Apple's utilities

Utilities
Every operating system will have its unique set of system utilities. Apple’s utilities are located in the Utilities folder [/Application/Utilities]. Within that folder, you will find many useful tools that can help you with a variety of task. However, we’ll showcase two which will come in handy.

Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor is akin to Window’s Task Manager. It displays a list of every running application and background process. Alongside that, it will also display their CPU and RAM usages. Using this utility, you can easily identify applications that have halted or aren’t responding and take action accordingly.

Below the list of processes, Activity Manager also displays CPU activity, System Memory usage, Disk activity and usage as well as Network activity; divided across several tabs. Just by looking at the list of processes, you can roughly gauge your system’s performance and tell the cause of a slowdown by observing the CPU usage of specific processes.
Unresponsive applications are labelled in red and they can be terminated by pressing the large ‘Quit Process’ button at the top. Bear in mind that any unsaved work will be lost if an application is forced to quit.

In the past, I’ve found that some unresponsive applications may be unfrozen by sending either a ‘Hangup’, ‘Interrupt’ or ‘Kill’ signal. Select the application in question and click on the View menu, then ‘Send Signal to Process’ and select Hangup, Interrupt or Kill. For more information on frozen applications and reviving them using Activity Monitor, visit [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/macnifying-os-x-learning-to-utilize-activity-monitor/]

Activity Monitor is also a great tool to judge if your Mac has sufficient memory in order to perform efficiently. If you often suffer from the “Spinning Wheel of Death” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_wait_cursor], then it’s a good idea to use Activity Monitor to confirm your worries.
When the physical memory (or more commonly known as RAM -- Random-access Memory) is full and needs to unload information to the hard disk, the procedure is known as a Page Out. The opposite procedure is known as a Page In. The less RAM you have, the more pagings will take place. This tremendously slows down your Mac.
Observing the Page Out/In values in Activity Monitor is an easy way to gauge if you have sufficient RAM. If these values grow right in front your eyes, it’s a clear sign to add more memory.

In the screenshot above, my Mac has transferred 40.9MB in Page Outs. This value is still within decent range, considering that I’m running several memory-intensive applications like Safari and Pages; not to mention operating for more than 4 days without shutting down.

Quick Tip
If you notice that your Page Out value is several times the
amount of physical memory (RAM) installed on your Mac, you
should really consider adding more RAM.

Disk Utility
Disk Utility is Mac’s version of Window’s Disk Management tool. It basically helps with formatting, erasing and partitioning drives; verifies them and fixes disk permissions; and is a really easy-to-use CD/DVD image tool.

Because Disk Utility can verify and repair disk permissions, it is therefore a troubleshooting tool as well. If you find that your Mac is acting weird, the absolute first thing to do is launch Disk Utility and repair your disk permissions. Most of the time, this will eradicate the issue at hand.
Disk Utility also allows you to easily create DMGs and disk images from physical CDs or DVDs, hence eliminating the need for third-party applications.
Interesting, Jeffry taught his readers to install Snow Leopard from a USB thumb drive and the only tool he used was Disk Utility. Find out how he did it: [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/upgrading-your-mac-to-snow-leopard-using-your-usb-drive/]
Not only can Disk Utility create disk images, it can also mount them. Sometimes, the Finder would open an ISO image file as a regular folder in order to allow you to read its contents.
However, some ISO files work better if they are mounted as an emulated disk drive. This is where Disk Utility comes in.
Instead of paying $100 for Toast Titanium, you can easily mount any disk image as a physical disk using Disk Utility. Simply drag the ISO file to the source list in Disk Utility and click ‘Mount’. Or click File -> Open disk image.

Create password-protected DMGs
Personally, I have a secret love for Disk Utility because it allows me to create passwordprotected DMGs. I frequently use passworded DMGs to store sensitive documents but you can use them to store anything that you’d like to keep away from peering eyes.

Quick Tip
Use Disk Utility to create password-protected DMGs to securely
protect sensitive documents.

Here is how you can go about making your own password-protected disk image.
1. Click on File ->New -> Blank Disk Image
2. Type in an appropriate name and select the destination
3. Choose from one of the preset sizes or customize your own
4. Select either 128- or 256-bit encryption then click ‘Create’

You will be then asked to input a password which will be used to encrypt the DMG. Be sure to enter a strong password and uncheck the box next to “Remember password in my keychain” or Finder will automatically retrieve your password and mount the image --essentially rendering the whole point of creating a passworded DMG moot.

Sometimes, I like to throw nosy people a curve ball and store my sensitive documents within two passworded DMGs: I have one password-protected DMG with my files in it. Then, create another DMG, protected with a different password and save the first DMG in it. In short, I have one DMG protecting another DMG. This method is not completely foolproof but it will deter casual intrusions of privacy from a co-worker or roommate.

Quick Tip
Wrap one passworded DMG around another passworded DMG to
create a two-layer defense for your sensitive files

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