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18 May 2012, 7:30 am
Apple has introduced an additional type of preference file in Lion, those whose names end in ".plist.lockfile". Here is a good explanation of the function of those files:...
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17 May 2012, 7:30 am
I love TextWrangler, and I have a Mac at work and one at home, but often do coding on both. I set up a system using Dropbox so both my preferences and my Application Support files sync so I always have my stationery files and the same settings, wherever I am....
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16 May 2012, 7:30 am
When Apple shipped Mac OS X Lion 10.7, the “Library” folder located within every user’s home folder, which had previously been visible to users in the Finder, was made invisible. This hint shows how to make the folder visible and keep it that way...
When Apple shipped Mac OS X Lion 10.7, the “Library” folder located within every user’s home folder, which had previously been visible to users in the Finder, was made invisible. This hint shows how to make the folder visible and keep it that way forever.
As you may know, and as mentioned in this hint, the Library folder can be made visible again by running the following command in Terminal:
/usr/bin/chflags nohidden ~/Library
Apple keeps making the folder invisible again with every System update, so it gets tedious re-running the above script. You can automate this by adding a Login Item with an AppleScript "script application" containing the following code:
do shell script "/usr/bin/chflags nohidden ~/Library"
Read detailed instructions for this hint, and download a ready-made script application file on the ...

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15 May 2012, 7:31 am
As SSDs become more common, and prices drop, more and more people are either buying Macs with SSDs, or installing them in their Macs. Personally, I started using an SSD with the first MacBook Air in 2008, and bought my current Mac - a Mac mini, purchased in...
As SSDs become more common, and prices drop, more and more people are either buying Macs with SSDs, or installing them in their Macs. Personally, I started using an SSD with the first MacBook Air in 2008, and bought my current Mac - a Mac mini, purchased in 2011 - with an SSD. The gains in performance are huge, though the price still makes them a choice that is not for everyone.
So, what about you? Does your main Mac - the one you use most - have an SSD? Feel free to post in the comments to the poll which model, whether you bought it with the Mac or installed it yourself, or any other comments you may have about SSDs.
Vote in the poll

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15 May 2012, 7:30 am
iTunes Smart Playlists don't offer a criteria to find tracks which have been partially played. While "Last Skipped" is an option, this track property may not be set if the track wasn't actually skipped and was merely stopped....
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15 May 2012, 7:30 am
These AppleScripts are related to this hint. Both can already be found in the replies to the hint topic post, but I'm resubmitting them so that they will appear together....
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14 May 2012, 7:30 am
If you press the Option key, then press certain dedicated keys on the standard Apple keyboard, preference panes will open. This works for Mission Control (Option-F3 or Option-F4), Displays (Option-F1 or Option-F2), and Sound (Option-F10, Option-F11 or...
If you press the Option key, then press certain dedicated keys on the standard Apple keyboard, preference panes will open. This works for Mission Control (Option-F3 or Option-F4), Displays (Option-F1 or Option-F2), and Sound (Option-F10, Option-F11 or Option-F12). The F keys in question are those which act on the given features, either displaying Dashboard or Mission Control (F3 and F4), decreasing or increasing brightness (F1 and F2), or changing or muting volume (F10, F11 and F12). If you use a laptop, you may need to press the Fn key together with the other keys to open these preference panes.

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14 May 2012, 7:30 am
I recently tried to drag from Safari's Downloads popup and found that if you drag from the icon of the downloaded file, you can move it where you want....
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11 May 2012, 7:30 am
I use Terminal everyday, and I find it a good idea to log everything I you. It makes it much easier to undo your mistakes when you know what those mistakes were. Here's how I do this:...
I use Terminal everyday, and I find it a good idea to log everything I you. It makes it much easier to undo your mistakes when you know what those mistakes were. Here's how I do this:
Open Terminal's preferences.
Go to Settings, then Shell. You can choose here to run a command at startup. You could create a simple log of your session using the following:
/usr/bin/script ~/Desktop/Terminal.log
This will log everything you do and append it to the log file.
I like to keep my history so instead I wrote this small script that archives previous sessions by renaming the file with a date/time string. I then set Terminal.app to run at startup the following command:
~/Desktop/logger.sh
Here's the script:
#!/bin/bash
# logger.sh
# Log everything you do in Terminal.
#* Formatted date & time string.
FORMATTED_DATE=`/bin/date "+%Y-%m-%d%H%M%S"`
#* Archive the previous file
/bin/cp -f ~/Desktop/Terminal ...

