[Warning!! Do not run the script in the comments here! It will work, but after a few uses, it will cause minor system errors. Use at your own risk! See the comments for a discussion on alternatives and next steps...]

A posting over on the MacNN forums got me interested in trying to come up with a way to automatically change the desktop picture. If I can find a way to change it from the terminal, then the next steps become somewhat obvious (and maybe easy?) -- write a shell script to pick a file at random from a folder, and then issue the command to update the desktop pic and get it to display. Finally, schedule that shell script as a 'cron' job to run however often you'd like a new desktop picture.

I made a bit of progress, but not much. Please read the rest if you're interested in trying to help me figure out how to make desktop pictures change automatically...

If your GUI ever locks up completely, and you have access to another machine, you may be able to repair it remotely. Telnet (or SSH) in, open a terminal, and do "ps -aux". Look for loginwindow.app in the list, note the PID number, and then "kill -9" that PID.

This should restart your GUI so you can use your machine again.

My OSX-beta QuickTime would hang-up upon launching movie trailers on different occasions. I tried the keystrokes command-option-escape out of habit. To my surprise, up popped a panel listng current USER processes. I selected QuickTime then hit RETURN. I was then able to relaunch the movie trailer. Add this one to your 10.0 important-keys list.

DP note: OSX processes don't seem any faster than my old G3/400. Any concurrence here? I'm using a G4/450/DP/15" Flat panel monitor

[Editor's note: See the comments for a discussion and link for more info on this topic.]

Does anybody know what exactly happens when I change the boot drive using the System Disk utility? Is there any way to make the same changes on the OSX command line?

[Editor's note: See the comments for a good discussion on the methods of upgrading to OS X..]

I was wondering if there was any information on what the best process would be to upgrade from the public beta to the upcoming release of OS X. I generally do "clean installs"; will I be able to do that with the new OS? Should I instead back up any of my user files and re-format the partition?

I also downloaded and installed the developer tools onto my public beta. Will I have to do that again, or will these tools be included in the release? Any info. would be appreciated.

[Editor's note: See the comments for the answer to the question.]

Does anybody know how to quit a GUI program through a telnet session? I can open GUI programs through telnet but can't figure out how to then quit that same program. PS won't show GUI programs so I can't KlLL them. Any help is appreciated.

If you live in the States (at a minimum; I can't check other countries ;-), and you ordered OS X 1.0 (or whatever they're going to call it) through the Apple store, it appears you'll have your three CD collection on Saturday the 24th!

Over on the MacFixIt boards (where I've been hanging out while MacNN's boards are down), reader MacXO pointed out that his order status shows "FedEx Saturday Delivery"on the top of the screen. I checked mine, and it has the same shipment method. Seems pretty solid evidence of a Saturday morning FedEx visit! Now I just need to call the store and change my "Ship To"to the house instead of the office.

You might want to check your orders as well, if you often ship to work for weekday deliveries. I might be wrong, but I'd rather have it show up at home on Monday or Tuesday than at the office on Saturday!

NOTE: You may want to call 1-800-Go-FedEx and verify that you live in a Saturday delivery area before making this change. Just press "8" to speak to a representative, and then ask about Saturday delivery and provide your zip code.

UPDATE - 10:45am: I just spoke with the Apple store. The rep at first claimed that there was no way they could possibly have Saturday delivery, as Apple didn't have a contract for that service with FedEx. I told him that was what the web site reflected, and he offered to change my order to read UPS if it would make me feel better ... I respectfully declined :-). After changing my address, he noted (with apparent surprise) that it was coming up coded "FED-S" shipping, which did, in fact, indicate Saturday delivery ... his last words were "Well, you learn something new every day..." ;-).

Over on the MacNN boards they started one forum topic specific to new OS X users. You can read about things like partitioning, what is Aqua, where things are, what is the terminal, and more. However, the MacNN boards are currently being updated with new bulletin board software, and the thread is not available. But they were nice enough to move the thread to this mac.com page so that you can read it until the boards return. They have some good info, so check it out if you're new to the world of OS X!

If you do NOT use the network time option (which I always do, since it means never having to set the clock), you can use a unique method for setting the time under OS X.

Open the date and time prefs panel, and use the mouse to drag the hours and minutes hands where you want them ... this will set the clock! Pretty cool, and potentially useful if your machine is not connected to the internet on a regular basis.

The UNIX environment has two common commands for looking at disk usage - 'df' and 'du'. 'df' returns information about all mounted disks, and 'du' returns information about a given file or set of files. As installed in OS X, though, the 'df' and 'du' commands do not return easy to use information. For example, here's the 'df' output for one drive on my system:

Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/disk0s9           3121344   1314624   1806720  42% /osxfiles

Wouldn't it be much nicer if you could have it output like this:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/disk0s9          3.0G  1.3G  1.7G  42% /osxfiles

Read the rest of this article if you'd like to learn how to create a more usable "df" (and other!) commands.

NOTE: I have packaged four of the more useful of these utilities (ls, dircolors (sets the colors for the new ls), df, and du) into one downloadable archive. These are pre-compiled, and you'll just need to expand the archive with OpenUp or the command line (or the new StuffIt Expander). Move the files into /usr/localbin, and they should be ready to go. I have NOT included the 'man' pages, since I wasn't sure how to do that - read the GNU online help for info on each command, or compile the whole package.