System Info --- latest

Question

How can I find out when was the last time my computer was turned on? Does Mac OS X keep a secret log of shut off/turn on times?
Also, is there a way to discover which were the latest films (in chronological order) that were played by DVD player?
thanks,

Answer 1

Hi, Elena, WWJD, and Daniel, et.al. —
WWJD, I thought I'd run an experiment to give you a "head-start" on determining where/how the data is stored. You — because I guessed that some/most of what I'd find would be over my head. (And I was right!)
I hadn't played a DVD on my eMac previously. I looked through /Applications/, /Library/Application Support/, ~/Library/Application Support/, and ~/Library/Preferences/, etc. before proceeding — and duplicated then opened and copied contents of the Global Settings.plist file that I found in ~/Library/Application Support/DVD Player/Settings/ before proceeding.
Then I played a DVD briefly, and searched through these folders (and the rest of my HD just to be thorough...) immediately after quitting DVD Player to check for updated files — with folders sorted by "Date(-and-Time) Modified." The only changes I found were that the Global Settings.plist file had been modified; and two new files had been generated: 14e830a545faa6cd.plist and 14e830a545faa6cd.img.plist. Presumably, these are the unique files whose generation you hypothesized. Perhaps the name itself provides useful information(?)
Again, I duplicated then opened a copy of each .plist file using Property List Editor. From their contents — clearly, neither the Global Settings.plist nor the img.plist file are viable candidates to hold the data Elena's seeking.
From there on, my proficiency is too limited to take me very far. For Last Play »» Name (Class: String), the value was 00:00:00. For Last Play »» Data (Class: Data), the value was a long (and eventually truncated) sequence of 8-digit groupings of what appear to be hexadecimal-format data. Scrolling as far as possible to the right, it appeared that Property List Editor truncated the data after the 17th such grouping (leaving 5 digits cut off in the 18th). None of the other data contained ion this file seemed even remotely relevant.
That's as far as my understanding — plus ~creative guessing — can take me. Perhaps you can suggest how to proceed — and to convert data into something useful.
I'll be interested to hear what you think. . .
Thanks!
Dean