Mac OS X Tips

A place to share your GeekTool setups

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-11-19T18:33:19+00:00

I've mentioned GeekTool a couple of times before, and it has recently been updated to version 3. The best thing about the update is how much simpler the interface is. Before the interface was a bit intimidating, but now it is much easier to use.

For those who don’t know, GeekTool is a preference pane that allows you to display different kinds of information on your desktop. These bits of information are called Geeklets, and they can be text, images, files, and the output of shell commands. Some of the most common things to use it for are displaying to do lists, today’s iCal events, the date, the current iTunes song and unread mail.

The latest version now allows you to save your Geeklets and share them with each other, so I’ve created a site just for that. It allows you to submit your Geeklets and vote on others to see which are most popular. If you are new to this, it also has a page for getting started with GeekTool.

Here are a few tips for using GeekTool.

1. Set stacking order
If you have overlapping Geeklets, you might find that the wrong one is on top. Just right-click on the Geeklet and change the order by choosing “Send to back” or one of the other options.

2. Don’t set refresh to zero
By default, GeekTool sets the refresh time to 0, which means it continuously refreshes as quick as it can. It is best to avoid this as it can take a considerable toll on your system, hogging resources and slowing things down. For things that really have to be updated very regularly, consider a refresh time of 5 or 10 seconds instead.

3. Group your Geeklets
By putting your Geeklets into separate groups, you can quickly and easily enable and disable them based on their grouping. Note that Geeklets can be in multiple groups - as long as one of the is enabled, the Geeklet will be shown.

4. Use the menubar item
GeekTool now has a menubar item that you can enable from the preference pane. From here you can enable and disable groups, force a refresh on all Geeklets, disable GeekTool, and access the preference pane.

5. Check out other people’s Geeklets
Check out the Geeklets other people have posted to get some inspiration for your desktop. Vote up your favourites, and share your creations too.

Delete large files from a Time Machine Backup

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-27T19:39:19+00:00

If you are looking to reduce the size of your Time Machine backup, it's quite easy to go through you backups and remove files.

Just enter Time Machine, locate the file you want to delete, right-click on it and choose "Delete All Backups..." But which files do you delete?

You want to get rid of large files, but not those that are important. The best way to do this is to use an application called GrandPerspective. Pierce Wetter has created a modified version of this application specifically for Time Machine backups.

It searches through your backups, and finds large files that have only been backed up once. These will be the files that either constantly change by small amounts or were only on your Mac for a very short time.

It then produces a nice "map" of your backup, so you can easily see which files are taking up the most space. Hold you mouse over one of large boxes, and make a note of the backup date and location, shown at the bottom. Then just enter Time Machine, go to the date, and remove the backup as usual.

If you find that a lot of the files you are removing are in the same location, you might want to exclude that folder from the Time Machine backup. To do this, just go to the Time Machine section of System Preferences, click the Options button and then drag the folder into the list.

Fix "Copy Address" in Snow Leopard Mail

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-26T15:26:09+00:00

Here's a tip I just read over at the brilliant Hawk Wings blog.

You can copy a person's email address in Mail by clicking on their name and choosing "Copy Address from the contextual menu. For some reason, Snow Leopard will copy the email address in angle brackets, instead of just the address. So when pasting you will get instead of just matt@macosxtips.co.uk.

This might be useful for some people, but I really prefer the previous behaviour. To change the behaviour of Mail back to the old way without angle brackets, just use the following Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

To run it, open up Terminal located in Applications/Utilities. Paste in the line, then hit return. Quit Mail if it is open, and now when you next open it you won't get any angle brackets when copying addresses.

Top 15 Terminal Commands for Hidden Settings in Snow Leopard

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-13T21:30:31+01:00

Every time Apple brings out a new version of OS X, we compile a list of our favourite Terminal commands for enabling hidden features and changing hidden settings (here are the lists for Tiger and Leopard).

For those who are new to Terminal Commands, here's a quick run down of how to use them. Don't worry, it's really easy. Start by opening up Terminal, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. In the window that appears, paste in one of the lines provided below, and then hit return. For the changes to take effect, you need to restart the application concerned. For applications like the Dock or Finder, it is easiest to just type killall Dock or killall Finder into the Terminal to restart them. To reverse the changes, you just need to change the last word of the command and run it again. If the last word is YES, change it to NO, change 1 to 0, and change TRUE to FALSE and vice versa for all.

