Long ago, we detailed a (rather scary) way to delete files without needing a stop in the trash can. A recent thread on StackExchange brought the issue up again, and some folks there provided other, less scary approaches.
Why would you want to delete a file without needing to choose Empty Trash? Here’s one example: You have some files in the Trash on your Mac that you’re not ready to pull the trigger on forever. Now you connect a USB drive and have files on it that you wish to dispose of. If you drag those files to the Trash, you have to select Empty Trash to do it—which means deleting the files from both the drive and your Mac itself.
Most Hints readers know about the rm Terminal command, which lets you remove files instantly and without a trip to the Trash. But that’s always the most convenient approach. One tip at StackExchange suggests wrapping that Terminal command in an Automator action, which you could then store in the Dock or add as an OS X Service for easy access from the Services menu. You can see the Automator action at StackExchange.
There are also third-party apps like Trash X and Trash Without that help you accomplish the same goal.
If you create an application bundle to start a Java application as a regular Mac app, you will get a message that the application is damaged when you try to run it on Mac OS Mountain Lion with GateKeeper active.
The error is caused by the fact that the Java stub application is signed by Apple, and Apple's signature will not be valid for your application.The codesign tool will give the following message:
codesign -d MyJavaApplication.app
MyJavaApplication.app: invalid signature (code or signature have been modified)
The best solution is to sign your application with your Apple Developer key, but if you do not have one you can still sign your application with an ad-hoc key, and replace the Apple signature that will cause this message. To do so run codesign with the following options:
codesign -s - --force MyJavaApplication.app
The user will still have to allow running the application the first time by using the right-click (Control-click) -> Open approach, but at least the user won't see the (incorrect) message that the application is damaged.
Perhaps you use Safari's Reading List feature to save various Web articles for later reading. But maybe your Reading List is so overwhelming that you'd prefer to export a simple list of URLs to keep track of—or to open in an app besides Safari.
Over at StackExchange, Rob Mathers offers up a quick Python script to do just that. Copy Mathers's Python script into a plain text document, and name it something like readinglist.py. Next, make it executable; you can use the Terminal command chmod +x readinglist.py.
Run the script—which loops through the proper section of the ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist file where those URLs are stored—and it will generate a list of the URLs in question. If you'd like to save the URLs to a file, use a command like ./readinglist.py > urls.txt to do so.
Sometimes, an old hint is so good, it bears repeating. Years ago, we shared a hint involving the Recent Items section of the Apple menu.
Next time you're looking at that particular section, hold down the Command key. The names of your recent apps and files—which you could otherwise select to launch as desired—will change. For example, if your Recent Apps list included Acorn, that item would change to Show Acorn in Finder. And yes, this works with documents, too.
So if you very quickly want to find specific files in the Finder that you know you used recently, the Apple menu's Recent Items section, in tandem with the Command key, can help you out in a jiffy.
Since OS X 10.6, when you're screen sharing and looking at a remote Mac's screen, you cannot successfully use Command-Tab to switch out of a screen sharing window, because the command is sent to the remote machine instead.
I recently found a way around this by using Quicksilver. With Quicksilver installed, the key combination is not sent to the remote machine, but rather to your local Mac instead—once you've summoned Quicksilver. When the Quicksilver window shows up, focus goes to local machine, and Command-Tab is also sent to the local machine.
Lex adds: And that's just the tip of the iceberg. In his testing, my colleague Dan Moren found the same behavior works with Alfred; he could trigger Alfred's shortcut while screen sharing, and the app would launch on his local Mac, and thus Command-Tab would begin working on the local Mac instead.
I'm a LaunchBar guy, though, and when I tried to trigger LaunchBar on my Mac—which I've set to use the Command-Space shortcut that defaults to Spotlight—it triggered Spotlight on the remote computer instead. But that gave me an idea: I instead switched to using my Spotlight keyboard shortcut (which I've set to Control-Space). That in turn launched Spotlight on my local Mac, at which point I too could use Command-Tab to switch away from my screen sharing window via the keyboard.
This hint is an oldie but a goodie, and we could only find it mentioned in comments on older hints. If you don't know it, you'll want to; if you already knew it, pay it forward to Mac users who are spending too much time fussing with the mouse.
The Apple menu sits at the top left of your menu bar, and the Notification Center icon sits at the top right. For years, though, OS X has made clicking menu items in either position simpler than it might appear. You needn't move the mouse cursor to precisely the slim confines of either icon when you want to click on them. If you slam your mouse all the way to the top left corner of the screen, well beyond the perimeter of the Apple icon, and click—you'll still successfully trigger the Apple menu.
The same trick works with the Notification Center menu at the upper right: Move the mouse all the way to that corner, fretting not about whether your cursor is actually atop the icon, and your click will still register as desired.
Thus, in keeping with the tenets of Fitts's Law, you essentially have an infinite amount of clicking space to access either menu.
Sure, IMDb’s advanced search tools can you help find occasions when two disparate actors appeared in the same film. But navigating IMDb when you want to play offshoots of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is no fun. If you have a Siri-capable iOS device within reach, you can find movie star overlap using only your voice.
Give Siri an instruction like, “Show me movies with Jason Biggs and Woody Allen,” and the virtual assistant should suggest Anything Else a moment later. And in cases of overlap—“What movies have both Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry”—Siri provides a list of all the matching films. (In that case, it’s both Rugrats in Paris and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.)
Tap on a matching movie to see more information about the film.
We’ve previously shared a Terminal-based approach for customizing the behavior of All My Files in the Finder. But in Mountain Lion, customizing All My Files’s search criteria—or the criteria of any other similar Finder sidebar entry, is deliciously simple:
Simply right-click (or Control-click, or two-finger click with a trackpad) on the sidebar entry, and choose Show Search Criteria. You’ll see the Smart Search characteristics that power the entry in question, and you can tweak and re-save the search factors you prefer.
Full disclosure: You can’t save over the existing All My Files saved search with this approach; you’re really just saving a new search instead. But it’s quick, painless, and non-destructive.
Suppose you have a folder full of photos taken in rapid succession. These might be images from an MRI or ultrasound, or simply a sequence of shots snapped at a celebration of some sort. Either way, you've ended up with a series of photos that would likely look good animated—but they're all simply stills.
There's an easy way to put those photos in motion. Single-click on the first one in your folder, and then press the Spacebar to bring up the Quick Look preview of your image. Now, simply hold the down arrow. The Finder selection will cycle through all the photos in your folder, and the Quick Look preview will instantly update in real time.
If your folder contains photos that work as a flip book, you can see the animation right there in the Finder using this method.
