Using mdutil to reindex volumes for Spotlight on OS X
Over the last few months, I noticed an increasingly annoying issue on my MacBook concerning start-up performance with Spotlight, the built-in search tool for OS X. Since I started my exploratory Mac usage about two years ago, I quickly learnt that I could use Spotlight as a lightweight application launcher in favour of some more comprehensive packages available, i.e. Alfred, Quicksilver. Sadly, Spotlight became increasingly slow to load and to return valid results from files that were not modified recently after log-in.
I was not sure exactly what was the origin of this issue, but I suspected the metadata index from which Spotlight queries results was either corrupted or simply neglecting to index my Applications directory correctly. Thankfully, there exists a simple command line utility that allows you to erase the Spotlight index and toggle indexing, which will force Spotlight to rebuild it’s index: mdutil.
Note: mdutil requires administrator privileges to modify the Spotlight index, so do not forget to prefix the following commands with sudo or you’ll be misled by the returned messages from mdutil.
- Disable indexing:
mdutil -i off <path to volume>
- Erase the existing Spotlight indexes:
mdutil -E <path to volume>
- Enable indexing and wait for index to rebuild (this can be a slow process):
mdutil -i on <path to volume>
After running the aforementioned commands in that order, Spotlight began the slow process of rebuilding it’s index. Since this completed, I noticed that my results return a bit more quickly than previous and there does not seem to be as long of a wait to use Spotlight after log-in. Hopefully this procedure solves any similar issues you may be experiencing.
Employee Management Lessons From the U.S. Military
Security. Job security is a key reason U.S. military members valued their workplace. If you’re in danger of having to lay off employees, try everything you can to avoid it – whether it’s cutting hours, cutting pay or cutting overhead. Employees who know you’ll do everything you can to stick by them will be more loyal to you in return.
Development. The military places a high priority on personal and professional development for employees. Offer your workers chances to improve their skills, whether by cross-training them, giving them flexible schedules to take college courses or further their business training, or signing them up for online webinars and industry training events.
Camaraderie. The bonds forged in the military enable members of the armed forces to do the impossible. Foster an environment of teamwork, friendship and caring in your business, and you’ll create the same kinds of strong ties. When you and your employees truly trust and care for each other, there’s nothing you won’t do to get the job done.
(Source: growsmartbusiness.com)
My Tumblr Evaluation Period
Still trying to decide what I think about Tumblr. It is a handy enough service: free, quick to setup, easy to use, results in a decent looking micro-blog in a handful of minutes. What I don’t like it about it is how content is imported from other services (such as Twitter, Delicious, Digg, etc.). It doesn’t seem to format those imported content items properly in the backend, so everything ends up looking like blog posts.
Until I’ve decide how I want to use Tumblr, I am pulling the plug on the import services I had previous setup. In addition, I am also unsyncing Facebook and my tumblog until I get a better workflow here, so my Facebook network won’t continue to be spammed by poorly formatted content pushed through to their news feeds.
