Version 1.3.6 of AirPort Utility for iPhone and iPad includes general stability and security improvements, according to release notes accompanying the download.What are utilities? In the world of computers, they are apps — usually included as part of the operating system — that provide a look into the operation of your machine. AirPort Utility, Apple’s official app for managing its AirPort wireless appliances, has received an update fixing bugs that caused many issues for iOS 13 customers, including unexpected quits. Some users are reporting problems with printers after the update - particularly when using network. In today’s article, we’ll introduce readers to five utility apps in macOS 10.13 High Sierra that are sure to be useful when trying to troubleshoot some problems.Mac OS X 10.4.6 Special Report: Printer issues.
![]() ![]() Airport Utility 10.13 Mac OS XDoing this will take some time, and when it is completed a gzipped folder will be saved on the Desktop showing you how all of the subsystems of your Mac are faring. Under the “gear” menu (so named because of the gear-shaped icon) is a selection for “Run System Diagnostics” (see screenshot above). (Under the “gear” icon is a menu item for running detailed System Diagnostics.)There’s one more use of Activity Monitor — finding out if something is really seriously wrong with your Mac. On my MacBook Pro, Safari and Mail are the biggest energy users, so I know that if I’m not using one or both of the apps it’s a good idea to shut it down to save battery. Clicking the Energy tab reveals a list of the average energy impact of every app running on your Mac. Seeing sluggish response from the Internet? The network tab can show you if an unknown, oddly-named daemon is using most of your network bandwidth — which may indicate that malware has been installed on your Mac and is sending your data to a hacker somewhere…Laptop users may find it interesting to see what apps are using the most energy. Microsoft onenote free download for macThat list can be quite long depending on how many wireless devices you have not just things like Macs, iPhones and iPads, but home automation devices and accessories as well. (The simple AirPort Utility interface provides access to a lot of information about a wireless network.)The Utility also notifies Mac users if a firmware update is available for their router since many these updates deal with security, it’s a good idea to pay attention to the notifications and update your AirPort device ASAP.Click on the Internet icon and you’ll see the external IP address for your router, the DNS servers it is using, and the domain name of the router (in this case, service is provided by Comcast.net).Click on the picture of your AirPort and you’ll see a list of devices that are currently connected to the router. Green lights next to each indicate that everything’s running smoothly a yellow light on Internet usually means that your ISP is having difficulties, while a yellow light next to your AirPort router is telling you that it’s rebooting or having issues. This utility works with the AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express and AirPort Time Capsule routers.Launch the app and you’ll see a simple diagram showing “The Internet” and your router (see image below). If you’re ever asked by an Apple Genius or other support tech to run System Diagnostics, you’ll know how to do it.As of the beginning of 2018, we’re not sure if Apple is planning to continue to develop and market AirPort Wi-Fi products, but in the meantime, one of the more useful utilities is AirPort Utility. The SSID (wireless network name) and password for the network can be changed under the Wireless tab. As seen in the screenshot below, the Base Station password is changed under the Base Station tab. This is done by clicking the small Edit button on the lower right corner of the device list (highlighted in red in the screenshot above). The device has a password to keep unauthorized people from changing settings, and there’s also the Wi-Fi password that’s used to encrypt your wireless connectivity. For Wi-Fi connections, this will usually be something like 802.11b/g/n.AirPort Utility is also used to change your AirPort’s password and the SSID password, something that should be done by every computer user from time to time. To recover a password that may have been forgotten — especially if it hasn’t been used lately — double-clicking one of the entries displays a dialog showing the attributes of that entry. Note: some personal data obscured in this screenshot).In the image above, the user has 835 items stored in iCloud Keychain. (Web form, application, and internet passwords are stored in the iCloud Keychain. At some point you may need to look up a password you’ve forgotten, and that’s quite easy to do in Keychain Utility. If you allowed Safari to do so, that information was stored as encrypted data in the iCloud Keychain. In the past, it didn’t sync to other devices through iCloud, but now any and all logins, credit card numbers, secret notes and so on that you tell the device to save are not only saved locally, but to all of your other Apple devices as well.Perhaps at one point you were asked by Safari if you wanted to save a user ID and password for a website. For example, to learn what audio devices are connected to or built into your Mac, click on the Audio item in the list. Each item listed under hardware displays a detailed description when clicked. (Check the “Show password” box and enter the administrator password to view the saved password.)The System Information utility is perfect for learning more about the hardware used in your Mac. Enter your Mac administrator password to see the password. It may show that the component doesn’t exist, in which case the hardware has either malfunctioned or a cable or connector has loosened.There’s an amazing amount of information that can be found using the System Information utility. If a particular Mac component — say Wi-Fi — on an older Mac isn’t working suddenly for some reason, open System Information and click on that component in the hardware list. Clicking the top-level “Hardware” listing shows the type of CPU (The hardware overview shows the model of Mac, processor name and speed, and more.)System Information can be used to help troubleshoot hardware issues as well. One important use of Disk Utility is to run First Aid, which can fix common problems that may arise. Disk Utility is used to perform “First Aid” on disks that are acting up, to partition physical drives into logical volumes, to erase and reformat drives, to unmount devices, and to restore disk images.In the most basic view, Disk Utility displays the total capacity of the drive (in the screenshot below, it’s a 2.11TB Fusion Drive), the used and free space, and some additional information. System Information is fun and useful, and definitely worth poking around in since you can’t break anything while using it.Disk Utility is a utility that CAN break things if used incorrectly, so be sure that you either know what you’re doing with this app before you start or have written instructions in front of you to follow.
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