent call, search for a contact, create a new contact, or view the most recent voicemail. The Clock app lets you start a timer or the stopwatch, or create an alarm. Messages quick actions can create a new message or open a recent conversation. Use 3D Touch on Safari’s icon and you can create a new tab or see your bookmarks or reading list. You can even press on a folder to rename it quickly.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4833.png!

    Quick actions and widgets are much more commonplace among third-party apps than peek and pop support, so be sure to try 3D Touch on all your favorite apps. If all you see is a Share item, the app has no quick actions or widget, but many apps provide both static actions that are always the same and dynamic actions that reflect your past usage.

    iOS 10 brings 3D Touch to Control Center too. Press the Flashlight button to adjust the brightness of the light, the Timer button for some pre-canned times, the Calculator button to copy the last calculation result, or the Camera button to take a photo, slo-mo, video, or selfie.

    On the Lock screen, press a Messages notification to expand it and reply directly from the notification. More notifications will become interactive in the future too. And in Notification Center, you can press a notification to expand it, or use 3D Touch on the X button for any day to reveal a Clear All Notifications option.

    p{text-align: center;}. !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4832.png!

    It’s too bad that there’s no way to know in advance if an app supports quick actions or peek and pop, but as the number of iPhone users who can use 3D Touch increases, developers will incorporate 3D Touch capabilities into their apps more and more. So give it a try!

  • _Dear Friends,_

    It is peak foliage season here in Vermont and if you don’t mind going 10mph in a 40mph zone, it is a beautiful season. I even had to wait for a guy stopped in the middle of the one-lane covered bridge taking pictures on my way to work the other day. Sitting on my porch last night I was simply amazed at the quilt-work of colors, reds, yellows, browns, greens and infinite shades in between.

    Every year a friend and former Small Dogger, who owns the local general store, does a big lobster buy. I got a call this morning from another friend who also happens to be from Chicago and well, lobsters, friends and the Cubs in the NLDS, sounds like a party! Hapy, who I dropped on his head as a kid, is a Giants fan so I look forward to seeing the Cubbies break this mythical even-year Giants thingy.

    Hadley and Eric have finished installing our new phone system and the cut-over was last night. Hopefully, our call quality is vastly improved and that alone should stimulate sales. We have been running our own phone servers based upon open source software but now are relying upon a hosted PBX provided by our local phone company.

    While hurricane Matthew seems to have bypassed Key West we send our best to those in the path of this dangerous storm. Stay high and dry!

    This week’s “Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple 2TB Time Capsule”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002400/ and my periodic rant about backing up your data. Too many times, customers come in with failed hard drives and when we ask about their data backup they have this strange embarrassed stressed face. Everyone knows that you should back up your data but so many do not. Why not make it easy on yourself? With Apple’s Time Capsule, not only do you get a state-of-the-art wireless access point but you also get 2 Terabytes of wireless backup capacity. With Mac OS X Time Machine you can completely automate backing up your data so if you end up at our service counter you can just smile knowing that your priceless pictures and data is safe. This week only for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can get the Apple 2TB Time Capsule for only “**$269.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002400/

  • Using Calendar to Manage Your Life

    I don’t know how many of you know this, but before I started Small Dog Electronics I had a “real” job working as the General Manager of a software company that produced address book software and calendar software. Day-to-Day Calendar was the calendar product that came out before I left the company. So, I know a little about calendars and what goes into making a great calendar product.

    I like Apple’s Calendar and I use it extensively. These days I can set calendar appointments directly from email messages or ask Siri to set a date for me. My calendar is always available to me; that same calendar is on my Mac, my iPad, my iPhone and on my wrist on my Apple Watch. Further, with iCloud it is available anywhere I have internet connectivity.

    You do have to make a commitment to using calendar, especially if you are a busy person. It won’t do to have just some of your appointments and reminders on the calendar. The best way to use calendar is to make an effort to put them ALL on there.

    I have a lot of regular meetings that happen weekly so those time slots are booked as repeating events. I also know that on Thursday I have to write Kibbles & Bytes, so I block that time slot off so I don’t accidentally find myself without time to write.

