Pedro Assunção » mac

Nice tweaks for OSX

Pedro Assunção — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:11:06 +0000

I think most of them work on both Snow Leopard and Lion. Not sure about previous versions. Just type the ones you want to activate/deactivate on the command line and have fun.

# Enable full keyboard access for all controls (e.g. enable Tab in modal dialogs)
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleKeyboardUIMode -int 3

# Enable the 2D Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -bool true

# Disable menu bar transparency
defaults write -g AppleEnableMenuBarTransparency -bool false

# Expand save panel by default
defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true

# Expand print panel by default
defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool true

# Disable shadow in screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

# Enable highlight hover effect for the grid view of a stack (Dock)
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -bool true

# Enable spring loading for all Dock items
defaults write enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -bool true

# Disable press-and-hold for keys in favor of key repeat
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

# Disable auto-correct
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false

# Disable window animations
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

# Disable disk image verification
defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify -bool true
defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify-locked -bool true
defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify-remote -bool true

# Automatically open a new Finder window when a volume is mounted
defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages auto-open-ro-root -bool true
defaults write com.apple.frameworks.diskimages auto-open-rw-root -bool true

# Avoid creating .DS_Store files on network volumes
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

# Disable Safari’s thumbnail cache for History and Top Sites
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSnapshotsUpdatePolicy -int 2

# Enable Safari’s debug menu
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu -bool true

# Remove useless icons from Safari’s bookmarks bar
defaults write com.apple.Safari ProxiesInBookmarksBar "()"

# Disable send and reply animations in Mail.app
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true

# Disable Resume system-wide
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

# Enable Dashboard dev mode (allows keeping widgets on the desktop)
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode -bool true

# Reset Launchpad
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db

# Show the ~/Library folder
chflags nohidden ~/Library

# Disable local Time Machine backups
sudo tmutil disablelocal

# Kill affected applications
for app in Safari Finder Dock Mail; do killall "$app"; done

# Fix for the ancient UTF-8 bug in QuickLook (http://mths.be/bbo)
echo "0x08000100:0" > ~/.CFUserTextEncoding

The original source can be found here.

OSX: Change time machine auto backup interval

Pedro Assunção — Thu, 26 May 2011 07:56:45 +0000

The default time machine backup interval is every hour. Sometimes this can be really annoying so, if you find yourself in need to change this, here’s how:

Navigate to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and locate the file named com.apple.backupd-auto.plist.

Inside this file you will find the following content:

 StartInterval
 3600

3600 means hourly (60 minutes X 60 seconds). If you multiply by 4, for instance, and use that value (14400) you will have automatic backups every 4 hours instead. Or whatever interval you prefer.
Happy backing up

My selection of top iPad 2 apps

Pedro Assunção — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:27:53 +0000

After buying my shiny new ipad2 I, like most other tablet enthusiasts, devoted a fair amount of time in search of the coolest and most useful apps to install.

The major problem in most results that google returns is that they all mention the same list: twitter, IMO.im, friendly, dropbox, etc. (for a list of the obvious, follow this link).

After some deeper searches I found the following apps to be extremely interesting to me. I’m hoping they will be to you as well:

Writing
	If you write anything, these are the most well spent 79 cents, believe me.
	Log your life, with notes, pictures, and music.
	Find the perfect word to convey your message
Games
	Snowboard fun
	Awesome card game, kinda like Magic the gathering. Warning: Massive time waster
	Cool top down RPG.
Reading
	Read all your google reader subscriptions in this clean RSS reader.
	There’s a few marvel comics for free in this app.
	The great classics are free in the Kindle store. And the iPad is the perfect e-reader.
News and Magazines
	A beautiful way of keeping track of current events worldwide.
	A new take on wikipedia articles; everyday a new selection of wonderfully formated articles.
	A kind of magazine with a gazillion tips on how to make the most of your shiny new iPad.
Notes and doodles
	Keep all your notes in sync across your computers, tablets, and phones. Much better than evernote, in my opinion.
	Everyone doodles from time to time
Remote desktop and media centre control
	Money well invested, if you have a mac mini in your living room and don’t want to spend $100+ on a wireless keyboard + mouse setup. This app allows you to use the iPad as both. And does one hell of a job at it.
	To control your XBMC from the iPad.
	A remote viewer for your computers (VNC).
Video streaming
	The best way i found to stream video and music from my server to the iPad and other computers. It compresses video on the fly, allowing you to stream even through a 3G connection. Priceless.
Graphics
	Just in case you need to retouch some pictures on the iPad.
Cooking
	If you’re lazy like me, this will come in handy to discover new recipes to cook.
Data
	View your Google analytics data from this cool app.
Alarms
	And finally, everyone needs an alarm. This one is simple and gets the job done

