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OSX:Tips

2007-12-04T00:16:15Z

Amannall: /* Mac OS X Tips and Tricks */

==Mac OS X Tips and Tricks==

Please feel free to share your 'tips and tricks' here. Often what is routine for some is completely unknown to others. What follows is predominantly for OS X 10.5 (Leopard), but many tips may well apply equally well to earlier systems.--[[User:Rzepa|Rzepa]] 09:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

A useful site for interconverting Wiki dialects is [http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/html2wiki/ here]. If you find/run another flavour of Wiki (this one is MediaWiki, the same as Wikipedia) it is quite simple to convert using this resource.

=== Lists of other tips sites ===

* http://macosxtips.co.uk/

=== ChemSpotlight ===

Spotlight is the Mac OS X search engine. It can be enhanced with specific plugins. One very useful one for anyone dealing with molecular information is ''ChemSpotlight''
# Get it from [http://geoffhutchison.net/projects/chem/ here].
# After running the installer, check that the existence of the file <<your user name>>/library/workflows/applications/Finder/Reindex Selected Items.workflow.
# [[Image:Chemspotlight.jpg|thumb|right| Chemical Spotlight]] [[Image:Chemspotlight2.jpg|thumb|right| Chemical Spotlight]]To reindex a folder, select it, and press the Ctrl key to bring up a contextual items menu. Select the reindex item in Automator. Reindexing will occur automatically overnite anyway. The plugin works by scanning your hard disk for files likely to have chemical content, and passing that content to a program which derives fields such as the [[molecular formula]], [[molecular weight]], etc. The values of these fields can then be searched for. They are also displayed if you perform a ''Get Info'' operation on the individual file.
# Once reindexed, you an use Spotlight to search for chemical terms.

=== Mac Specifications from Serial Number ===

[http://support.apple.com/specs/ Enter serial number here]. To get the serial number, go to the Apple menu (top lhs), select About this Mac,
and request More Info. If you ever need the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address MAC] address, you can get this from here as well. An alternative (non-Apple) site is said to be more reliable: [http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html Click here]

=== The Mac Supporters Site ===

[http://macsupporters.gold.ac.uk/ This site] contains much information collected by about 400 UK ''Mac Supporters'' over decades!

=== Associating files on Web Sites with Using Safari on OS X ===

[[Image:defaultapps.jpg|right|thumb]]When one encounters a hyperlinked file on a web site, most browsers (e.g. Firefox) can automatically download and open that file (the first time by asking you which application you want to associate with the file, and subsequently by remembering your answer). The Mac Safari browser does not do this; it simply downloads the file, leaving you to grapple with opening it. To some extent, this problem can be alleviated by configuring OS X to handle the file appropriately. A useful preference pane to enable this can be [http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/ downloaded here]. This is particularly useful to use in conjunction with eg the departmental SCAN portal, where various output files are presented in a web page for further processing. You can configure either the MIME type (offered by the Web server), or the file extension to be associated with the application of your choice. The file will be downloaded ready to be clicked upon. It does not appear possible to open it automatically, this apparently being a security policy imposed by Apple.

=== Cooling a Mac Laptop ===

[http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/page5/page5.html smcfancontrol] is a useful utility that allows your fan speed to be increased (albeit at the
expense of the battery charge duration).

=== Improving Java Performance ===

[[Image:Java.jpg|right|thumb| Java Preferences]]The default memory allocation to a Java applet on both Windows and OS X is 96 Mbyte. Some applets such as Jmol can easily consume this, especially if rendering a large window, or a complex surface. When the applet reaches the memory limit, it has to start the process of ''garbage collection'' and memory swapping, which slow it down, and in extreme can make it quite unstable, prone to crashing etc. If you have lots of memory on your computer, you can easily increase the default On OS X, find a folder /applications/utilities/java/J2SE 5.0 and open Java Preferences.app. The display should look like the display on the right. In the runtime parameters, type -Xmx512M and save. This allocates 512Mbytes (select your own value according to how much RAM your machine has). Restart your browser, whereupon you may well notice remarkably improved performance and stability

=== CHMOD calculator ===

[[Image:chmod.jpg|right|thumb|What 755 means]]Ever wonder why chmod 755 is so useful? What exactly does it set the permissions to? [http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16547 chmod calculator] will let you compute any value. [http://www.barebones.com/support/super/updates.shtml SuperGetInfo] is a useful utility for setting permissions.

