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The System Setup Pane |
The pane Energy Saver in System Preferences only allows you to enable or disable Mac OS X's sleep function for hard disk(s). TinkerTool System sets the same value but allows you to specify exactly after how many minutes of disk inactivity sleep mode will begin.
Drag the slider at the upper half of the window to any value between 1 minute and never. The setting is controlled by Mac OS X and applies to all connected hard drives that are capable of shutting down their spindle motors.
Hard disks of mobile computers are designed to be shutdown in regular intervals. However, many hard disks of desktop computers are technically specified for a limited number of shutdown operations only. Each shutdown may reduce the lifetime of desktop hard drives.
Some mobile computers are equipped with a technology called Sudden Motion Sensor. This sensor measures the current acceleration of the computer and lets the system automatically protect the hard disk from destruction if a free fall of the computer is detected. Under very particular circumstances it might be helpful to deactivate the sensor: When your computer is put into an environment with strong vibrations, the sensor could mistakenly think the system is falling, parking and unparking the hard disks over and over again. For this case you can deactivate the motion sensor, selecting the option Sudden Motion Sensor: Disabled.
If your computer is not equipped with a motion sensor, the option won't be selectable.
You should never switch off the sensor unless absolutely necessary. Disabling the sensor is only recommended if you experience performance problems in environments with external vibrations, like live concert halls, recording studios, or dance clubs.
If you have a portable computer with a display lid, you can put your computer to sleep mode by closing the lid. Mac OS X will automatically wake up the system when the lid is being reopened later. Under some circumstances, this automatic wake-up may not be desired. You can prevent Mac OS X from doing so by selecting the option Don't wake. To return to the standard option, select Wake.
The setting cannot be changed if your computer is not equipped with a display lid.
Mac OS X differentiates between volumes it detects as being "removable" and volumes which are considered to be a fixed part of the computer. Removable volumes, like ZIP diskettes, CDs, external hard drives, or memory sticks are considered to be "owned" by the user who inserted them into a drive, or connected the drive, respectively, typically the user who is currently logged in at the main screen. But what happens if no user is currently logged in and your computer is just displaying the login window?
The usual strategy of Mac OS X is to just ignore all removable media inserted when no user is working with the computer at the main screen. However, this strategy might not be useful in some cases: If you have configured your system to share files off a removable disk via network, it should not matter if a user is working at the computer's screen or not. All volumes should be kept online and not be ejected when a user logs out. The volumes should be online already when the computer is started, and the system should not wait for the first user to log in.
TinkerTool System allows you to change this strategy of Mac OS X. The setting can be modified on the tab Volumes:
A different strategy applies to volumes which are part of hard drives built into your computer: Mac OS X automatically tries to detect all of them during startup, and makes them all accessible. In some cases you may like to leave a certain volume inactive, for example when you use a second hard drive as backup medium and only like to see it connected to the system when you actually perform a backup or restore operation.
Note: The presence of an NTFS volume (for example from a Windows installation created via BootCamp) can significantly slow down some of Spotlight's search features. Leaving an NTFS volume inactive can accelerate Spotlight.
The list of volumes which are present but should not be activated automatically by Mac OS X is displayed in the table Prevent automatic mount of hard disk volumes. TinkerTool System displays name, file system type and the information if the volume is read-only or not. To add a volume to this list, press the button + below the table and select one or more volumes from the list of volumes which are currently online. To remove entries, select one or more lines in the table and press the - button below the table.
To activate such a "blocked" volume manually, open the application Disk Utility, select the volume in the list and press the button Mount.
The item Network Tuning allows you to modify tuning values of TCP/IP networking in Mac OS X. You can modify sizes of
It is no longer necessary to modify these settings in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. When using Leopard, the operating system will monitor your network traffic and automatically find the best settings. For this reason, the upper part of the panel cannot be changed with 10.5 or later.
Unfortunately, there can be no easy answer how these settings should be modified to optimize your network and Internet communication performance. Optimal settings may depend on your network hardware, the protocols you run on the network interfaces, your Internet provider and many other factors. It is recommended to measure network speed with a test program before and after changing a setting. If the new setting appears to improve network performance, you can save it by pressing the button Make permanent. To return to Mac OS X's default settings, press the button Remove permanent customization. Permanent values only become effective when the system is (re-)started. Until then, the settings displayed by TinkerTool System are effective.
The set of options available for the setting Delayed TCP Acknowledge varies between different operating system versions. You can switch the delay on and off in all versions of Mac OS X. In Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later, two additional settings are possible:
When using a broadband connection with very high speed and high latency, Apple specifies a recommended setting which can be established by pressing the button Optimize for broadband.
Warning: Apple's recommended setting for broadband connections consumes a lot of memory which could cause problems on small computers. Use the setting only when necessary, and test it thoroughly before making it permanent. The setting is optimized for fiber-optic high-speed lines to the Internet with high latencies and transfer rates up to 30 Mbps. The high-speed line must be connected directly to your Mac.
The Networking Tuning item also has controls to modify the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) value for each network interface where this setting is not already controlled via System Preferences, for example for Airport cards. (For ethernet interfaces, use the Ethernet tab-view in the Network pane of System Preferences to change the MTU settings.)
The Maximum Transfer Unit is set in bytes per packet. For a standard Ethernet or Airport network, the value 1,500 is the correct setting. If you are using a network interface for communication with a PPPoE modem only, you can improve transfer speed by setting a value of 1,492. If you are connected to a network that uses MTU settings different from the standard, you should also modify the setting. Ask the administrator of the network hardware for the correct value.