The iPad2 – or rethinking my android tablet purchase

Pedro Assunção — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:54:41 +0000

So here’s the deal: I had planned to purchase a honeycomb-based tablet as my sabbatical leave of absence going away present to myself. I was carefully considering all the pros and cons of both the Motorola Xoom and the new 10″ Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Between the two of them discovered the latter has a better general body finish, as well as slightly better front camera. Besides, Samsung has had the first tab out there for some time now, which means they have some more experience in regards to what works and what doesn’t, as building tablets goes.

The problem is that I just tried an ipad2 for the first time. And, besides feeling super snappy and slick, it’s so shinny . I might have fallen for this thing already.

The price is more appealing as well: 549 euro for the 32GB wifi version. I can’t imagine either the galaxy or the xoom matching this anytime soon. Not before the ipad3 comes out anyway

UPDATE: Alright, i sold my soul to the devil: Ordered an iPad2, arriving at the end of the month

OSX video streaming the easy way

Pedro Assunção — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:01:37 +0000

The problem

For a while now, i have been searching for a way to stream videos from my living room’s Mac Mini to my other Macs across the house. Especially to my laptop (or in the future to my tablet) when i’m laying in bed. Yes, i know i’m lazy, but one has to take advantage of technology, right?

The problem is that i never found a nice enough way to do it. I tried streaming through VLC, but unfortunately the wireless network seems not to be enough to cope with the amount of data. Also, it’s a bit cumbersome to have to setup the stream every time i want to watch a movie in bed. I looked into whether XBMC or Plex would do the trick and, although there are some built in server capabilities, i was never able to make it work for my needs.

The solution

Enter StreamToMe and ServeToMe. Both applications are available in the Mac Appstore (they also have iPhone, iPod, and iPad apps) and allow seamless video streaming across Macs. Painless. You define the folders you want to share in the server and the client gets to browse them, complete with video thumbnails. Extremely cool and practical, especially because they convert the videos on the fly so it plays smoothly even across 3G networks

From their website:

“Files are live-transcoded into the native format for your device so you don’t need to pre-convert your media. Adaptive bitrates mean that you can stream over WiFi or 3G.”

Now if i could just get an android version

Review: TotalFinder – Finder on steroids

Pedro Assunção — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:00:02 +0000

Today i want to tell you about the best thing since canned tuna: a fantastic application that extends Finder’s functionality to provide you with features like tabs, cut-and-paste, dual-mode, and more. You know, the things that all of us have missed in Finder, one time or another. It’s appropriately named TotalFinder (in honor, i’m guessing, of the TotalCommander application).

Here’s a rundown of the features that i love and the ones i kind of like, as well as a few suggestions on what could be added or improved:

What i kind of like, but would probably change

Tabs

Tabs : It’s nice to have the possibility of endless tabs, but i have trouble imagining having more than 2-3 open in any given window. It’s not a bad thing, but i think TotalFinder could totally get away with the dual-mode (maybe throwing in a tri-mode into the mix).

What i love

Cut and paste : Been missing this feature ever since i bought my first mac. I love Apple, but i think sometimes they just assume that people are dumb and fail to provide some tools that we consider basic needs. This is one of them and TotalFinder brings it back to us.

Dual mode

The dual mode : The ability to look at two different folders in the same window is something that you will never want to live without again. Sure, you can open two finder windows and put them side by side. But it’s a much slower process. In TotalFinder all you need to do is press Command + T (opens a new tab, so you have 2) and then Command + U. Presto! Dual mode goodness.

The visor : Combine the dual mode above with the Visor and you have the best Finder experience ever! The visor is something like the Quake terminal (remember? the one that slided into view so you could type all the cheats in? ); It sits out of sight until you press a global shortcut (typically ALT + `) and then slides from the bottom of the screen. It’s the best way to always have a Finder window around.