1. Folder previews in Quick Look

This is my favourite hidden feature in Snow Leopard. When enabled, using Quick Look (hit the space bar) on a folder will show you a preview of the folder's contents inside a translucent folder icon. The previews of the files inside the folder also cycle through so you can see all of them. Just use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1

You will need to restart the Finder, either by typing killall Finder into the Terminal or by Control-Option-clicking on the Finder in the Dock and choosing Relaunch.

2. Globally enable Text Substitutions

You may have realised that the new text substitutions feature in Snow Leopard isn't enabled in all applications by default, most noticeably in Safari. To enable it , you need to right-click on a text box and choose Substitutions then Show Substitutions. To globally enable text substitutions, use the following three commands one at a time. The first one will enable substitutions, while the second will enable dash replacement and the third will enable spell checking.

defaults write -g WebAutomaticTextReplacementEnabled -bool true
defaults write -g WebAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled -bool true
defaults write -g WebContinuousSpellCheckingEnabled -bool true

If you decide there are some specific applications where you want to disable these again, you can do it in the normal way. As always you will need to restart each application for the changes to take effect.

3. Bring back AppleScript Studio palette

As of Snow Leopard, AppleScript Studio has be deprecated in favour of AppleScriptObjC. You can still work on AppleScript Studio projects, but you can't create new ones, and the AppleScript Studio palette in Interface Builder is gone. To bring it back, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.InterfaceBuilder3 IBEnableAppleScriptStudioSupport -bool YES

4. Disable "focus follows mouse" in Terminal

In Leopard there was a Terminal command to make the Terminal's window focus change with mouse movement. If you had previously enabled this, you will find things don't work quite right in Snow Leopard when you use Command-Tab to switch between applications in different spaces. To fix this, you will need to disable the focus follows mouse behaviour using the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string NO

5. Force Dictionary to only use one window

If you aren't a fan of using Command-Control-D to quickly look up definitions, you might use the "Look up in Dictionary" contextual menu item or Services menu item. In Snow Leopard, each word you look up using these methods opens in a new Dictionary window, which gets a bit annoying. To make each word you look up open in the same window, just use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Dictionary ProhibitNewWindowForRequest -bool TRUE

6. Change the behaviour of the green zoom button in iTunes

With the release of iTunes 9, Apple messed around a bit with the behaviour of the green zoom button in iTunes. Things are back to normal as of iTunes 9.01, but briefly the green button maximised the window instead of switching to the mini-player. If you liked the temporary change, you can bring it back using the following command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes zoom-to-window -bool YES

Of course, you can always get the alternative behaviour by holding the Option key and clicking in the green button.

7. Debug menu in Address Book

The debug menu has been available in Address Book for some time, but there are some new additions in Snow Leopard. If you don't already have it enabled, the command is:

defaults write com.apple.AddressBook ABShowDebugMenu -bool true

Restart Address Book, and then click Debug in the menu bar to see the new options. You can enable reflections under contacts pictures, get to the "People Picker Panel" and enable a debug panel called "Ye Olde Debug Settings".

8. Autoplay movies in QuickTime X

One of the weird things about the new version of QuickTime is that it has no Preferences. Luckily you can still change things using the Terminal. To make a movie automatically start playing when you open it, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

9. Keep QuickTime in full screen when switching applications

If you are watching a movie in full screen in QuickTime and you use Command-Tab to switch to another application then the movie will automatically exit full screen. To make it stay full screen in the background, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGFullScreenExitOnAppSwitch 0

10. Disable Rounded corners in QuickTime

If the slightly rounded corners of movies in QuickTime bug you, use the following command to disable them:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGCinematicWindowDebugForceNoRoundedCorners 1

11. Always or Never show titlebar and Controller in QuickTime

The following two commands either permanently enable or disable the titlebar and controller that pop up when you mouse over a movie in QuickTime:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGUIVisibilityNeverAutoshow 1
defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGUIVisibilityNeverAutohide 1

12. Automatically show closed captioning and subtitles on opening

This turns on subtitles and closed captioning automatically when you open a movie that supports them.