    Let’s go into some of the details of how to use calendar. We all have devices that will not be that useful unless you have the same calendar on all of them. That is the big benefit of iCloud Calendar. So, my first recommendation is to make sure all of your devices are logged into the SAME iCloud account. If you have multiple iCloud accounts you are not going get full benefit from Calendar. Surf to iCloud preferences on each device and make sure you are signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID. Then make sure Calendars is checked in iCloud preferences on each device and you are ready for a unified experience.

    Now you can start adding meetings, events, appointments and activities as well as set up event alerts, reminders and notifications. When you add an event you will be presented with a number of options including when the event starts and stops, whether it is a repeating event, where the event takes place, how long it will take to drive to the event, when you should be reminded, etc.

    If you add the location, like the name of a major league ballpark, Calendar will fill in the address and show you a map, the weather and when you should leave to get there on time. You can invite meeting attendees and Calendar will send them the invite which can be easily added to that person’s calendar.

    You can share your calendar, too! That is especially handy for significant others, kids, co-workers and anyone that needs to know when you are free. iCloud makes that easy. You can also subscribe to public calendars like an academic calendar, the Boston Celtics schedule or hundreds of others that you can find here.

    Siri makes calendar even easier. Now that Siri is on the Mac it is easy to say “hey Siri, set up a meeting with Emily for Tuesday at 2” and bingo it is added to my calendar and an invite is sent to her. Or you can ask Siri when your next meeting is or just to tell you your schedule when you wake up in the morning.

    Apple Calendar plays well with others, too! You can set up Calendar to work with Apple’s iCloud, Google Calendar, Microsoft’s Outlook, and even CalDav calendars from your own or your company’s servers. Because iOS has a unified calendar database, whatever you add or change in Apple Calendar will also be reflected in any third-party calendars you have and vice-versa.

    This is just an overview of the many features of a very powerful Calendar. I think as you get to know Calendar you will, as I do, find it an indispensable part of your digital lifestyle. I do remember the days of paper organizers, I carried one around for a very long time and I just do not know how I could manage without Calendar, now.

  • Revert to iOS 9 Home Button Behavior

    Ever since upgrading to iOS 10 and getting my iPhone 7 Plus I have been amazed with how fast the fingerprint recognition works. I must admit, however, that I was a little thrown off with having to press the Home button before unlocking my phone.

    iOS 10 changes how you use the Home button to unlock your iOS device from the lock screen. Previously, you could unlock it by merely resting your finger on the Home button when the lock screen is showing. In iOS 10, however, you must press the Home button and then use Touch ID to unlock the device. With newer iPad and iPhone models, Touch ID reads your fingerprint so quickly that you can usually press the Home Button instead of just resting your finger on it.

    If you’re like me and find this to be more of a hassle than convenience and prefer to skip the requirement to press the Home button I’ve got good news for you: you can change it! To revert to the previous, and one could argue faster, behavior go to **Settings>General>Accessibility>Home Button** and enable “Rest Finger to Open.”

  • So Many Apps: Part 2

    In my last Tech Tails article we discussed a few reasons why cleaning up your Mac regularly is good to do and how uninstalling software is different than doing so on a Windows machine. You may recall Apple’s macOS does not include a built-in uninstaller tool showing a list of all of your installed software like a Windows machine with the add/remove programs tool found through Windows Control Panel. In addition very few software manufactures offer packaged un-installers with their applications for macOS because most macOS applications are contained within themselves and don’t run background components or alter system settings files. This is what makes uninstalling software in macOS generally a straightforward procedure. Use an un-installer packaged with the application if there is one or locate the application, move it to your trash can empty it and your done. Simple, right?

    Well, there are some instances where removing preference files, support items, and sometimes hidden files or kernel extensions are necessary especially when you are dealing with corrupt software installations that you are trying to reinstall and get working again. So to follow-up on my last article, I wanted to go through the various locations to search for files and folders left behind that you may need to delete. This can be dangerous as you are modifying system-level locations, so as always, *back up before you do this!*

    For removing preferences and application support files, there are two locations within macOS that you should check. Both are found within your Library folder, the first at the top level of macOS and the other is inside your Home Folder. Let’s first start at your top level /Library.

