The macosxhints.com New Comments Feed

10.5: Add Quick Look support for certain file formats

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:54:52 -0800

[Original Article: 10.5: Add Quick Look support for certain file formats • comment by: domantasj]

thanks, ianeiloart

also, in 10.6 (Snow Leopard) the last step should be:

sudo touch /Applications/TextEdit.app/

10.6: Jump to path via global Service

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:42:34 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Jump to path via global Service • comment by: ehunt123]

Open, while it has slowly evolved over the years, can be painful to work with, since Apple tends to have longer paths (~/Applications/App.app), esoteric CFBundleIdentifiers, and I doubt it would be useful to write a sh* frontend to it that parses your Applications by path or MD (spotlight). I stumbled onto this developer's project that still works great in 10.6, called launch. It's open with many more features and lots of things Apple should have copied, er integrated into open. http://www.sabi.net/nriley/software/ Added bonus is it being opensource

Create unmirrored Photo Booth movies

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:46:27 -0800

[Original Article: Create unmirrored Photo Booth movies • comment by: eliogiovanni]

Good morning: I do not understand what means "open the Effects.qtz file in Quartz Composer", what is Quartz Composer? The System proposes to open the file with Quick Time Player. Thank-You. eliogiovanni - Milano, Italy MacBook 2.0 - Snow Leopard

10.6: Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:44:31 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold • comment by: excarnate]

I wondered, too, what this did. Try defaults read com.apple.dock show-expose-menus and see if you get "The domain/default pair of (com.apple.dock, show-expose-menus) does not exist". If so, you probably see what these people want already. To see the new behavior, that I wasn't seeing, try defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -bool yes; killall Dock then click-hold on something running in the dock. I kinda like the new behavior, I switched it on permanently, especially since a right click gives me one-click access to the old way.

Color Terminal screens and ssh revisited yet again

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:50:16 -0800

[Original Article: Color Terminal screens and ssh revisited yet again • comment by: jaserh]

This no longer seems to work for me in Snow Leopard. I get errors like: 247:263: execution error: Terminal got an error: Can�t get window 1 whose name contains "ssh -C -c blowfish -g -i /Users/jason/.ssh/id_rsa jasonh@SOMESERVER.com_342". Invalid index. (-1719) Anyone else having this problem?

How to disable an optical drive

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:50:02 -0800

[Original Article: How to disable an optical drive • comment by: apophasis]

So DVD Player will not run if the Superdrive is unplugged, despite the fact that you can read the DVD from a Firewire external and open it. So it's a DVD Player problem, at this point. My "Super" drive is physically broken and cycling really annoyingly, so I'd like to unplug it, but can't watch DVD's in DVD Player like that. Maybe another player? Otherwise, issues are solved, sort of.

10.5: Reconnect Time Machine backup after drive swap

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:46:34 -0800

[Original Article: 10.5: Reconnect Time Machine backup after drive swap • comment by: badtux]

This doesn't appear to work under Snow Leopard. Problem #1: fsaclctl does not exist in Snow Leopard. Solution: Install /usr/sbin/fsaclctl out of the Leopard install disk that came with my Macbook Pro, from /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/BSD.pkg , using whatever pkg extractor you desire (I used Pacifist) to make it work (extract only the single file, not the whole thing!). Problem #2, even after executing the commands in question with the up-to-date disk UID, Time Machine did a full backup of my just-restored data anyhow the next time it ran. So obviously something changed in Time Machine between 10.5 and 10.6 that broke this hint. Sigh!

10.6: Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:32:47 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold • comment by: thyvillageidiot]

What kind of behavior does this evoke exactly?

How to disable an optical drive

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:49:01 -0800

[Original Article: How to disable an optical drive • comment by: apophasis]

Okay, I went back in and unplugged the Superdrive, so that's that. And now when I insert a DVD in the FW drive, it shows up in System Profiler, DVD appears on the desktop with the right name... But when I try to play it with DVD player, I get "There was an initialization error. A valid DVD drive could not be found. [-70012]. Help! Ironically enough, I appear to have disabled my optical drive, all right...

How to disable an optical drive

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:14:16 -0800

[Original Article: How to disable an optical drive • comment by: apophasis]

G4 Titanium PB 1Ghz DVI Superdrive. Superdrive failed, eating my hardware test disk. I opened it up and took the disk out. Upon boot, the newly-empty Superdrive started cycling endlessly, annoyingly. Looked online, saw this post. Tried deleting IODVDStorageFamily.kext to no avail; upon restart, drive kept up the annoying cycling. Dragged and dropped IODVDStorageFamily.kext back into System > Library> Extensions. Upon restart, my external Firewire DVD drive is no longer recognized; upon opening DVD Player, I get an error message that IODVDStorageFamily.kext was installed improperly, and I should contact the vendor. Also, no DVD drive recognized. Oh, boy. So, my Superdrive is cycling endlessly, and I'd like to stop that. I'm fine with opening the PB up and pulling a plug. Which one? Can I remove the Superdrive entirely? I'm assuming not, as the modem and inverter mount on it, but how can I disable it or stop it from spazzing out? Worse, I cannot now play a DVD from my (recently) working FW DVD drive. A little help, please! And thanks in advance...

