My Mac Fixes

It's easy to find instructions on the Web for removing Dropbox from a Mac. But they all seem to leave out the crucial first steps -- and without them, you may not be able to remove a file. Here are those steps: 1. With Dropbox running, call up the app's preferences. In version 3, you can find them by clicking on the Dropbox menu bar icon and using the gear menu at lower right. 2. On the General tab, uncheck all the following: "Show desktop notifications." "Start Dropbox on system startup." "Enable Finder integration." 3. Close the preferences and restart your computer. You should now be able to remove any Dropbox file or folder with no trouble. My own way was to use TinkerTool to show all normally invisible files and folders, then to search for "dropbox" with EasyFind and use its contextual menu to "Reveal in Finder." Lesson: Think twice about installing an app that doesn't supply its own uninstaller. (And there

Recently, after updating my Mac from Snow Leopard to Yosemite, I was chagrined to find that Adobe Photoshop's Save for Web -- a feature I rely on heavily -- would not save a file. Every time I tried it, I got the message, "Could not complete this operation. An unknown operating system error has occurred." Scouting around the Web, I found that the common solution was to delete the two Adobe Photoshop Save for Web preference files. Sometimes that worked for people, and sometimes it didn't, and it certainly didn't for me. But digging into my system, I found why: There are three possible locations for Adobe Photoshop Save for Web preference files, not two! And once I knew that, I fixed it easily. So, for a guaranteed fix, close Photoshop and delete all the following files and folders, and any others that look like them -- for different versions or even different Adobe apps. Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Save For Web 13.0 Prefs Users/[Username]