Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

 

Pick an apple! 
 
Syslogd Overwhelming Your Computer?

If your Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) system is unexpectedly sluggish, logging might be the culprit. Run Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities/ folder), and click the CPU column twice to get it to show most to least activity. If syslogd is at the top of the list, there's a fix. Syslogd tracks informational messages produced by software and writes them to the asl.db, a file in your Unix /var/log/ directory. It's a known problem that syslogd can run amok. There's a fix: deleting the asl.db file.

Launch Terminal (from the same Utilities folder), and enter these commands exactly as written, entering your administrative password when prompted:

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.syslogd

sudo rm /var/log/asl.db

sudo launchctl start com.apple.syslogd

Your system should settle down to normal. For more information, follow the link.

Visit Discussion of syslogd problem at Smarticus

 
 

It’s 10 O’Clock. Does Your TomTom Know Where It Is?

Send Article to a Friend

GPS manufacturer TomTom revealed this week that a “leap year” bug in a number of models prevented the units from finding their locations. Starting on Sunday, 1 April 2012 (ouch!), the glitch left some users stranded in unfamiliar locations without navigation assistance. TomTom’s support page lists affected models (including several Go, Via, and Start models) and provides instructions for using the MyTomTom desktop software to install a fix for the problem.favicon follow link

 

Comments about It’s 10 O’Clock. Does Your TomTom Know Where It Is?

mark.dancer  2012-04-18 04:47
We were 400 km from home on the outbound journey of a 2600 km round trip when this hit our almost new TomTom. The first TomTom dealer we found diagnosed a failed GPS antenna. We had two choices: buy another GPS, or buy maps for Canberra, Sydney, and all points between there and Brisbane.

We now own and use a Garmin GPS.
Adam Engst  An apple icon for a TidBITS Staffer 2012-04-18 06:09
Ouch! I can commiserate. My iPhone 4 recently stopped getting good GPS locks during a long car trip and it was surprising just how frustrating it was to lose reliable directions.