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGEnableCCAndSubtitlesOnOpen 1

13. Make list view stacks work like grid view Stacks

This command slightly changes the behaviour in Stacks in list view. Once enabled, they act more like grid view Stacks, but with a single list of files and icons on the left. The main difference is when "drilling-down" through folders within the Stack.

defaults write com.apple.dock use-new-list-stack -bool YES

You will need to restart the Dock for changes to take effect. The easiest way is to use killall Dock in the Terminal.

14. Enable mouseover highlight in stacks

If you want items in grid view stacks to highlight when you move the mouse over them, use the following command. It's slightly different from the equivalent in Leopard. Also, note that you can get the highlight behaviour in Snow Leopard without using this command by using the arrow keys to select items in a stack, or by clicking and holding on a stack before dragging the mouse up onto the grid.

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilite-stack -boolean yes

You will need to restart the Dock for changes to take effect. The easiest way is to use killall Dock in the Terminal.

15. Set a precise screensaver password delay

A useful new feature of Snow Leopard is the ability to set how long your Mac is asleep or how long the screen saver is on before it requires a password to wake up again. You can access this from the Security section of System Preferences. However, you have to choose a time period from a drop-down menu, and you can't enter your own custom time period. To do this, use the following command. The number at the end is the time in seconds. For example 1800 is 30 minutes, which bizarrely isn't an option in the drop-down menu.

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay -int 1800

Crop multiple pages in Preview

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-02T19:33:27+01:00

If you find you have a multi-page PDF with huge margins on every page, you can use Preview to crop those margins down.

With the PDF open in Preview, make sure that the sidebar is visible (in the View menu) and set it to display thumbnails using the button at the bottom.

Change to the select tool using the toolbar button, the Tools menu or by pressing Command-3. Drag a box around the region you want to keep, then click in the sidebar and press Command-A to select all pages.

If you have some pages that are a different orientation (i.e. landscape), you can hold Command and click on these pages to de-select them.

Finally, choose Crop from the Tools menu, or just press Command-K.

Welcome to our new sponsor: TotalApps

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-01T14:39:53+01:00

Just a quick welcome to our latest sponsor, TotalApps.net. It looks like they've got some really good detailed reviews of Mac and iPhone apps, as well as some great competitions. Be sure to check them out.

Disable File Extension Warning

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-10-01T14:18:55+01:00

If you often find yourself changing file extensions, you might be tired of the annoying "Are you sure you want to change the extension..." dialog box. For example I often end up changing the extensions of text files from .txt to .html.

Luckily, you can disable this warning quite easily. Just go to the Finder Preferences (under the Finder menu in the top left) and click on the Advanced tab. In here, un-check the checkbox "Show warning before changing an extension".

Now whenever you change a file extension, you won't be presented with an "Are you sure" warning.

How to use Network Utility

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-09-28T14:42:24+01:00

You'll find Network Utility in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. It comes free with every Mac, and it's great for figuring out what the problem is with a dodgy internet connection.

Everything you can do in Network Utility you can actually do in a Terminal window using unix tools. But why go to all that effort when Apple have created a nice application that lets you do things much more easily.

When you first open up Network Utility you will see nine tabs along the top [Update: eight in Snow Leopard]. Here's a run through of what you can do in each tab.

1. Info

The first tab, Info, unsurprisingly gives you general information about your network. The Network Interface drop-down menu shows all the different ways your Mac can connect to the Network. Typically these are ethernet, wireless and Firewire.

The useful bits of information are the Hardware Address and IP Address. You will only have an IP address if that network interface is connected, otherwise it will say unknown. The Hardware Address, otherwise known as a MAC address, can be used to uniquely identify your computer (even though it is possible to change it).

One useful way to use the MAC address is when setting up your wireless router. You can set most routers to only allow specific MAC addresses to join, meaning other people can't log onto your wireless and connect to the internet.

2. Netstat

Netstat is a tool that is really useful to network administrators for troubleshooting, but pretty useless to the average user. If you choose "Display routing table information" and click Netstat, you will get a list that contains all the computers on the network. For example, I get Matts-Macbook, Matts-iPhone and ChrisG5.

If you choose "Display the state of all current socket connections" and click Netstat you'll see a list of your computer's network connections. For example, the first items on the list will correspond to any web pages you have open. If you type the numbers under "Foreign Address" into Safari, the web page will sometimes appear.

