Tips - Private feed

10.7: Auto-copy Photo Stream images to a folder

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

10.7: Fixing a stuck application in Mission Control

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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.]

10.7: HTML5 Video Display Sleep Workaround

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

Digital audio-in passthrough with AppleTV2

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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.]

10.7: Set default workspaces for applications

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

10.7: Viewing Email when Organized by Conversation

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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.]

10.7: StartNinja turns off the system start up chime

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 picture of the day on your desktop.

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

Getting Software Update alerts as a standard user

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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"
 ...

iOS device headphones and your Mac

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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.]

Control+T in Terminal shows time snapshot

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

10.7 : Enable Recovery HD after restore from Time Capsule/File Vault 2.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

iOS 5: iPad show mailbox gesture

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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.]

A Spotlight Plugin for InDesign

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

Logitech Solar Keyboard and the Scroll Lock/Num Lock keys

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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 ...

Sticky Widget from Selected Text

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

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: ...

10.7: Unlock screens using any admin password

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

Under Lion, the screen saver authentication dialog box does not allow you to enter a username. So even if you've made the changes detailed in this Snow Leopard hint there is no way to put in alternate credentials to unlock a user's screen.

First, edit /etc/pam.d/screensaver as per the original Snow Leopard hint:

Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
Type cd /etc/pam.d
3. sudo cp screensaver screensaver.bak
4. sudo nano screensaver
5. Find the line:
account required pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe
and change it to:
account sufficient pam_group.so no_warn group=admin,wheel fail_safe
Press Control+X to save /etc/pam.d/screensaver and exit nano.

Then, still in Terminal, we make a wholly unintuitive change to / ...

iOS 5: Automatic Recognition of UPS Tracking Code in Mail

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

As you know, there are plenty of tools to keep track of shipments that are shipped with UPS. There is an app called Delivery Status which even recognizes an UPS shipment by just copy and pasting the tracking number into the app.

I just noticed that iOS seems to recognize the shipment all by itself.

In iOS Mail (iOS 5.0.1) every number is highlighted to be called as a possible phone number. But in this case the number was my UPS tracking code. Upon tapping the number I got the options to either copy it or track it.

By tapping tracking it opens an ups site with the tracking number already applied to the script so that you can see the status of your shipment. Ergo no need to copy and paste an UPS tracking code to any other program or the UPS site itself.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. As mentioned in this previous hint this was a new feature i ...

10.7: Setting duration before files are locked

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

As you know, Lion locks files that have not been changed for 2 weeks, so that you have to unlock them before editing them.

There is a control to change the length of time before a file is 'locked' by Lion.

In System Preferences » Time Machine » Options, there is a control to set the length of time after the last edit before files are locked.

The options are 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks (default), 1 month, 1 year.

I presume that there's a corresponding plist setting that you can 'defaults write' to values not in the dropdown list.

[crarko adds: This is one of those things that's obvious once you know about it, but probably wouldn't think to look for it under Time Machine preferences if you didn't.]

iOS Device Screenshots & iPhoto Smart Albums

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:30:00 -0800

If you're looking for an easy way to sort your iOS device screenshots in iPhoto, here's a few handy smart album configurations that may help.

For documentation at work I take numerous screenshots of the different iOS apps we use.

In an attempt to organize these screenshots easily in iPhoto, I came across these two Smart Album configurations that might be helpful to others.

For iPad match all of the following conditions:

Aperture is Unknown
ISO is Unknown
Filename starts with IMG_
Filename contains PNG
Any Text contains 1024

The last step filters out the iPad screenshots from other iOS device screenshots (iPhone, iPod Touch).

For iPhone (or iPod Touch) match all of the following conditions:

Aperture is Unknown
ISO is Unknown ...