If like me, you keep an eye on the Mac OSX activity monitor, then you’ve likely seen configd and wonder what the heck it is. The Unix underpinnings of OS X delivered unto us Mac users many good things. We have protected memory, great multitasking, lots of open source software, and heaps of security. But, as the sages of the ‘Facts of Life’ have...

If like me, you keep an eye on the Mac OSX activity monitor, then you’ve likely seen blued and wonder what the heck it is. According to Apple: The Bluetooth daemon handles SDP transactions, link key management, and incoming connection acceptance. It cannot be used directly by the user. More simply. When you use a Bluetooth device, blued is the software...

If like me, you keep an eye on the Mac OSX activity monitor, then you’ve likely seen autofsd and wonder what the heck it is. According to Apple: autofsd runs automount, and then waits for network configuration change events and, when such an event occurs, re-runs automount to update the mounts to reflect the current automounter maps. It can also be...

If like me, you keep an eye on the Mac OSX activity monitor, then you’ve likely seen ATSServer and wonder what the heck it is. ATSServer is the Apple Type Solution Server; responsible for managing the available fonts and making them available to applications. There are no user configurable setting for ATSServer. It is a harmless process, but needs to be...

If like me, you keep an eye on the Mac OSX activity monitor, then you’ve likely seen AppleSpell.service and wonder what the heck it is. AppleSpell.service is the background process that continuously runs and checks the spelling of just about everything you type.  It checks forms on webpages, documents, search boxes, etc.  This task is harmless and should...