Folders on top : Call me old fashioned, but i do believe that folders should always be shown before files in any list. I can’t explain why, but it just makes sense to me. And if it also makes sense to you, then TotalFinder allows you to set this option

Hidden files/folders

Show hidden/system files : Again, Apple is protecting us from ourselves. I understand the motivation but sometimes i really want to see the hidden files. Especially for developers and powerusers who, from times to times, need to edit those dotSomething files (i.e. .bash_profile) this is a must-have!

Suggestions

Dual mode button in the bar : It wasn’t immediately apparent to me how to activate the dual-mode. I think it would be much simpler if there was a button in the bar, next to the quick-look and view mode buttons. Maybe it’s not even possible to implement, due to the Finder’s restrictions, so i’m just throwing it out there

Quick find folder feature : One thing i keep coming back to, when using file explorers, is the lack of a nice way to find a certain folder. I know i can use Finder’s search field, but then i have to specify that i’m searching by filename, and in the entire drive, and bla bla bla. A “find folder by name” feature would be a great addition to Finder, in my opinion.

Conclusion

TotalFinder is a great addition to your file/folder handling arsenal. It will bring back features that you missed for a long long time and are surprised Apple does not provide out-of-the-box. It’s not free. But then again, it’s a one man operation building a great product that will definitely give you more than the $15 you’ll pay for it. You can also get a 3 pack for $30 and offer 2 licenses to your friends

Bottom line: totally worth it!

Is your Safari 5 slow? Here’s a probable problem and solution.

Pedro Assunção — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:26:48 +0000

I could not figure out why the hell Safari 5 was running so slow in my personal mac, when compared with the one i use for work. Until i read some nice tips on the subject, namely this one article.

To make the story short: I had installed (a long long time ago) a couple of plugins (not to be confused with the new extensions) and completely forgot about them. One of them was the cause for Safari to completely block for 5-10 seconds at a time and show me the spinning color onion. I don’t care which one but, bottom line is, one probable cause for your problem is a misbehaved plugin.

The safest way to check is to go to Preferences -> Security and disable the plugins. Then restart the browser and check if the problem went away. If so, point Finder to ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and move the files to another folder. Enable the plugins again in the browser and restart. If it’s still fast, then that was your problem. Now the only thing left to do is to re-add them to the folder one by one, until you figure out which one is making Safari suck

Happy hunting

Summing up Apple’s keynote

Pedro Assunção — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:00:21 +0000

Apple had an event yesterday. And i saw that it was goooood. Seriously now, i was pleasantly surprised by – well – the surprises that were shown by Steve and co. Here’s a brief sum of coolness:

iLife 11

This update to the iLife family of products is one of the best ever, in my opinion.

iPhoto got yet more social features into it, like the ability to display your Facebook photo albums, as well as comments from your friends on those photos, and the fact that you can zoom to a particular part of the world map and, with one click, see the pictures inside that area. Other interesting features include a full screen mode, that takes away everything that is peripherical when organizing your pictures. They also introduced new slideshow templates and the books feature is very, very enhanced, showing a bookcase with all the photo book projects you have created and giving you complete control on the generation of the book.

iMovie also was added a lot of nice new features. The most notable include the long waited ability to edit audio directly in the timeline, like adjusting the sound level (even for just parts of a clip) and do fade ins and fade outs. Another great feature is the trailers part. It can now help you take your favorite footage and create movie-trailer-like movies, effortlessly. I can see myself using almost all these features in my podcast

GarageBand got some love as well: Between the ability to match the groove, or beat, of a track to another one, hence turning out-of-sync tracks into fully synced ones (which looks like magic), and a feature that reminds me of Guitar Hero called “How did i play”, GarageBand gets an incredible boost in terms of helpful features for artists and aspiring musicians.

No word on the rest of the products, but i can imagine some updates as well, though probably minor.

FaceTime for Mac

Yep, it’s here and fully available. You can now make video calls between iPhones and Macs (or macs and macs as well). Pretty awesome, though i wonder what will happen to iChat, and why wasn’t that integrated…

Mac AppStore

Will be available in 90 days time (yes, also for Snow Leopard) and will rock. These guys are going to make a ton of money on this thing. And for the end user, well, it means no longer manually installing updates for your favorite apps or using the (somehow) disparate software update mechanism in OSX.

