Filed under: OS, Software, Troubleshooting
Everything you need to know about Repairing Permissions (and more)
The 'Repair Permissions' function of Disk Utility has been under quite a bit of speculation as of late. There are those in one camp, such as John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who believe repairing (restoring, resetting, etc.) permissions is not much more than voodoo, while others in the support end of the Mac OS X community swear by it as the first line of defense. So what's a confused Mac OS X user to do when trying to draw up a formidable troubleshooting game plan? Heading over to Dan Frakes' Repairing permissions: what you need to know article at Macworld is a great first step at trying to cut through all the confusion. Dan dissects virtually every aspect of the permissions repair process, from explaining what exactly 'permissions' are, to a few specific situations when it's a good idea to add the operation to your troubleshooting tool-belt. It's an informative read that helps demystify this much-debated aspect of Mac OS X.
Remember that '
Maintenance, the Automator action that performs many system repair and clean-up tasks, has been updated to version 3.5. New features include:
Maintenance, the
ever-handy Automator action (and applescript for those without Tiger) that runs a variety of, well, maintenance tasks in
one fell swoop, has been updated to version 3.3. It isn't a massive update, save for two new options: Update Locate
Database and Update Whatis Database. As usually, you can snag your very own copy (which includes the aforementioned
applescript) of Maintenance for free from 
You're a good
little Mac user. You back up your files. You repair your permissions. You install the latest updates. But, there's that
one bad habit you maintain that isn't in accordance with your regular behavior. Maybe you don't back up regularly, or
you've shut down your Mac by just yanking out the power cord. When I was using Mac OS 9 (and I still do at work
sometimes), I've been known to force quit the Finder, just so I could rebuild the desktop without having to restart the
machine (because laziness is the mother of invention). 
It's no secret
that we 
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
