Category: Tricks

  • Create ISO CD/DVD image with Mac OS X Tiger and Command-line

    1. Insert CD/DVD source 2. Fire up a Terminal, you can then determine the device that is you CD/DVD drive using the following command: $ drutil statusVendor Product RevMATSHITA DVD-R UJ-835E GAND Type: DVD-ROM Name: /dev/disk1 Cur Write: 8x DVD Sessions: 1 Max Write: 8x DVD Tracks: 1Overwritable: 00:00:00 blocks: 0 / 0.00MB / 0.00MiBSpace…

  • Taking Screenshots

    To take a screen shot, hold down the following keyboard shortcuts. * shift + command (the Apple key) + 3 for a shot of the entire screen. * shift + command + 4 for a way of clicking and dragging around the area you want a shot of. * shift + command + 4 then…

  • Folder Actions…..Whhaaattt?

    So I’ve been wondering about Folder Actions for a while now….they are actually quite neat, if you know what they do. This is a feature of the Finder that very few people use, yet it is so powerful. Folder actions allow you to perform an action to any file that is dropped into the folder.…

  • Rectangular Selections

    Many Mac OS X applications allow rectangular selections. That is, selecting multiple lines of text, without having to select up to the end of each line. This can be useful if you have created a text formatted table, and want to select an entire column, or if you want to modify the same thing on…

  • Only on a Mac

    So all you Mac freaks….here is something to show your PC friends. Set your system screen saver to something cool (RSS Visualizer) and run the Terminal. At the command line type the following command (make sure your Desktop’s background is not covered with windows): /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background Neat or what? You can stop it using Ctrl-C.

  • Resizing Mac Partitions on-the-fly

    As of OSX 10.4.6 you get a extra bonus if you use the terminal and run diskutil. The new addition is the function resizeVolume. Note that this command works only on Intel Macs with hard disks formatted using the GPT (GUID Partition Table) format with a journaled Hierarchical File System Plus (HFS+) file system. This…

  • Set/Change the default Umask…

    Open Terminal, and then type this command, followed by the Return key: defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences NSUmask # defaults write -g NSUmask -int # The first sets the system default, the second sets the per-user default. The NSUmask may not be honored by software that has not been adapted for OS X. # is the umask…

  • Speed up Sheets…

    Open Terminal, and then type this command, followed by the Return key: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime time where time is a time in seconds from, say, .001 to 2.

  • Disable Guest login in AFS…

    Open Terminal, and then type this command, followed by the Return key: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer guestAccess -bool false

  • Turn off Dashboard…

    Open Terminal, and then type this command, followed by the Return key: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES This tells the system that you no longer wish to have Dashboard available. However, the Dashboard task is actually “owned” by the Dock, so to make your changes take effect, you need to restart the Dock. The…