Mac OSX Hints

Airport Utility 6.0 was released a few days ago.

You may want to keep both 5.6 and 6.0 versions. I used Pacifist, and manually reinstalled the 5.6 version side by side. Lots of missing features in the new utility. No way to tweak wireless options for Mode, Frequency, Multicast Rate or Transmit Power, and such a tiny window for port mapping list. An elegant interface, but at a price.

For a thorough review and pointers to stand alone updates, read here.

[crarko adds: Consider this a public service announcement. It also appears that AirPort Utility 6.0 only functions with the 802.11(n) compatible base stations, so that old AirPort Express you may have (like I do) is not supported. I've actually saved many older versions of the utility, even for the original Graphite (flying saucer) bases.]

This is a feature that allows you to see the Exposé of an app that is in the background. You'll need a Trackpad.

In OS X 10.7, the four-finger swipe down toggles app Exposé for the app in the foreground. Except if you place the cursor on the icon of a running app in the Dock, in which case the four-finger down swipe toggles the app exposé of THAT app, not the application that is in the foreground.

If you swipe down again without selecting a window from the Exposé view, you are taken back to the app you were in before toggling Exposé.

[crarko adds: I'd love to test this, but my Lion system is still trying to finish installing the 10.7.3 update, which has already taken considerably longer than anticipated.]

Here's a way to use AppleScript and the 'say' command to have the computer sing happy birthday to you. Enjoy! set currentUser to long user name of (get system info) set firstName to first word of currentUser set lastName to last word of currentUser set noteValues to {56, 56, 58, 56, 61, 60, 50, 56, 56, 58, 56, 63, 61, 50, 56, 56, 68, 65, 61, 60, 58, 50, 66, 66, 65, 61, 63, 61} -- F -- set noteValues to {65, 65, 67, 65, 70, 69, 60, 65, 65, 67, 65, 72, 70, 60, 65, 65, 77, 74, 70, 69, 67, 60, 75, 75, 74, 70, 72, 70} -- D -- set noteValues to {55, 55, 57, 55, 60, 59, 50, 55, 55, 57, 55, 62, 60, 50, 55, 55, 67, 64, 60, 59, 57, 50, 65, 65, 64, 60, 62, 60} -- E set syllables to {"hap", "p", "birth", "day", "to", "you", "[[slnc 500]]", "hap", "p", "birth", "day", "to", "you", "[[slnc 500]]", "hap", "p", "birth ...

If you plan to update your OS X Server to 10.7.2 be sure to restart your machine and stop all server services, especially iCal Server and Address book server before applying the update.

It happened to me yesterday that I applied the OS X 10.7.2 update to my Mac mini server without closing any apps. I just ran it. After the update it turned out, this was a big mistake. All calendar entries of the past three weeks and many contacts were lost.

I was not able to recover anything from time machine. Lion server keeps the CalDAV and CardDAV data in a PostgreSQL database which is apparently not backed up by TimeMachine. Also, the PostgreSQL uses transactions which need to be 'closed' before they end up being permanently written into the DB tables.

What I found from reviewing the postgres log file (/Library/Logs/PostgreSQL.log) is that the 10.7.2 server update will apply a whole bunch of database structure updates to PostgreSQL but without ...

To get the Photo Stream working on my MacBook I found out that I had to BUY an upgrade for an application that I don't want: iPhoto.

Looking for a solution I found that iPhoto stores its pictures in a specific location and the Photo Stream is updated even if iPhoto is not running. The goal was to create a script that copies all of the images from many sub-directories into a single folder.

As there are many people who know a lot more about OSX I would welcome improvements and feedback. Some areas to look at:

• Using 'without replacing' which would only copy the missing pictures.
• A Folder action which monitors changes and runs the script automatically.

Here's the script: tell application "Finder" set this_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:duittenb:Library:Appl ...

I finally upgraded to Lion on my work computer and bid farewell to the wonderful Hyperspaces application. I used all 16 spaces and was loathe to make the jump to Mission Control.

After upgrading many apps were not respecting being assigned to specific desktops or to all desktops. At first I tried unassigning them in the Dock and reassigning them to their previous desktop or all desktops, but it didn't work.

Here is the solution I found:

• If an app assigned to a particular desktop wasn't staying put, I had to assign it to all desktops, and then reassign it to desktop N.
• If the app was not respecting assignment to all desktops, I had to assign it to a specific desktop, and then reassign it to all.

Apparently setting it to 'None' does not clear the previous assignment.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one.]

The just released OS X 10.7.3 has a new Safari version but the old FDisplay Sleep Issue on HTML5 Video was still not fixed, so I started to look around for a solution and it seems that it is a WebKit Bug, and I made a workaround for this.

Go to the WebKit Project home page and download the latest Nightly Build; it has worked for me so far.

Put it into your Applications Folder and launch, and the browser launches as Safari containing all settings and features, so go to Settings and make WebKit your default browser.

Next download and install the RCDefaultApp PrefPane launch it and go under the application pane to WebKit and enable all file associations and actions.

Safari is no longer the default, now go to the Extensions Pane and search for the safariextz Extension, set it to open with WebKit as well, now you are done, Safari is still there a ...

I have an Apple TV2 hooked up to a DVI monitor by HDMI, an arrangement which doesn't support audio.

As the Apple TV2 also has SPDIF optical out, I connected this into my 2011 iMac's optical input so I could hear the ATV sound from the Mac. Looking at the sound input in System Preferences, I could see the connection was working, but I heard nothing from the iMac speakers, even though they were chosen for output. Then it dawned on me that the iMac likely didn't support audio passthrough.

I recalled that QuickTime Player could record audio from an input. So in QT I chose New Audio Recording, chose 'Digital in' as the input, and then slid the volume slider so I could monitor the audio. Works like a treat. There's no need to actually record anything in QuickTime Player.

[crarko adds: A clever solution. I have my Apple TV2 hooked up using the standard HDMI setup, so I did not test this.]

Heavy users of Spaces from Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 may be wary of upgrading to Lion, as it's been completely replaced by Mission Control, which apparently does its own workspaces thing.

Well, actually, the workspaces in Mission Control are the same as the Spaces from (Snow) Leopard. The biggest difference is that they are now one-dimensional.

But the important thing is that application bindings to spaces still works, even though the preferences to set them have been removed from System Preferences. If you already had this setup from 10.5/10.6, the settings should transfer over to Lion. Even so, you may want to modify them given the new behaviors.

Here is a small guide on how to set this up. I'm sure there are commands that could make this easier, and I hope that commenters will supply them. Actually, my real hope is that someone will code up a GUI for doing this.

The settings are in the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. You ...

This hint describes how to easily see all the emails in one conversation without having to open them and scroll through.

If you have your emails 'organized by conversation' you will see in the email list in the left column the number of emails in that conversation. You can just click on the email showing in the left-hand column and hit the Right arrow key. This causes all the emails in that conversation be shown in a drop-down list by date, one on each line, below the latest one. To undo the list, press the Left arrow key.

[crarko adds: This is one of those obvious shortcuts that can hide forever if not mentioned.]

StartNinja turns off the OSX Lion system start up chime / sound. It is a free utility that you can download here.

There are often times when I am in a public location and forgot to turn off the sound on my MacBook. Subsequently, a loud bong happens. Now there is a quick and easy solution for OSX Lion machines; StartNinja. StartNinja turns off the OSX Lion system start up chime/sound.

[crarko adds: Does what it says. There are some instructions on the download page. It's a useful utility if you need it.]

Bing has those nice images on www.bing.com and every day they have a new one. I have put together a small python script which fetches today's image and displays it on the desktop.

Note: you will need to manually create the DeskFeed folder inside your Pictures folder.

Here's the script: #!/usr/bin/env python import os import md5 import pprint import sys import subprocess from time import strftime from urllib import URLopener from urllib2 import urlopen from xml.dom.minidom import parseString # Defines source and destination of image rss_feed = 'http://feeds.feedburner.com/bingimages'; dst_dir = os.path.expanduser('~/Pictures/DeskFeed/') SCRIPT = """/usr/bin/osascript<<END tell application "Finder" set desktop picture to POSIX file "%s" end tell END""" def set_desktop_backgroun ...

I have Mac OS X check for updates daily and automatically download any updates. However, only when I log in as an administrator do I get a dialog box informing of the existence of updates.

I wrote a short AppleScript to take care of the issue. Note that the script does not check for updates itself but relies on OS X's checking it in the background so it requires that the options to check for updates periodically and download updates automatically be checked in the Software Update preference pane.

Create the following script in the AppleScript Editor and save it as an application: -- A script alerting non-administrator users about available downloaded -- software updates set updates_no to do shell script "defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate LastUpdatesAvailable" ...

Your iOS device's headphones with remote controls also start/pause/ffwd/volume change your Mac.

Plugging your iOS headphones (with remote control) into your Mac, the headphone remote functions will change volume, pause, fastfwd, rewind and track skip iTunes.

Tested on MacBook Pro mid-2010 with OS X 10.7.2

[crarko adds: This is an update to an earlier hint. I see in the comments of the previous hint that there are some Mac laptop models this didn't work on.]

Not sure if this was available before 10.7, but hitting Control+T while running a command in the Terminal will show what process is executing, the load, the PID of the process and its user and kernel time.

I was running a script and accidentally hit Control+T instead of Command+T to create a new tab. I was surprised at what I got. Here is an example of what gets printed: # buildOrder.py load: 2.51 cmd: p4 15179 running 0.00u 0.00s load: 2.23 cmd: p4 17962 waiting 0.01u 0.00s load: 2.53 cmd: Python 15167 running 94.68u 66.33s load: 2.60 cmd: Python 15167 running 150.71u 101.82s
[crarko adds: I wasn't able to reproduce this, but it may be due to the briefness of the running command. Give it a try and post a comment about your results. Try it in Snow Leopard too if you ...

File Vault 2 and embedded 'Recovery HD' disk are new additions to OS X in Lion release.  

A fresh OS X Lion installation creates 'Recovery HD' by live re-partitioning 'Macintosh HD'. The recovery disk is 650MB in size (as of 10.7.2), of partition type Apple_Boot, and therefore, will be hidden during normal usage by OS X user interface. It does not show up in Finder, and not even 'Disk Utility.'

If the recovery disk 'Recovery HD' is proper, booting up a Mac without File Vault 2 while holding down the Option key will result in listing 'Recovery HD' as an alternative to 'Macintosh HD' for booting the machine up. For Macs with File Vault 2, only holding down the Cmd+R key combination will boot 'Recovery HD.'

The 'Recovery HD' of a Mac without File Vault 2 contains 'Base System Install', which is a minimal OS X kernel plus useful utility applications (Disk Utility, Time Machine, Network Utility, Pasword Utility). The main purpose is to allow partitio ...

Maybe everybody already knows this, but I missed it in all the new features of iOS 5. The iPad mail app adds a new gesture to show and hide the message list window when in portrait orientation.

I always use my iPad's Mail app in landscape mode because I get to see my message list in addition to the message detail. And for some reason, I find it tedious to push the mailbox button at the top left of the screen to see the message list. iOS 5 added the ability to swipe right anywhere on the message window to pop up the message list and to swipe left to hide it again. Nice! Not having to move my finger six inches has somehow made portrait mode much more bearable for me.

[crarko adds: Well, I didn't know it either, so here's the hint. I also was a landscape mode only iPad mail user.]

Every now and then I poke around the web to see if someone has found a way to search InDesign files with Spotlight. For many users of InDesign, this missing capability has been a point of frustration since Spotlight was introduced with Tiger back in April of 2005. Now there's a little something for anyone running InDesign CS5 or CS5.5.

Over in the Adobe forums, John Hawkinson put together a plugin. He recommends installing it, then using Terminal to re-index specific files or folders using:

mdimport /Users/UserName/Path/To/File/Or/Folder

I installed the latest version of his plugin (version 0.1c) into ~/Library/Spotlight then ran the mdimport command on my Documents folder. While he's explicit that this is alpha software, I've seen no issues and it seems to work very well. Thanks, John!

[crarko ad ...

I'm a happy user of the Logitech Solar Keyboard for Mac -- never having to change batteries is quite liberating. However, this keyboard lacks a few things, including dedicated Scroll Lock and Num Lock keys, that you may find on other keyboards.

I don't use those two keys often, but I do use them while working in Excel. After some trial and error, and some Googling, I figured out how to turn them on and off. (Because there aren't any physical keys, there aren't any indicator lights for these keys' states. Instead, you have to look at Excel's onscreen indicators, at the lower right corner of the worksheet.)

Scroll Lock: Press Shift+F14.
Num Lock: Press Shift+Clear (on the numeric keypad).

I'm not sure if these shortcuts work on other Logitech keyboards or not.

[crarko adds: The hassle of dealing with batteries has kept me away from wireless keyboard ...

There's a recent Macworld article for quickly making Stickies. I thought that some folks might want to make Sticky Widgets instead.

This is derived from my hint posted a few years ago.

Depending on your system version (and possibly other factors), you may need to launch Dashboard at least once if you haven't since system startup before trying the Service.

Here are the simple steps:

• Open Automator and create an empty Mac OS X Service document. In the document window set the first popup to text and the second pop-up to any application.
• Drag a Run AppleScript action into the right side of the Automator document window. Then paste the following line into the Run AppleScript step just beneath the (* Your script goes here *) line: ...