05-02-2011, 05:11 AM

I'm having some issues with starting up my Macbook Pro. A while back I installed the program "Lock my Mac" - I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with it but that's rather irrelevant. It's a program with which you can put your computer on standby with a neat graphic effect. This effect also occurs when you start up your computer, namely after you type in your password in the log in screen, when it switches from the log in screen to the desktop. I de-installed the program about a week ago, yet the "lock my mac" effect has not disappeared when starting up my computer.

I have attempted to:

1. Go to log in items in the system preferences to check the start up items, but nothing leading to the Lock my Mac application could be found.
2. Search my computer using multiple search functions for "Lock my Mac" but haven't been able to find anything related.

What I believe is that there might be an item deep inside the system settings, but I have no idea how I'd possibly find that amongst the thousands of folders that the system consists of. The reason why I want to get rid of the effect is because it's significantly slowing the start up down.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!

05-02-2011, 10:47 AM

Make sure you search & delete using this method.

05-02-2011, 04:42 PM

Also look here:

MacIntosh HD/Library/StartupItems/

and here:

MacIntosh HD/Library/LaunchAgents/

and finally here:

MacIntosh HD/Library/LaunchDaemons/

05-03-2011, 05:23 AM

I looked everywhere you guys suggested, but no success. The trouble was that the program was a very simple one file application, which came out of the zip just as the icon. I can't find any corresponding files anywhere and like I said, I don't remember there being any when opening the zip. Nor was installation required.

Any other suggestions?

05-03-2011, 01:38 PM

One more place to look:

Open System Preferences, and go to "Other". (It should be the last row of items on the bottom) Take a look there to see if it installed an icon. If it did, it will likely have configuration instructions and also a way to uninstall.

Let us know.

05-04-2011, 03:13 AM

No icon there either. Only for some other applications but not for the Lock My Mac application. Would the only option be to reinstall the software? That would suck :/

05-04-2011, 03:33 AM

I saw this:

I installed the program to have a look, and I see the effect you're talking about. It is the cube effect, reminiscent of Beryl-Compiz on Linux, usually used for fast-user-switching. This means that is not LockMyMac which is causing the problem, but instead, your login settings. Go into "System Preferences" > "Accounts" > "Login Window" and uncheck the option "Fast User Switching." This option no longer exists for me, in Snow Leopard, but I presume you must be using 10.4 or 10.5, where you will find such a setting.

Alternatively, if you want to feel really nerdy, you may open a terminal and type

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences MultipleSessionEnabled -bool NO

and it will do the same thing. It also does not work in Snow Leopard, however, Snow Leopard does not show the cube effect unless you are explicitly using Fast User Switching, and your computer is showing the effect at first login after startup, so I can tell you are not using SL.

For the future, I would recommend using the keychain to lock your mac instead. Here's a tutorial on how to do that; Lock the Mac OS X Desktop via Menu Bar

You can also lock on screensaver and sleep, but I find that annoying, since my computer goes to sleep and wakes up about fifty times a day. It moves around quite a bit for being a little block of aluminum."


But none of this helps either.