    You can access this directory from either your Finder menu by clicking on *Go >Go to Folder…* or by using the keyboard shortcut *Command + Shift + g* and entering */Library*. Once there, you’ll need to look for and remove any files or folders which contain the name of the program or the software manufacturer in the names you’re looking to remove.

    I would first search these following locations and look for folders containing items with the name you are looking for:

    * /Library
    * /Library/Application Support

    Next check the following folders for single files to full folders containing the name you are looking for along with .plist files that follow the naming convention com.”manufacture_name”.”program_name”.plist:

    * /Library/Preferences
    * /Library/LaunchAgents
    * /Library/LaunchDaemons

    Now we want to check the following folder for any .prefPane files relating to the name of the application you are removing;

    * /Library/PreferencePanes

    Generally I find that most software does not use LaunchAgents, Preference Panes or Startup Items; only items that control system behavior or to keep processes running in the background do. I like to check one final location to be 100% sure and remove anything with the name I am looking for:

    * /Library/StartupItems

    We can now move to the Library Folder within your Home Folder and search the same set of folders as you did above and repeat the step of removing any similarly named files or folders. This folder is hidden, so you can hold down *Option* and click on the *Go* menu item in Finder to find it or use *Go to Folder…* and enter *~/Library*.

    * ~/Library
    * ~/Library/Application Support
    * ~/Library/LaunchAgents
    * ~/Library/Preferences
    * ~/Library/PreferencePanes
    * ~/Library/StartupItems

    Empty the Trash to complete the process. If you get a message that an item is “in use and can’t be deleted” reboot the Mac, then try to empty the trash again.

    For the majority of applications that’s all you need to remove and you’re done. But what about the exceptions? In these cases you need to look at kernel extensions and hidden files. Working with both kernel extensions and hidden files the names sometimes may not be apparent. Please do some research online about the components for the specific software you are working to remove.

    Applications that do run processes in the background, like antivirus or device sync programs, can often times add one or more kernel extensions as part of its installation.

    Before explaining how to search for and remove kernel extensions I would first like to give a public service announcement on dealing with kernel extensions. They are necessary for correct operation of your system. Do not move or delete any items unless you have the ability to recover from changes made by booting from a second Mac, bootable drive, or recovery partition and restoring changes made to the hard drive. Please, on no account should you move or remove files without understanding the consequences of what you are doing and without a complete backup of your system on an external disk.

    You are going to be looking for file names that end with the extension .kext and contain the name of the software or manufacturer in the name. As a precaution and a second layer of protection along with your backup, drag any .kext files that you are looking to delete to your desktop to create a backup copy. Now you can safely move the original to the trash. Before actually empty your trash, reboot your system and see if the reason why you were trying to remove these files went away. If your problem still persists, then restore those files and try looking again. Once you find the culprit extension/s, you can now complete the process by emptying your trash. You can access the below directory where extensions are installed like we did in my other examples above.

    * /System/Library/Extensions

    The last items we want to check for in a complete software removal process are Hidden files. Hidden files are items whose name starts with a period “.” and unfortunately, they do not display by default in the Finder. Programs sometimes use hidden files for authentication purposes or preserving the state of a utility and many are located in your home folder.

    Here you will need to use the built in Terminal with macOS located in Applications/Utilities to remove any hidden files that may be in question.

    Using the following set of commands will navigate to your home folder (~), list all contents, and then delete the hidden file for the software you are looking to remove;

    $> cd ~
    $> ls -al
    $> sudo rm .”file_name”

    (Replace “file_name” to the hidden file to the software you are removing)

    When using sudo, please have your admin password handy as you will be required to enter it to run the command and don’t be alarmed that you don’t see any characters or dots appearing; this is normal behavior in Terminal.

    I know this is a lot of information to digest and dig into therefore I will discuss some software applications that are available to aid in automating the process of uninstalling and cleaning up your Mac in Part 3, the final segment in this series.