The upper part of the panel Network Tuning applies to the whole TCP/IP communication subsystem of Mac OS X. The lower box with the Maximum Transfer Unit controls only applies to certain selected network interfaces.
Mac OS X can use a technique called "Quartz Extreme" that utilizes the 3D features of specific video chips ("graphics cards") to improve the performance of 2D window operations. This feature was invented by Apple because the Quartz window technology of Mac OS X is not capable of using the standard 2D acceleration features of video chips. Quartz Extreme "misues" 3D acceleration as a replacement for 2D acceleration.
Quartz Extreme is only enabled if two conditions are true:
Without replacing your computer's video hardware, it is impossible to have any influence on item (1.). However, TinkerTool System can influence item (2.), so it is possible to enable Quartz Extreme on video solutions that have all the necessary 3D features but are nevertheless rejected as invalid by Mac OS X.
By default, Mac OS X will reject video chips that use the PCI bus, and also solutions with less than 16 MB video memory. TinkerTool System will modify this to the effect that PCI video chips and computers with at least 8 MB video memory are accepted. To do this, press the button at Enforce Quartz Extreme on capable graphics cards.
We intentionally do not publish a list of supported video chips or graphics cards, because we have no influence on the 3D features Mac OS X is checking when verifying Quartz Extreme compatibility (condition (1.)). The needed features may even change depending on operating system version. It is known that no video chip of the ATI® Rage® product line can currently support Quartz Extreme.
If you enable Quartz Extreme on a graphics card that would otherwise be rejected by Mac OS X, the major part of the card's 3D resources will be reserved for Quartz acceleration. This means that there may be not enough 3D resources left for use in "real" 3D applications, e.g. animated games. You may experience performance or display problems if too many 3D resources are used at the same time.
Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" introduces a new feature for the graphical user interface: It is now possible to set the physical resolution the operating system should assume when it is drawing contents to the display screen. Under normal circumstances, Mac OS X and also the classic Mac OS assume that the display screen can render graphics with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. While this was true when the Macintosh was introduced more than 20 years ago, today's display devices have a much higher resolution. The pixels have become smaller, so a 12 point font does no longer necessarily match the actual size of a 12 point font printed in a book.
To accommodate these changes, Tiger is capable of using arbitrary display resolutions. TinkerTool System allows you to change the resolution between 36 and 216 pixels per inch. If the screen display stays the same, the screen contents will be displayed larger when you set a higher resolution, and smaller when you set a lower resolution. You can either select this zoom factor using the slider Scaling factor, or you can enter the resolution value into the field Pixels per inch.
WARNING: The display resolution is a very critical setting. If you set the
resolution too high, the windows can become so large that they no longer
fit on screen. This means you can no longer see or control all parts of some
applications which can make your system unusable!
The changes take effect the next time you open applications. Note that changes will also apply to TinkerTool System itself the next time you start it.
WARNING: Changing the display resolution is an experimental feature of Mac
OS X Tiger reserved for experienced users. Many vendors (including Apple) have
not yet prepared all their applications to fully support this. Parts of
the user interface might not be drawn correctly. Apple will enhance support
for this feature in future versions of Mac OS X.
In case of a power failure or a serious malfunction of the operating system, your computer may leave data on your hard disk in an inconsistent state. When Mac OS X regains power and control after the failure, all hard disk volumes are checked for corruption which can take a very long time.
To avoid this problem, Mac OS X can use a technique known as "File System Journaling" that helps the system to quickly recover from a possible disk corruption after a failure.
Journaling is not enabled automatically for volumes other than the system volume if you have updated the operating system from an earlier version without reformatting (deleting) all hard disk volumes. TinkerTool System allows you to review the journaling feature on each volume, and to enable or disable it quickly without losing data.
The following settings are possible:
Mac OS X Tiger contains a search technology called "Spotlight". Spotlight allows you to rapidly retrieve contents of documents stored on your computer, after entering keywords or specifying other search criteria. If you are using Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you can control if Spotlight be running. Use the buttons at the top of the Spotlight control pane in TinkerTool System.
You can no longer switch off Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later. Here, Spotlight must always be running.
If Spotlight is enabled, the system starts several search and indexing services in the background which will consume significant computing power and memory. For this reason it is usually not recommended to enable Spotlight on a server computer. Note that disabling Spotlight will not remove the Spotlight search icon from the upper right corner of the screen, nor will it remove any of the search index files Spotlight might have created on your disk volumes.
When Spotlight is active, it automatically creates a hidden index database and some preference files on each volume currently connected with your computer. The database and the preference settings are needed to quickly find the contents you are searching for. These hidden components are called the "Metadata Stores".
TinkerTool System allows you to display for each volume whether the volume is capable of supporting Spotlight, whether Spotlight is activated on the volume, and how much storage space is currently needed by the Metadata stores. This information is displayed in the table Metadata Storage Management. A refresh button right below the table will refresh the contents of the table when it is pressed.
After selecting one or multiple lines in the table, you can activate several operations that should be performed:
To start the selected procedure, press the button Perform operation on selected volumes.
Note that the deactivation of index operations is only in effect until you restart Mac OS X. Unless Spotlight isn't switched off completely, or you block Spotlight on all volumes via the Spotlight Privacy settings in System Preferences, Mac OS X will continue its indexing services upon next startup.