10.5: Repair Time Machine after logic board changes

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:49:44 -0800

[Original Article: 10.5: Repair Time Machine after logic board changes • comment by: djsabor]

Hello - I followed the hint listed above, making adjustments for volume names that needed to be enclosed in quotes, etc. Nevertheless, when I unmounted the volume by rebooting the machine, the Time Machine interface offers me only the backups that have been done since the MAC change (from the logic board swap). Have I just lost access to months and months of backups? Is the problem that I let TM complete a full backup using the new MAC before realizing that that was the source of the problem? All commands seemed to have executed correctly, so I'm not sure where to go to troubleshoot from here. Please help.

10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:04:12 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview • comment by: awado]

Assign a keyboard shortcut to that menu entry and you can script it.

10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:52:56 -0800

[Original Article: 10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard • comment by: Adamjr]

Yes, you are quite right, these new developments make dashboard more useful and have reduced the complaints as well. I am pretty much fan of dashboard and love to have updates about it, last day, in a resort i meet with couple of guys, who were working for a cheap webhosting provider, they were also inquiring me about new updates about dashboard.

10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:56:04 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail • comment by: incogenator]

stumbled upon the same a few days ago and thought it was an excellent feature. very useful.

Add more visual effects to iChat and Photo Booth

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:26:34 -0800

[Original Article: Add more visual effects to iChat and Photo Booth • comment by: impiaaa]

I made a script to dramatically simplify this process, here. To run it, unzip it, launch Terminal (Applications/Utilities), then type: python (with a trailing space). Drag and drop the unzipped .py file into the window. Press return.

10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:00:54 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview • comment by: notmicro]

Too bad it isn't scriptable.

10.6: Jump to path via global Service

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:51:08 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Jump to path via global Service • comment by: asmeurer]

I just use the open command with tab completion. It works very well, especially with tab completion set to be case insensitive and automatic using this hint.

Change background color of Notes in Mail

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:52:11 -0800

[Original Article: Change background color of Notes in Mail • comment by: asmeurer]

And strangely, I (and probably most people) didn't notice this until I saw your comment. In fact, I seem to remember reading "fan" in the RSS feed, though it clearly isn't there. Weird how our minds work, isn't it?

Other old shortcuts

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:05:59 -0800

[Original Article: Faster three-finger swipe navigation of PDFs in Preview • comment by: MJCube]

This is probably documented, but just to gather these things here in one place: Also, all along Preview has supported left & right arrows to jump to the next or previous page (no smooth scrolling), as long as the full width of the page is visible, i.e. no horizontal scroll bar. And if the page is wider than the window, Command left & right arrows will still do it.

Set default zoom level in Safari using a CSS file

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:48:44 -0800

[Original Article: Set default zoom level in Safari using a CSS file • comment by: vertigo]

This worked!, although it required a logout to reflect the change. Thanks!

Be Careful with This

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:08:12 -0800

[Original Article: Delete email in Mail without showing next message • comment by: richiesmit]

Thanks for the alert. Now if only this were a wiki, we could put that into the hint body...

10.6: Create a bootable 10.6 partition on an APM drive

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:31:47 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Create a bootable 10.6 partition on an APM drive • comment by: baltwo]

I didn't check. Did you? There's 38 hints referencing bootable volume and I haven't read them, but suspect that a few touch on what's in the hint. Additionally, it's been posted at Apple Discussions and the Bombich Forums (home of CCC).

How should Time Machine be setup?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:25:14 -0800

[Original Article: Make Entourage work well with Time Machine - revisited • comment by: cmcd]

First, thanks for this - definitely an improvement. I followed the instructions and have the new Entourage sparsebundle in ~/Documents. My Time Machine backups are picking it up. In Time Machine preferences, the mounted sparsebundle is excluded from Time Machine backups. Is this correct or should the mounted sparsebundle be included. And, how does a restore work? If I need to recover a previous version, do I just restore the entire sparsebundle file, replacing the current one in ~/Documents? Or can I somehow restore certain files within the sparsebundle file? Regarding the risk of corruption, I've decided to run Time Machine manually, maybe twice a day, preceded by shutting down all Microsoft apps as recommended here http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2009/02/backup_entourage.html#more