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10 May 2012, 7:30 am
Combining some findings from a recent hint and on Apple's forums, I've finally found a way to disable the annoying rubber-band scrolling in most applications. All the credit goes to those guys as they did the initial investigation....
Combining some findings
from a recent hint and on Apple's forums, I've finally found a way to disable the annoying rubber-band scrolling in most applications. All the credit goes to those guys as they did the initial investigation.
It works in applications like:
- Finder
- Mail
- Preview
- TextEdit
- Xcode
and probably in most applications that use the standard UI (the string to be used in defaults appears in AppKit.framework). It doesn't work in Safari or iTunes.
In Terminal type:
defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0
It should work after you relaunch your applications.
To undo this change, run this command in Terminal:
defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding
[
kirkmc adds: Works as described. I haven't tested many apps, so feel free to post which o ...

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9 May 2012, 7:30 am
This hint solves a long standing problem when playing classical music on an iPhone. When using the iPhone Music app (iOS 5.1), the full entry (e.g. name of artist, album or song title) for an item can be too long to be displayed. Tap and hold entry to see the...
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9 May 2012, 7:30 am
If you use Lion Server, and its wiki server, you may find it useful to use custom URL protocols for internal documents and links. Apple has published a technical note explaining how to do this. This document explains how to create the necessary configuration...
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8 May 2012, 7:30 am
Mac OS X Lion introduced iOS-style scrolling elasticity. Do you think it's annoying, and it slows you down while working in Xcode? Here's how to remove it....
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7 May 2012, 7:30 am
In the Finder, when working in Column View, if you select a multipage PDF you can scroll up and down in the document. This is much faster than using the small arrow controls, and appears to work with any input device that can scroll....
In the Finder, when working in Column View, if you select a multipage PDF you can scroll up and down in the document. This is much faster than using the small arrow controls, and appears to work with any input device that can scroll.
[
kirkmc adds: Several points. First, in Column View, you need to have Show Preview Column checked in the View settings. When you select a PDF, its first page shows in the Preview column. From there, you hover your cursor and see two arrow buttons. You can either click on these or scroll.
This might be useful if you just need a quick glance at a file, but once you've selected the PDF, you can view it in Quick Look by pressing the space bar, which lets you see the document at full size.]

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4 May 2012, 7:30 am
I was recently asked to see if I could copy over the custom page sizes from a Snow Leopard machine over to a Lion machine....
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3 May 2012, 7:30 am
Note: An updated version of this script (in fact two new scripts) has been posted as a new hint. These new scripts take into account many of the comments posted below. Please see the new hint to find the improved version....
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2 May 2012, 7:30 am
When focus is in the text entry field in an iChat chat window, holding option and using your up and down arrow keys cycles through the previous messages you've sent. This is very similar to how Terminal lets you cycle through previous command just using the up...
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1 May 2012, 7:30 am
Apple does not provide any way to count the number of characters in a selected text. Fortunately, you can create your own very easily using Automator....
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30 April 2012, 7:30 am
My right shoulder had been hurting lately, due to the movement necessary to reach my trackpad. I was using a standard, wired Apple keyboard with the number pad on the right, and my Magic Trackpad was to the right of that, making me reach pretty far to access...
My right shoulder had been hurting lately, due to the movement necessary to reach my trackpad. I was using a standard, wired Apple keyboard with the number pad on the right, and my Magic Trackpad was to the right of that, making me reach pretty far to access it.
So, I set out in search of a standalone number pad I could use with my Mac. While I don't work with numbers often, when I do my accounting, it's a pain to have to type numbers from the top row of the keyboard. I looked at a number of models - both wired and wireless - and found what seemed to be the best choice: Logitech's N305. This works with Logitech's Unifying Receiver, is fairly compact, and, according to Logitech, works for three years with a pair of batteries.
But the N305 does not support Macs. Fortunately, in reviews for the product on Amazon, a number of people posted a solution. Download the free
KeyRemap4MacBook, a preference p ...

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27 April 2012, 7:30 am
]Google Chrome keeps older versions of its web browser causing it to balloon in size. I noticed that the Google Chrome App on my Mac was 1.2 GB. That seemed a bit portly for a web browser. Upon looking into the app's bundle, by right-clicking and choosing Show...
]Google Chrome keeps older versions of its web browser causing it to balloon in size. I noticed that the Google Chrome App on my Mac was 1.2 GB. That seemed a bit portly for a web browser. Upon looking into the app's bundle, by right-clicking and choosing Show Package Contents, I found multiple old versions of the app, all which appeared to be nearly identical. I removed all but the most recent version and everything appears to run correctly and the app size is now a much more slim 113 MB.
[
kirkmc adds: Interesting. On my Mac, in the bundle, in Contents > Versions, there are, indeed, two versions of Chrome. This presumably has something to do with Chrome's silent updating. (Queries on Twitter suggest that this is the norm; a number of people replied that theirs was around 220 MB, as was mine.) Make sure you keep the one with the highest version number. You could also, of course, just download a new copy.
If you want to turn off this automatic updating, s ...