=== Modifying the OS X Dock in Leopard ===

[http://www.markallan.co.uk/software.php?page=DD Dock Delight] changes the diffuse spot indicating a program is running to a more visible triangle. [http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html TinkerTool] allows the transluscent glass behaviour of the new Dock to be reset to the original appearance.

=== Symantec Liveupdate ===

The standard Tiger Liveupdate no longer works with Leopard. Before you can update your virus definitions, you will have to [http://service1.symantec.com/Support/num.nsf/docid/2007102922255911?Open&docid=2007102700270911&nsf=num.nsf&view=0 download] the latest Liveupdate from the Symantec site.

=== Only for the truly paranoid: Little Snitch ===

Whilst a firewall protects external sites from probing your computer, the reverse is quite different. Little Snitch 2 (for Leopard) tells you when your computer is calling to the outside world. It comes as something of a revelation to realise that lots of such calls are in fact made ''silently'', only [http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html Little Snitch] can tell you about these. Using it reveals that per day, your computer may well contact some external sites perhaps up to 200 times! As I said, not for the paranoid.

=== Time Machine ===

Time Machine (TM) is new to OS X 10.5 (Leopard). It presents a minimal interface to regularly backing up files which change. Some people find TM works perfectly and is stable over long periods. Others are having issues. What follows below are personal experiences in using this back up system.

==== TM Instabilities ====

TM can be made to back up to either an external drive (connected by eg Firewire) or an internal (SATA) drive. Using the latter, TM does an incremental backup every hour. When its running, the Devices/Time Machine display shows a little activity cursor. With an internal SATA, you should hear copious disk activity. If the activity cursor is active, but nothing is heard, you may have a problem. When this happened to me, I found that it was no longer possible to launch any new application from the Dock. Its Icon would bounce (about 20 times) and then stop. The application did not start, but it did spawn a process. Attempts to kill this process using Force-Quit failed. A restart request also failed, largely because these processes could not be stopped by the system. A full power down restart was needed. Turning TM off stopped these occurances, which strongly implicated it. A possible solution was found when I ran Norton Antivirus (see [[OSX:Tips#Symantec_Liveupdate|here]]). It reported that around 10 files were unreadable on the file system due to corruption (it was not merely a permissions problem). Deleting these files, and restarting TM appears to have resulted in no unexplained stalls (for 3 days, but in truth only time will tell). --[[User:Rzepa|Rzepa]] 09:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

==== TM Quirks / Issues ====

OS X Leopard (10.5.x) Time Machine issues.

Time Machine requires an external Hard Disk - either connected directly via firewire cable to the host machine or via a 10.5 Server. Time Mahcine will NOT run unless the disk is capable of storing at least the contents of the system hard disk completely.

When first run Time Machine creates a complete copy of the system and then while the disk remains connected creates hourly backups for the first 24 hours. After 24 hours these are merged to create a "day backup" and a new set of hourly backups commences. After 7 days all daily changes are merged to create a weekly backup and new daily backups are created.

A number of Time Machine issues have been reported both in College and "in the wild".

- A common issue is where the machine name has "special characters" such as - or _ in it. This can cause Time Machine to stall. This can be resolved by opening the Sharing preferences and updating the sharing name.

- A new issue reported on http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/leopard/topic4685.html by Mitch Sefton concerns file permissions and search abilities. In this instance it would appear that the machine did not correctly set up the administrator accounts - however it is a potential gotcha and one to look out for.

=== NFS - a basic primer ===

Basic article about NFS on Leopard <http://blog.djdmitry.com/?p=51>

OSX:Tips

2007-12-04T00:04:31Z

Amannall: /* Time Machine */