SpamBayes is a really neat little proxy server that adds a spam header to all the mail that passes through it; you can then use this to filter things with your mail client. Why do it at all? Well, Mail's bayesian filtering is OK, but not that good. The training system for SpamBayes is much better, IMHO.

Anyway, I put together a little installer package to put a self-contained version of SpamBayes in the Library and run it on startup. You can get the package, and more info about it here.

If you are a .Mac subscriber, you know that Apple's Backup utility will allow you to back up data to your iDisk. However, if you've ever tried to back up your iDisk to a CD, you'll find that Backup will tell you that it cannot backup remote volumes.

Well, under Panther, it is now possible to back up your iDisk if you have automatic syncronization on. To do so, tell Backup you want to add a new item to backup. Navigate to ~/Library -> Mirrors -> SOMETHINGRANDOM -> YOUR_.MAC_USERNAME.dmg. Backup will happily burn this file to a CD, and you will have a complete backup of everything on your iDisk. Backup will remember the location in the future, so you only have to do this once.

My PowerMac started giving me an error when trying to sync to .Mac: (E_FMS_FILE_FOUND), but my iBook would sync without a problem. I could not find anything on this site or Apple's relating to this error. After a quick Google search, though, I did come across this posting by 'Michael' on VersionTracker, and it solve my problem. Here's the essence of his solution:

1. Start on a machine that has the initial data (my iBook in this case) ready to be synched.
2. Open iSync on that machine.
3. Go to Devices -> Reset All Devices.
4. When asked what you'd like to reset to, choose "This computer."
5. After it's done, go to the troublesome machine and re-sync, choosing to use .Mac to overwrite the local computer.

Not sure if this hint will work without a second Mac, but it solved the problem I was having and hopefully will save others from having to go elseware to find a solution. Thanks again to Michael who figured this one out (and read the initial posting on VT if you need additional details).

I got tired of having my desktop filled with tiny Real Player files left behind everytime I watch NasaTV. I decided to solve the problem using Folder Actions. I wrote a small AppleScript, which I added to my Desktop Folder as a folder action. Everytime a .ram file is copied onto the Desktop, the script waits 10 seconds and then it moves the file to the trash. The 10 second delay is necessary so Real Player has time to read the file. Here's the script:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
  try
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in added_items
      set this_item to item i of added_items
      set the item_info to info for this_item
      if the name extension of the item_info is in {"ram"} then
        do shell script "sleep 10"
        tell application "Finder"
          move this_item to trash
        end tell
      end if
    end repeat
  end try
end adding folder items to

This script can be extended to remove other annying files from similar applications. Just add their extension in the curly brackets that now contain {"ram"}.

The standard httpd.conf file installed by Apple has mod_rendezvous_apple directives that turn off Rendezvous advertising for the default site, but turn it on for user sites that have been customized. The test for whether a site has been customized or not involves comparing its index.html file to the one in the user template folder.

Unfortunately, it appears that users' index.html files are not (always?) replaced during software installs and updates, so that the system thinks users have customized their sites when in fact they haven't. This can result in useless clutter in the Rendezvous menu in Safari and elsewhere.

The solution is simply to copy /System -> Library -> User Template -> English.lproj -> Sites -> index.html to your Sites directory.

I guess I was asleep and did not notice that EarthLink now has their EarthLink Accelerator released for Mac OS X. The Accelerator works by having the EarthLink servers grab web pages first and compress text and (optionally) reduce graphics size before sending them to your computer. This, along with caching techniques, can dramatically speed up dialup browsing.

However, if you are using an AirPort base station which dials into the 'net for you, the default settings do not work. I went back and forth with EarthLink "support" with no success -- they didn't even seem to understand/acknowledge what I was trying to do.

Apple Support forums to the rescue! I found someone looking for the answer to a different question, and he casually mentioned something that is probably documented better on the PC side. Accelerator works as a proxy on localhost (127.0.0.1 port 8080). So, install Accelerator on your machine, then set its network HTTP proxy to 127.0.0.1:8080, and you are set.

Currently, I cannot get multiple machines to work -- this may be an intentional limitation that EarthLink has designed into it, though. Anyone got further?

I've really been enjoying ASSP (Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy) since I installed it about a month ago. Basically, it can be used by anyone who has access to their SMTP daemon and has perl installed (ie, OS X, Linux or Windows), which probably includes anyone running their own server.

The ingenious bits about it are:

1. Works with pretty much any SMTP program that can change the port it runs on (ie, Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, etc).
2. Rejects spam at the SMTP port, before it ever gets saved to your hard drive. No weird bounces to deal with, etc. plus you get the chance to communicate directly with the bulk mailer program and tell them they were rejected as unsolicited mail.
3. Easy configuration via web interface, many many bells and whistles such as auto-whitelisting of anyone you email, ability for any user on your system to forward spam messages that got through to help keep the filter trained, training mode to get it up and running well before beginning to actually reject (ie, throw away) unwanted mail.

Before using it, I was dealing with around 1,000 spams a week sometimes, and Mail's junk filter was barely keeping up. Now, I get one to five spams a week, and don't have to pay bandwidth charges on all that junkmail that Mail used to have to download.

Actually, I guess this is more of a pointer than a full-on hint since I'm not including install instructions (if you already have your SMTP connection set up and functioning, odds are you can set this up too. :)

Creating a double-clickable web link is as simple as dragging the address from Safari to the desktop. Very convenient, unless you want to share the file with people stuck on Windows. The zero-byte .webloc file won't make them any wiser -- the address was stored in the resource fork, which means it will vanish if you try to send it to their PC.

Microsoft has their own way of creating web shortcuts, .url files. In fact, all of Windows' Internet Explorer bookmarks are stored that way; all of them in a separate tiny file. Anyway, the format is pretty simple, nothing you can't write in TextEdit in a few seconds:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.macosxhints.com

Save it as something.url and you are done. The good thing about this is that Mac OS X/Safari also supports these .url links, or does it? This had me stumped for a good while: some of my .url files would work fine and load in Safari, while some would just open an empty Safari window without loading anything, even though the same file worked properly in Windows.

Here's the catch: don't forget to add a closing line feed at the end. Apparently Safari is picky about that and the lack of it will result in the aforementioned empty window.

If you need to frequently perform client-authentication to a Checkpoint Firewall-1 via HTTPS, this can be scripted thusly:

#!/bin/sh
export USERID=your_userid
export ENCPWD=your_password
export NGWID=`curl -k https://firewall-1/ | grep ID | cut -d\" -f6`
curl  -k --data "ID=$NGWID&STATE=1&DATA=$USERID" https://firewall-1/
curl  -k --data "ID=$NGWID&STATE=2&DATA=$ENCPWD" https://firewall-1/
curl  -k --data "ID=$NGWID&STATE=3&DATA=1" https://firewall-1/

Note that your ENCPWD needs to be URI escaped if it contains special characters. If you have the Perl module URI::Escape installed you can do this with:

export ENCPWD=`perl -MURI::Escape -e "print uri_escape('your_password')"`

If the firewall requires a password based on a RSA token then insert the following:

echo -n "Enter key: "; read xx
echo "Thanks"
export ENCPWD=`perl -MURI::Escape -e "print uri_escape('$xx')"`

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one...]

The Terminal application in Panther supports the x-man-page URL type. That is, the following URL, when used with Safari or the open command, will open a Terminal window with the ls man page displayed:

x-man-page://ls

[robg adds: This style of link will probably work from anything that supports active URLs; I pasted it in iChat and it also worked directly from there when clicked, and it also worked in Mozilla, IE, etc.]