10.6: Create a bootable 10.6 partition on an APM drive

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:59:22 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Create a bootable 10.6 partition on an APM drive • comment by: ChadLawson]

As previously mentioned, this is not 10.6 specific. Only GUID is supported for Intel machines and the Install discs will not allow an install to an APM drive in an Intel machine. One early official source: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh2315.html As part of the "Mac OS X Support Essentials" course (book available through Peachpit Press) it is thoroughly covered (and part of the test) that from an official support standpoint, PPC will only boot APM and Intel will only boot Intel. The reality, however, is that an Intel machine will boot either. PPCs will only boot APM, though. So to have a "diagnostic drive" that contains boot and/or installers for either platform, you can/should use APM. In order to get around the technical issue mentioned, my solution is to: 1) Partition an Intel machine as GUID 2) Install Mac OS X 3) Boot off an external drive that contains Disk Utility 4) Make a file-level (New Disk Image from Folder) clone of the drive 5) Partition your "diagnostic drive" as APM and include a space for your new OS 6) Restore the disk image to your drive Using this method, I have an APM drive (triple-interface) with the following: * Boot 10.4 PPC * Boot 10.6 Intel * Install 10.4 PPC * Install 10.4 Intel * Install 10.4 Server * Install 10.5 Client (Universal) * Install 10.5 Server (Universal) * Install 10.6 Client (Intel) * Install 10.6 Server (Intel) * Lastly, a large Tools/Cargo partition for common apps, etc. I've been using this method since the oldest installer on my drive was 10.2 and the newest OS was 10.4 (Intel), so I'm very confident it will work for you. Good luck!

10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:45:14 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail • comment by: j-beda]

Yahoo! I have been using an applescript to do this for the selected message (I tried modifying one of the Mail Scripts by Andreas Amann (see [link:http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html]http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html ) but was not able to do it myself so Andreas did it for me - the other scripts are pretty useful too) This will make that script not as often used as before - combined with the search functionality, this makes it much easier to drill down to a folder of related messages. Hooray again!

A possible fix for invalid sibling links on a hard drive

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:54:32 -0800

[Original Article: A possible fix for invalid sibling links on a hard drive • comment by: lilherc]

okay after about half a day of trying to figure out what disk I'm trying to repair I figured out it's disk0s5... great!! I got excited, thinking this might actually work. UMMM-NOPE! I was fooled. now after reading through everyone's suggestions I found I'm having the exact same trouble as tritium147 had "The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired". I tried kaih's suggestion and it still give's me the "Invalid sibling link" message followed by a "Volume Check failed" anyone have another suggestion before I go buy DiskWarrior?

10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:46:32 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: Delete selected page(s) from a PDF in Preview • comment by: justice]

It's great that they simplified it, but I think they made two mistakes in the process. First, they remapped the old shortcut to a destructive command (WTF?). Second, they didn't note the new shortcut on the menu. I went for several weeks after Snow Leopard was released before I figured out that I could still do a delete from the keyboard.

Is it safe for Time Machine to backup Entourage while it is open?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:07:33 -0800

[Original Article: Make Entourage work well with Time Machine - revisited • comment by: cody121]

"safe" is not how i would describe it, but I would say the risk of total failure is very remote. On my system, Entourage is hard shutoff (crashes, power outages, force quits) probably a dozen times a year or more. Since I have had office 2004, I have only had entourage complain once about problems, which were fixed when i rebuilt the database (by holding the option key down). All and all I would call it's databasing system fairly robust. in practice, I rarely ever have a NEED to recover from a backup, because I dont have system failure often. In the event that I do need to recover, odds are even if the backup occurred during a database update I will be fine. If I am not fine, I will rebuild the database, and if that doesn't work, there are hundreds of other points in history I can try. If I were planning to migrate to a new hard drive using time machine, I would absolutely shut down entourage first, then do a backup, then do the migration. The rest of the time, I feel that the risk of catastrophic failure doesn't even exist next to the possibility that I can have incremental backups of my 4GB mail archive.

10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:57:17 -0800

[Original Article: 10.6: View an email message's folder path in Mail • comment by: timcrawf]

Funny thing. I noticed this too, but couldn't remember if the functionality was there before.

Use a Quick Look plug-in to view Entourage email in Finder

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:20:36 -0800

[Original Article: Use a Quick Look plug-in to view Entourage email in Finder • comment by: geordie]

This works great. It is so much easier to find the exact email I ma looking for. Before when I'd do a spotlight search for one of my co-workers and a topic up would pop a list of 30 emails that I had to double click individually to see which was the right one. Now I can just quicklook the first one and then use the down arrow to page through them until I find the email I was looking for.