Why are there mainly entries of already uninstalled programs in the Console? When I look into Console (/Applications...), I see a lot of entries that talk about programs I have uninstalled a long time ago, for instance

01.08.12 10:31:29   com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[206
(de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver[58300])
posix_spawn("/Applications/launch2net/launch2net.app/Contents/
MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver.app/Contents/MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver", ...):
No such file or directory


The "launch2Net" was uninstalled some years ago! The same thing for "Carbon Copy Cloner", a program I tested some time ago... how can I avoid the causes for those entries? Is there a cleanup?
It's trying to start the nonexistent apps.

From the console entry com.apple.launchd.peruser.502 we know it's trying to start on behalf of user (instead of system or administrator) that has UID 502.

You can get particular user's account name with id -u -n 502.

I'd look at following places:

Login items

Go to System Preferences->Users &amp; Groups. Choose appropriate user and select Login Items tab.

Look if you recognize uninstalled applications in the list and delete them. You have to select the app and press '-' beneath the list.

Launchd

Start the terminal. Enter launchctl list and see if you find uninstalled apps in there. False entries can be removed by launchctl remove label, for example launchctl remove de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver.

Repeat the process, but this time prepend sudo to commands, like sudo launchctl list, to catch all the apps executed in system context.

You can find out more about launchd and launchctl by entering man launchd and man launchctl.

Launchd configurations

Look into following directories (from man launchctl):


~/Library/LaunchAgents - Per-user agents provided by the user
~/Library/LaunchAgents - Per-user agents provided by the administrator
/Library/LaunchDaemons - System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
/System/Library/LaunchAgents - OS X Per-user agents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons - OS X System wide daemons


If you find a file referring to uninstalled app, remove it (you'll need to sudo rm for items in 3, 4 &amp; 5).

More about those files in http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html especially 'The launchd Startup Process'.