3. AppleTalk

The AppleTalk tab is very similar to the Netstat tab, but specifically for Apple's proprietary protocol called AppleTalk. It was very popular in the early days of the Mac, but now has been pretty much abandoned and is unsupported in Snow Leopard. You can read more about AppleTalk on its Wikipedia page.
[Update: The AppleTalk tab is completely gone in Snow Leopard]

4. Ping

Ping is a tool to check if an internet address is working. When you "ping" an address, you send a small bit of data which it sends back.

You can use this to check if a website is down if it isn't loading in Safari. Alternatively, if you think your internet connection is down, you can try pinging sites that almost never go down like google.com and bbc.co.uk to see if you have a problem on your end.

5. Lookup

Lookup allows you to get information about a web site or IP address. The drop-down menu allows you to choose from a number of different types of information. For example, performing a Name Server lookup on macosxtips.co.uk will tell you that this site is hosted by Dreamhost, and a MX record lookup will tell you that our email is handled by Google.

6. Traceroute

When you enter an address and click Trace, traceroute will show you the route taken by data sent between you and the server. It allows you to see all the servers that your data goes through along the way.

You can use this to troubleshoot connection problems by finding out the point where your data is being blocked.

You can also use it when you are downloading a file and have multiple download mirrors in different locations to choose from. Just type the addresses of the mirrors into traceroute and you can get a good idea of which mirror is fastest.

7. Whois

The Whois database gives you information about internet addresses and who has registered them. The default whois server whois.internic.net works quite well for most addresses, but you might have to type "domain apple.com" for example to get it to work. For .co.uk addresses use "whois.nic.uk" as the whois server. You will get information like the registrant, their address, who they registered with, when their registration was started and and when it expires.

8. Finger

Finger, created in 1971, is one of the earliest forms of status updates that are now done using Facebook and Twitter. It's hardly used anymore, but you can use finger to check if your friends are online, and you can post .plan files to your profile similar to blog posts.

One of the best ways to use finger is to type in your username or the username of another user on your Mac. It will tell you if they/you are currently logged in and how long since they/you last logged in.

9. Port Scan

The final tab in Network Utility, Port Scan, is for scanning which ports are open at a certain address. These Network ports are a sort of virtual version of the ports on the side of your computer, and each port is for a certain type of network traffic. For example, port 80 is used for web pages.

You can use Port Scan to test your own computer by typing in the name of your Mac followed by ".local". You can find this name in the Sharing section of System Preferences.

Things like iTunes sharing, instant messaging, BitTorrent, AFP and SMB sharing all use different ports. If you find that one of these isn't working, it might be because your firewall is blocking the port that it uses. Instead of turning off your firewall, you can just set it to open that port.

Just run Port Scan with the application or sharing turned off and then again with it turn on to see which port appears. You can then set your firewall to open this port and allow network traffic through. Note that the built in firewall that comes with Mac OS X works on a per application basis rather than a port basis, to keep things simpler for the average user.

Customize default fields for new messages in Mail

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-09-27T15:50:07+01:00

When you create a new message in Mail, you will specify who the message is to and the Subject. However, there are a lot of other fields that aren't enabled by default. You can change what appears by clicking on the button in the bottom left of the toolbar and choosing "Customize..." from the list.

You can enable a signature drop down menu, a priority drop down menu, a Reply to field and drop down menus for choosing which account to send from.

For me, Cc and Bcc were already enabled, and I chose to disable them as I almost never use them.

9 Tips for iTunes 9

matt@macosxtips.co.uk — 2009-09-25T19:34:36+01:00

iTunes 9 has been out for a little while now, so here is a collection of tips and tricks that are new in this version.

1. Nested rules for smart playlists

As well as the plus and minus buttons for adding multiple rules to a smart playlist, there is now an ellipsis button for adding nested rules. Whereas before you could only set it to match any or all of the rules, now you can make more complex rule combinations.

For example, you could set the first rule, then add two rules at the first nested level by clicking the ellipsis button and then the nested plus button. By then setting the top level to match all rules, and the nested level to match any rules, it will find songs that match both the first rule and either of the two nested rules.

2. Automatically Add to iTunes folder

iTunes stores all of your music inside the iTunes Music (or iTunes Media if you haven't had a previous version of iTunes) located inside the Music folder in your user folder. There is a new addition inside the iTunes Music folder called "Automatically Add to iTunes". Anything that you drop into this folder will be added to iTunes next time it opens, or instantly if it is already open.

