A couple of weeks ago I was testing out some software updates on my shiny new Mac Pro. After I was finished testing things out I noticed that the Mac was slow, very slow. I fired up the Activity Monitor to see what was going on. Turns out a background process called syslogd was running up the CPUs. Syslogd is the Apple System Log Server. It gathers logging statements from all the various running applications and saves them in case you need to look at them later. If you open the Console Applications from the /Applications/Utilities folder, you can read the logs created by syslogd.

What I couldn’t figure out was why syslogd was using an enormous amount of the Mac Pro’s resources. A little Googling revealed that syslogd stores the most recent log statements in a database file so they can be searched quickly. This database file has the property of fast access for reading, but it is slow to update with new entries. In fact, if an application logs too much information in a certain amount of time syslogd can no longer update the database file in a reasonable amount of time and it begins taking up more and more resources. Most people noticed this problem when using time machine as time machine does log changes to your file system (which can add up). The software I was testing was sending more log statements than syslogd could handle.

Now that I’ve found what was going on, I still had to do something about it. Syslogd can accept additional start up information that controls what kind of log messages it will accept, how often the database file will be purged of old log messages, and other options. These settings are located in a file in the System Folder of your Mac. If you’re feeling lucky (or geeky), you can edit this file directly. However, I recommend Lingon, a free app that does all the heavy lifting for you.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed Lingon, you can start it up and it looks something like this:

On the left hand nav menu, there is an item that says System Daemons, go ahead and expand that item and then scroll down the listings until you find com.apple.syslogd. Once you click on the com.apple.syslogd item you will be presented with a warning that looks like this:

Go ahead and click OK. You are then presented with the syslogd startup information, such as it’s name, the path to the application (i.e. /usr/sbin/syslogd) and other startup information. You can add startup parameters to the application as command line arguments. I changed /usr/sbin/syslogd to /usr/sbin/syslogd -c 3 -a and then saved the file. You will need administrator rights in order to save the changes. Once you are done, it should look something like this in the “What” field:

The -c 3 tells syslog to ignore less important messages. There are 8 log levels with 0 being the highest (or most important) and 8 being the lowest. With -c 3, syslogd will only log messages with a log level of 3 or less. The -a parameter tells syslog to archive the database, clearing out entries over 24 hours old.

I haven’t had any syslogd problems since I’ve added these new options. However, with Lingon I can go back and adjust if I need to. So if your Mac slows down, it’s probably not spyware or anything like that, just a little logging application with a hungry appetite for CPU cycles. Lingon lets you tell syslog, “you on a diet.”

iWeb has allowed individuals to quickly create all kinds of websites. But unfortunately the ability to add forms to these websites is not an included feature.

Luckily, with a bit of help from two free web services, forms can be added to help gather information from individuals visiting your website.

Create the Forms For iWeb

To be able to add forms to your iWeb pages you first need to create them. Google Docs recently added the ability to create forms and have the data collected stored in their spreadsheet application.

To create a form on Google Docs:

1. Login to docs.google.com
2. Open a New Spreadsheet
3. Click the Share tab
4. Check ‘To Fill Out a Form’ and then Start Editing your Form
5. Create your form and click Save
6. Return to your Spreadsheet’s Edit tab and click the link to Go To Live Form. Copy the URL of the Live Form

Now that we’ve created the form we’ll want to put the form into a format that will fit nicely into our iWeb pages. A new web application, Sprout, will help us do just that.

To have Sprout help us setup our forms in a format perfect for our iWeb site:

1. Navigate to Sprout and Get Started with a Blank Slate
2. Add a title for your Form and enter the size you’d like your Form to be on your iWeb page
3. Now that your blank slate is loaded and ready, select Services (under Components on the right) and then Google Forms
4. Instructions on how to add your Google Form to your Sprout will be displayed on your Blank Slate - Paste the URL into the Form URL field on the Right
5. After you’ve pasted the url, hit return and you should see your form on your slate.
6. Now we need to Publish your Slate.. Click Publish in the top Right (You may need to create an account with Sprout - Don’t worry its free)
7. Once your Sprout has been published, copy the code in the box to the right.

Adding the Form to iWeb

Now that we’ve created and formated the Form we need to add it to the iWeb page we’d like it to appear on. To do this, open up iWeb and click Web Widgets and select HTML snippet. Past the code from Sprout into the HTML snippet box and hit enter.

