Messages In This Digest (2 Messages)

1a.: Re: Captcha failures From: Harry Flaxman

2a.: Re: Mac Virus From: Randy B. Singer

View All Topics | Create New Topic

Messages

1a.: Re: Captcha failures

Posted by: "Harry Flaxman" harry.flaxman@comcast.net hflaxman001

Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:43 am (PST)

On Dec 19, 2011, at 3:29 AM, Josephine Bacon wrote:

> Dear All,
> I have just had the frustrating experience of trying to sign up at a
> website, filling in all the pernickety little details only to find the
> Captcha words at the bottom will not work for me. I tried about six
> times, faithfully copying what had been written and giving up in the
> end in sheer despair.

I have found that magnifying the display by turning on Zoom in System Preferences/Universal Access, helps me with this.

Give it a shot.

Harry

Harry Flaxman
harry.flaxman@comcast.net

Back to top
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
Messages in this topic (3)

2a.: Re: Mac Virus

Posted by: "Randy B. Singer" randy@macattorney.com randybrucesinger

Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:54 am (PST)

On Dec 18, 2011, at 10:03 PM, imran khan wrote:

> I am writing this email after finding no fix for what is happening
> to two
> of my friends Mac.

Here is a list of all known Mac malware:
http://www.reedcorner.net/guides/macvirus/malware_catalog.php
The first thing that you will note is that there is no malware for
the Mac that does anything like what your clients are experiencing.
This is born out by the fact that you ran several anti-virus
programs, and didn't find anything whose eradication solved the problem.

So, what can cause a hard drive to suddenly fill up, apparently all
by itself?

Usually when a drive fills up suddenly with no apparent explanation
it is due to an application that is having problems, and it is
writing an error message to a log over and over continuously until
the log gets so big that it fills up your drive.

Other possibilities that I've seen are: a false clone or backup being
written to the drive being backed up itself, an out of control Safari
database, an out of control sleep (hibernation) image, etc.

Here is how you can find out what the source of the problem is.
Download and then run one or more of the following free utilities.
They will help you find out which file has ballooned and is now
taking up all of your free disk space. More than likely the
offending file is many gigabytes in size. In fact, it is very likely
to be by far the largest file on your hard drive. Or, in any case,
it should be about the size of the free space that you used to have
on your hard drive that disappeared:

DiskInventory X (free)
http://www.derlien.com/
or
GrandPerspective (free)
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
or
OmniDiskSweeper (free)
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/

Once you locate this huge file, you will most likely find that it is
a log file. If that is the case, you will be able to read it with
one of these:

Console (part of OS X)
Applications/Utilities/Console.app

or

LogSurfer (free - last I checked, it was PowerPC only. If that's
still the case, it won't run under Lion.)
http://www.turingart.com/lgsurfer_lan__en.htm

The offending log file will probably have the same error message in
it, over and over, from a particular application. That is the
application that is at the root of your problem.

Launch Activity Monitor (in the same folder as Console), choose the
offending application, and click on the icon for "Stop Process". Now
delete that application and reinstall a fresh copy. Also, make sure
to delete the huge log file that is taking up all of your hard
drive's space.

That should fix the problem permanently.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

Back to top
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
Messages in this topic (2)