Comments on: Customizing your menu bar, arrange, remove, and add menulets

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:42:24 +0000

@Another Galen
Perhaps easier for our users, would be to:
Applications->Utilities-> A

Then Show Processes in there, select the relevant one, and force quit it. This may be simpler than the terminal.

By: Another Galen (believe it or not)

Another Galen (believe it or not) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Not pretty to do this, but if you can’t drag, etc. the 3rd party icon out and have no other way to get rid of it, you can rip out the process that it represents:

If you know the name (maybe you used Activity Monitor), or even if you don’t, run: Applications->Utilities->Terminal

in Terminal, type:
ps -ax | less

or if you want this in a file:

ps -ax > procs.txt

This should give you a complete list of all processes, _including_the_path_ to the process.

Find the one that represents the process and delete it (at your discretion and own risk).

By: doris perovich

doris perovich — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:17:04 +0000

cant get slider bar at bottom to move from side to side

By: José Emiliano

José Emiliano — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:16:16 +0000

I’ll not bet with you.
You won, as usually.
PGP 32 bit – not 64. That’s it.
Thanks a lot for the lesson.
Emiliano

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:21:45 +0000

@Jose, right clicking invokes the contextual menu item, which are “plug-ins” for lack of a better word, stored in ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items for your home, or /Library/Contextual Menu Items for System wide all users.

I would bet your PGP CMM is only 32 bit, and can not run under Snow in 64, so it is not loading.

According to http://na.store.pgp.com/desktop_home_mac.html there is support up to 10.5, not 10.6.

There page states:

The current version of PGP Desktop Home for Mac OS (9.10) is not supported on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Support for Mac OS X 10.6 will be available in the next major release of PGP Desktop Home (10.0). If you would like to be notified when the Beta version of PGP Desktop Professional becomes available, please register at http://www.pgp.com/developers/beta/request.html. If you have questions about PGP products and Mac OS X 10.6, please visit our support site https://pgp.custhelp.com/app/.

If you are just looking to securely erase files, you can use Secure Empty Trash.

By: José Emiliano

José Emiliano — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:33:50 +0000

Scott, till now, all questions are about the right side of menu bar.
I’m having some problems as to the left side. When I right clicked on a folder or on a file a drop down menu gave me an option (among many others) to “Shred” . (I’m a PGP user).
After upgrade to “Snow” this option has elapsed.
I’m still using the PGP’shred but throught a more complicated way. That lost option was also enabled on Menu Bar > Edit…but no more now. Is there anything that I can do?

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:02:38 +0000

great work, really helpful. Thank you.

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:40:02 +0000

@Jason, to be honest, the method in which you set up the time and date in OS X is a bit of a pain, and will not get you entirely where you want to be if you want a specific customization.

I have also found, at times, badly written apps can use the format internally within their app, which can cause those apps to have strange behavior.

I have found iStat Menu’s to be invaluable. Not only does it give a super simple way to modify the date and time menu item, it gives you a drop down calendar, network data, CPU usage, and much much more. Of course, you can turn off all but just the date and time features.

Take a look, I find this to be a very valuable tool http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:36:49 +0000

Just trying to get the date to show up a long with the time. I’ve got the day of the week, just not the date.

BTW – This is an incredible site. I JUST switched over to Mac yesterday. I couldn’t figure out how to move some picts off of a CD. Today, after going through a bunch of feeds (starting @ #1) I’m feeling like I’ll never open up my other pc notebook again. Thanks!

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:10:31 +0000

@Jason, have you looked at the Date and Time Preference Pane? Or are you looking to do more customizattion to the format that is shown in the menu?

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:55:38 +0000

I tried the International tab to get the date to show up but was not successful. Suggestions?

By: Florie

Florie — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:20:26 +0000

Scott, when you were talking about moving the sound-adjustment gizmo, I wondered why you didn’t mention the two keyboard keys with the speaker symbols – much quicker to get to.

Do you have anywhere on this site a list of all of the Mac keyboard shortcuts? That would be great.

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:01:41 +0000

@Galen, I am not aware of any way to do so.

By: Galen

Galen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:43:52 +0000

Can I put a link to an application in the menu bar?

By: lightsandswirls

lightsandswirls — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:13:15 +0000

thank you so much! it was in my login items, so i deleted it and its little friends

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:00:40 +0000

If the s-ware does not give you a way to take it out, and there is no way to “command-drag” it out, I would first look in system preferences. Make sure there is no preference pane for it. If there is, you can remove that with a conrol-click on the item you want to remove.

Finally, look in your Accounts preferences, and there are items listed as Login Items, If you control click on those, you can tell it to “reveal in finder” and locate where it is hiding out at, and perhaps find even more software to delete.

Finally, assuming it is in there, remove it from your login items list as well.

By: lightsandswirls

lightsandswirls — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:56:25 +0000

bundled software that came with a canon pixma mx700 printer. the menulet is actually for “Canon IJ Network Scan Utility.” i’ve uninstalled, or deleted rather, the printer software, but the network scan utility is hanging around. printer software, i’ve come to find out, is the most ridiculously hard software to get rid of.

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:51:10 +0000

@lightsandswirls, what software, some of it can be a little tricky, but all of it can in fact be removed.

By: lightsandswirls

lightsandswirls — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:59:33 +0000

is there a way to remove third party software menulets? command does nothing for these, and there is no option in the actual software’s preferences or settings to remove it from the menu bar.

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:14:58 +0000

@Ray, in the date and time, if you click on “Show International” there is a “Formats” section, where you can change how the calendar portion of the date and time are shown.

By: Ray Conroy

Ray Conroy — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:57:34 +0000

Here; Menulets in G4 and MacBookPro for Date & Time have differing display. System Preferences->Date&Time->Clock both have checks for “Show date and time in menu bar” and “Show the day of the week”. Both computers were upgraded to 10.5.2 from 10.4.11. MBP displays day (Tue in this example) and time, but NO month nor date.

By: Matt Nikos

Matt Nikos — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:58:59 +0000

Wow, I never even noticed I had a volume control in the menu bar. After confirming what it was, I tried moving it to the right like you do, and it disappeared off the screen (I guess I moved it TOO far. Luckily, you addressed how to put it back, and I’m feeling like the smartest cookie in the jar.

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:10:42 +0000

@RE, I have also used Synergy, you probably just need an update. I found it to be valuable as it allowed me custom keybaord commands to change tracks, rate, and set volume. I was able to get it to show up in all applications, in every toolbar there was. Perhaps if I had a small screen, it may take least precedence and get shoved of. Make sure you are up to date at this link.

By: RE: Menulets

RE: Menulets — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 05:04:01 +0000

I have a menulet software program by “Synergy” that places the rewind, play, and fast forward iTune buttons in the tool bar. but these buttons only show up when I am in “desktop mode. if I am in another program with safari or another user area these buttons disappear. is this unique to this third party software or did I install it incorrectly?

By: Scott Haneda

Scott Haneda — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:20:12 +0000

@mickey, There is no way I would recommend updating that machine to Tiger, it simply is not fast enough. You really want to get to Leopard if you can.

Your best bet, if you must stay with a laptop, is the MacBook, at just over 1000.00 it is a bargain. If that does not work out for you, there is the MacMini, which is a bit over 500.00.

There are links on the site, off to the right where you can purchase these items. By purchasing through our site you can help out a little in keeping the site up and running.