configd: Fixing High CPU Usage Problems with the configd Process in Mac OS X
configd is a system configuration daemon that runs behind Mac OS X, most users will never notice or see the core OS X process running in the background of their Macs. With that said, configd can sometimes act up and cause unusual CPU spikes and fan activity making your Mac sound like a wind tunnel. Odd configd behavior is easily diagnosed by launching Activity Monitor, sorting by the “% CPU” option, and seeing the ‘configd’ root user process sitting at the top taking up somewhere between 20-95% CPU. If that behavior lasts for a minute or so it’s usually not a big deal, temporary spikes can be normal so just let it run and ignore it, but there are times where configd can go inexplicably errant and it’ll sit around 50% CPU utilization or more for hours for no obvious reason – that is what we’re looking to resolve here.




Quitting out of running apps in modern versions of iOS is a bit different than it was before, but once you get the hang of using the new multitasking screen, you’ll find the change is for the better. Not only can you use this to close out of a single app, but with a simple multitouch gesture you can also quit out of multiple apps at the same time.
A handy terminal command will show a list of all apps installed on a Mac that have come exclusively from the Mac App Store. This can be helpful for a variety of reasons, like when building a list of apps you may want to replace from outside the official App Store channels if you’re migrating machines, or if you’re working on a remote Mac through 
Hard drive failures are never fun but they are a fact of computing life whether you use a Mac or PC. Sometimes drives can truck along for many years before going bad, and other times you wind up with a drive that goes kaput after just a few months of normal use. Regardless of when it happens (and it will), we’re going to focus on the most simple method of retrieving crucial files and data from the failing drive. 

The iTunes Radio music service offers a great way to listen to your favorite songs and also find new music, and with some minor adjustments you can tune any station to prefer either the hits, wander more into discovery, or a mixture of the both. These three tuning settings are named appropriately, and can be described loosely as the following:




