Here’s another good fix for a MacOS X default-
How to expand all Open/Save Dialogs on MacOS X:
defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE
One of the more interesting features of MacOS X 10.7 Lion is the ad-hoc, wireless, peer to peer networking feature called AirDrop. Unfortunately, this is only supported on the very latest hardware. It turns out that you can easily enable AirDrop for many older Lion systems with a simple visit to the Terminal.
At the commend line, you need to enter:
defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1
Then, restart the Finder with the following:
killall Finder
Open a new finder window and you should now see AirDrop listed on the left-hand side under favorites.
After upgrading to MacOS X Lion 10.7, you’ll find that the system conveniently hides the Library folder in your home directory. If you’re wondering how to view the /Library folder after the upgrade, here’s how.
Of course you can still view it by using the Finder’s “Go to Folder” feature. Just type command-shift-g in the finder and enter:
~/Library/
But if you’d like to keep it visible all the time, you can change the hidden flags on that directory with the following command:
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
update: I just noticed that Dan Frakes over at Macworld has posted a completely over the top 18 ways to view the ~/Library folder in Lion. I think this hint is now complete.
Turning off the Safari option to open “safe” files automatically is generally considered a good security practice. To do this on a single machine, simply visit the Safari preferences and uncheck the box “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” at the bottom of the “General” options.
It turns out that deploying this change to a large number of managed Macs is quite simple as well. The following terminal command can be used to “uncheck” the box en masse using Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) and the “Send Unix Command.”
defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -boolean No
In MacOSX, there are two simple ways to make files invisible from the command line: (both methods do require the installation of Apple’s Developer Tools)
Method 1:
Make invisible:
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V ~/Desktop/MyDoc.txt
Make visible:
SetFile -a v ~/Desktop/MyDoc.txt
Method 2:
Make invisible:
chflags hidden ~/Desktop/MyDoc.txt
Make visible:
chflags nohidden ~/Desktop/MyDoc.txt
In Snow Leopard, Apple modified the behavior of Remote Desktop and Screen Sharing to send system level commands to a remote computer by default. This change has made working with remote computers much more difficult for me.
At long last “MacNoggin” has posted the solution over on MacOSXHints.
Quit Remote Desktop or Screen Sharing, then open Terminal and paste the following codes to toggle these hidden preferences:
defaults write com.apple.RemoteDesktop DoNotSendSystemKeys -bool YES
defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing DoNotSendSystemKeys -bool YES
If you would like to reverse, re-enter the code, but change YES to NO at the very end. And of course, you can always send these “System” commands while in fullscreen mode.
Several years ago, I settled on Chat Transcript Manager from Unsanity to archive and search through my extensive iChat log files. I conduct extensive meetings and have fully integrated IM into my workflow and Chat Transcript Manager was really well designed and easy to use.
Unfortunately, the tool was broken when Apple changed the format directory structure for the iChat log files in Leopard. It doesn’t see the new logs in which are in subdirectories. Unsanity hasn’t updated the software since the end of 2006, but luckily the fix is simply to flatten the logging directory structure.
The chats are stored here:
~/Documents/iChats/
I suggest coping the logs rather than just simply moving just in case something blows up. Don’t for get to set an actual path to your_destination.
find . -name ‘*.ichat’ | xargs -i cp {} /your_destination
After flattening, Chat Transcript Manager has no trouble indexing the files and I was able to pinpoint the conversations I wanted.
Here’s how to re-enable the Locate database in Snow Leopard (MacOS 10.6). Once this LaunchDaemon is loaded, locate services will continue to work- no need to reload.
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist
update: Here’s the error I was getting prior to re-enabling: (so that search engines can find the tip)
WARNING: The locate database (/var/db/locate.database) does not exist.
Note to self:
A few ways to count files in a directory under UNIX:
ls | wc -l
For recursive:
find . -print | wc -l
Using filename matching:
find . -name \*.jpg -print | wc -l
Erica Sadun has posted a simple, nerdy method for checking the availability of the iPhone 3.0 firmware. The idea is to grab the XML returned from the iTunes iPhone software check.
curl -s -L http://phobos.apple.com/version |\
grep -i restore |\
grep ‘_3.’ | open -f
To understand the output, you need to know which model you’re looking for.
iPhone- 1,1
iPhone 3G- 1,2
iPhone 3G S- 2,1
iPod Touch- 1,1
iPod Touch 2G- 2,1
When I see this- I know I’m golden:
iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
[via TUAW]