Once this is finished, you should see your Form on your iWeb page. More the Form to the location you’d like to store it on your page and publish your iWeb site. Every time your Form is filled out and submitted, the results will be stored in your Google Docs Spreadsheet for your review.

While this approach does take a few steps to get a form onto your iWeb page, it is a free solution that allows you some customization and storage options for the feedback provided by visitors to your website.

What type of Forms will you create for your iWeb site?

If you’ve enjoyed this article, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to discover more ways to optimize your iWeb and Mac experience.

For Custom Help with your iWeb Forms, please visit our Forums and post your questions in the iWeb section. A member of the Maciverse.com Community will do their best to assist you.

NOTE: Google Docs has now added the ability to embed these forms in your site. Additionally, the adjustments google has made may temporarily cause problems with Sprout.

This weeks Automator Tip of the Week is small but useful: Convert Movie to iPod Format.

While there are a number of different movie file formats that work great on your Apple computer not all formats work well with your new iPods. This Automator task makes converting all your movie files to an iPod friendly format easy.

To convert your Movie files to an iPod ready format add these two automator steps:

1. Find Finder Times - Do a search to select your movie files that are not yet in iPod friendly formats
2. Export Movies - This allows you to export your movies an iPod format

Once Automator has found the movie files, it will open them one at a time and convert them to an iPod format that you can quickly sync with your iPod and take them on the go.

Need some help with Automating a task? Let us know!

for additional help and discussion, please visit our Forums.

Like all web browsers, Safari keeps track of the websites you’ve visited and when you went to them. This can be very helpful if you’re trying to track down websites you’ve been to but can’t seem to find again.

Clearing Safari History

Although seeing where you’ve been and what sites you’ve looked at can be helpful, it also takes away from some of your privacy. To clear your history you can select History from your menu bar and then click Clear History. Additionally, you can clear your Safari browsing history by selecting Safari on the menu bar and then clicking Reset Safari (This method also allows you to clear all personal data Safari may have stored on your system).

Restoring Safari History

If for some reason after you’ve cleared your Safari history you discover you can’t find a website you know you visited 3 weeks ago, Time Machine is there to help.

To Restore your Safari Browsing History:

1. Close Safari and Open Finder
2. Select your user account under Places (There will be a Home icon next to it)
3. Open the Library folder, and then Safari folder
4. Open Time Machine - Time Machine will open displaying the Safari folder in Safari you’ve navigated to
5. Select the date you’d like to restore your browsing history from
6. Select the History.plist file and click restore - A dialog box will open asking you if you want to proceed - Click REPLACE
7. Open Safari and click History on the menu bar

If the restore was successful, you should see today’s history plus the date you restored from below it. Navigate down to the Date and the history of sites you visited on that date will be displayed.

Exclude Safari History From Time Machine Backups

Now that we’ve showed how easy it is to restore your browsing history… you may want to keep that information as private as possible.

To keep Time Machine from backing up Safari History:

1. Command Click (right click) on Time Machine in the Dock and select Time Machine Preferences…
2. Click Options
3. Click the + button
4. Navigate to your User folder, Library, and then Safari
5. Select History.plist and click the Exclude Button (To keep everything in Safari Private, select the Safari Folder and click exclude)

This should add history.plist or all your Browsing personal information out of Time Machine backups. This, combined with Safari’s Private Browsing feature will allow you to browse the web without anyone being able to trace your steps.

OS X Leopard includes a wonderful backup tool, Time Machine, that allows anyone to quickly backup their entire system on an external hard drive or Time Capsule.

In addition to allowing individuals to backup and restore from their own system, Time Machine also allows you to “Browse Other Time Machine Disks”. This built in feature allows you to connect to any available Time Machine drive on your network and pull off any version of the file you’re looking for.

To Browse Other Time Machine Disks:

1. Be sure that you are connected to the Other Time Machine disk. To do this you may need to connect to the computer the drive is connected to and login with user credentials or mount the drive by connecting to the computer (command+K in Finder) with its IP address and mounting the drive.
2. After your computer has connected to the Other Time Machine disk, right click (command+click) the Time Machine icon in the dock
3. Select the Other Time Machine disk from the selection window and click Use Selected Disk

After following the steps above, Time Machine should launch and display contents of the backed up data on the Other Time Machine disk.

Browse through the files to find what you’re looking for, select those files, and then click restore. Time Machine will ask you where you’d like to restore the files to on your current computer. Select the location and let the file restoration begin.