MacBook Air

In one word: “Freakinawesome”
No more spinning drives (yes, that means no optical drive as well: goodbye DVDs), which pretty much makes them lighter and smaller. 2 versions are available, one 13 inch and one 11 inch. The prices go from $999 to $1599, depending on the version and options you want.

OSX 10.7 Lion

They showed off some new features, though the most notable ones are:

A new dashboard: Where you can see all your installed apps from the Mac AppStore, like you do one your iPhone (yes, sliding panels and everything), and group them as well;
Full screen apps. Meaning, real fullscreen goodness for your applications. They basically want to make Lion a bridge between traditional OSX and the iOS, where every app is basically fullscreen;
Something called mission control, where you can see an overview of every app that is running on your Mac, be it fullscreen or windowed. Think Exposé, but better arranged.

What about you? What are your thoughts on Apple’s new features?

Sproutcore on OSX snow leopard

Pedro Assunção — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:13:08 +0000

It recently came to my attention the existence of this heavily-client-based web framework to develop desktop-like applications called Sproutcore and is backed up by Apple (there is another cool alternative called Capuccino). Basically it relies on Javascript to create nice desktop-like applications, but on the web.

Ever since i heard about node.js i have been curious to try out one of these things. My ideas on it will come later but, for now, here are the required steps to make Sproutcore work well on OSX snow leopard. And i say work well because if you rely on the vanilla Ruby 1.8.7 that comes with snow leopard you will have a very crappy experience with Sproutcore; It will take approximately 35 seconds to reload any webpage every time you make a code change. And that will make you not want to use it at all.

Fortunately a lot of people have been kind enough to explain me, on twitter, how to make it faster.

But let’s start from the beginning:

1. Install Sproutcore using GEM, like so:

sudo gem install sproutcore

Note: I don’t remember if gem comes installed with snow leopard. If not, you can always google it

2. Follow the rest of the steps to setup your first application

By now you should have realized that (if you are using OSX snow leopard) the damn thing is freaking slow. So…

3. …download and compile the Ruby 1.9 source code for OSX

tar xzvf ruby-1.9.1-p376.tar.gz
cd ruby-1.9.1-p376
./configure --enable-shared --enable-pthread CFLAGS=-D_XOPEN_SOURCE=1
make
sudo make install

Note: The actual version could be different, as stuff evolves over time

4. Update the symbolic link on your system to point to the new ruby installation

sudo rm /usr/bin/ruby
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ruby

5. Make sure the correct Ruby version is in use

ruby --version

Should return something like this:

ruby 1.9.1p376 (2009-12-07 revision 26041) [i386-darwin10.3.0]

6. Install thin. This server is faster than the one that comes with Sproutcore

sudo gem install thin

7. All done. Give it a try again

If you try to refresh the page of a Sproutcore example now you will notice the speed difference, like night to day. Have fun coding client-side desktop web applications

I’m planning to also take a look at Capuccino, another similar framework, but created in Objective-J – a derivative of Objective-C for javascript. Looks interesting and it might get me into iPhone development at last

The quest for a simple music player on mac OSX

Pedro Assunção — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:11:41 +0000

I have to say this: looking for a simple music player for OSX is like searching for a needle in the middle of lots of big sticks; it should be easy, except the needle is under the carpet.

Nevertheless, between trying out iTunes, Songbird, and a few other options, i have always felt like there should be something, you know, simple and memory efficient. Don’t get me wrong, i love the interface on iTunes. And i do love what the guys at songbird are trying to accomplish. But the fact remains: I want a music player for OSX that does not freeze whenever i task-switch back to it. This happens on a 4GB ram macbook pro with both iTunes and Songbird!

So, a lot of google queries later, i came across Cog. It’s a very minimalistic music player that does one thing: it plays music. No multiple playlists, no plugins, no fuzz, it plays music. Period.

Time will tell if i’ll stick to it or miss something, but so far so good.

If anyone knows a better one, please let me know

Pedro Assunção » mac

Nice tweaks for OSX

OSX: Change time machine auto backup interval

My selection of top iPad 2 apps

Writing

Games

Reading

News and Magazines

Notes and doodles

Remote desktop and media centre control

Video streaming

Graphics

Cooking

Data

Alarms