This folder isn't in a very convenient place, so to use it properly you will want to drag it to the Dock or Finder sidebar, or create an alias on the desktop by holding Command and Option and dragging it.

Another great use for this is for copying music across a network to another Mac. Instead of having to go over to the receiving Mac and opening up iTunes to import the music, you can just drop the files in this folder directly from the sending Mac.

3. Organise the iTunes Media folder

The disorganisation of the iTunes Music folder really shows how iTunes has far outgrown its original purpose. Every time Apple has added a new feature, things have become more muddled. Up until now, Movies, TV Shows, Audiobooks and Ringtones etc. have been added as subfolders of the Music folder, which doesn't really make sense.

To fix this, you can choose “Organize Library” under “Library” in the File menu. In the window that appears, click “Upgrade to iTunes Media organization” and when you click OK, iTunes will sort out the mess in your iTunes Music folder. You will now have an iTunes Media folder, with subfolders for Music, Movies, Apps, TV Shows etc.

There is one reason you might want to avoid doing this however. Your next Time Machine Backup will probably take a long time, depending on the size of your media library.

4. Customize the column browser

The column browser in iTunes 9 is better than ever. You can enable it by choosing Show Column Browser from the View menu or by pressing Command-B. The new features that allow you to customise it are located in the Column Browser submenu of the View menu. You can position it to the top or to the side of the main music list, and you can choose which columns appear from Genre, Artist, Album, Composers, and Groupings.

Each playlist can also have its own browser. Apple have demonstrated this by adding a "Classical Music" playlist which has the Composer and Grouping columns, for those who group their music by Composer or Symphony rather than by Artist and Album.

5. Edit your iPhone's app screen

There is a new page for managing which Apps you want to sync to your iPhone and how you want to position them on your iPhone. When you have your iPhone or iPod Touch plugged in, just click on it in the sidebar and then go to the Applications tab.

It's fairly basic, but it's still loads quicker than organising your apps on the iPhone device. There are two major benefits: Firstly, you can drag and entire screen of apps in the list on the right to change the ordering on the screen. Secondly, you can hold Command when clicking apps to select more than one at a time and move them all together.

6. Different way to access the mini player

When you first download iTunes 9, you might think that the mini player is gone. Clicking the green zoom button in the top left now just changes the size of the itunes window instead of changing to the mini player. Now you have to hold Option when clicking the green button to get the old behaviour back.

Update:
This appears to have changed back to normal with the iTunes 9.01 upgrade. If you liked the new 9.0 behaviour, simply use the following Terminal command to change it back:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes zoom-to-window -bool YES

7. Make Genius Mixes appear

One of the best new features in iTunes 9 is Genius mixes, a collection of ready made playlists that iTunes creates by analysing your music library. Unfortunately, it doesn't always appear right away. If you can't find Genius Mixes in the sidebar, choose "Update Genius" from the Store menu and it should appear.

8. The shopping cart is gone

If you had the iTunes store set up to add items to a shopping cart instead of buying straight away, unfortunately the shopping cart is now gone. It has been replaced by a Wish List, which works in pretty much the same way. Just click the arrow to the right of "Buy Now" and select "Add to Wish List". Also, in theory, all the items from your shopping cart should have moved over into your wish list.

9. Home sharing

The new home sharing feature allows you to actually share your music between computers, rather than just stream it across the network. This makes it a lot more easier to transfer your purchases between computers without having to use flash drives or email attachments.

When iTunes is open on other computers on the network, they will show up in the sidebar. Simply click on them, then choose any songs to transfer to your computer. This works with any media type including Movies and TV Shows, and it doesn't matter if the media was purchased from iTunes or not. On top of that, you can filter the list to only songs that you don't already have in your library, and you can set iTunes to automatically copy across any new songs that are purchased on the other computer.

However, things become a bit more complicated if you use multiple iTunes Store accounts (i.e. a different one for each computer). The iTunes Store doesn't have to be logged into the same account on both, but Home Sharing does have to be set up with the same account. If you find it isn't working, turn Home Sharing off and then on again from the Advanced menu. Then re-enter the iTunes Store account username and password, making sure you use the same account on each computer. Even though you only use one account for home sharing, you should be able to share songs purchased with either account, as long as both computers are authorised to play them.