I frequently get asked about the purpose of .DS_Store files by Windows System Administrators who have a few Mac’s on their networks. Here is my explanation:

What is a .DS_Store file?

.DS_Store files are used by Mac OS X to store folder specific metadata information. They are created in every folder that Mac OS X Finder accesses, even network volumes and external devices. Folder level customizations are stored in the DS_Store file, things like custom icons, icon placement, icon size, window placement, list views, custom background pictures or colors, etc. DS_Store files are intended to be unobtrusive, which is why they have a . in front of their name, which indicates to UNIX file systems that the file is invisible. Most Mac users will likely never see a DS_Store file at all.

What happens if I delete the .DS_Store files?

If you delete .DS_Store files from the Mac folders, you will lose that directories folder specifics; things like icons, window placement, background pictures, etc, will be lost. While there is no significant harm (except losing the folder metadata) to deleting DS_Store files, unless you have a very specific reason to delete them, you should keep them in place since the Mac OS X Finder uses them. Deleting the files is really only necessary in some specific Windows+Mac shared networking environments.

Can I stop the DS_Store files from appearing on network drives?

Yes, by executing the following command in the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

It is rather easy to stop .DS_Store file creation on network connections but it is rarely necessary, read for more information.

Have you ever gotten emails from someone that you really don’t want to get? Be it just plain spam or annoying messages from people you’d rather not hear from, you can reduce this unwanted email by using the Bounce feature of Apple’s Mail app. Bounce tells the message sender that your email address isn’t valid, which is very effective when dealing with real people, but less so when dealing with spammers.

How do I stop someone from emailing me?

The most effective way to reduce unwanted emails is to ‘Bounce’ a message back to the sender. Select the message you want bounced back to the sender and go to the “Message” menu and select “Bounce”, or after selecting the message you can hit the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+B to achieve the same effect.

Is there anything else I can do to stop unwanted emails?

Yes, you can try labeling the message and sender as Spam and that will help to weed them out as well. For dealing with individual people I find that “Bounce” works the best to send a message to them, then marking any future emails from this individual as Spam.

You can restore the original location of a file that has been sent to the Trash very easily. Select an item in the Trash and hit the Command+Delete keys to send that item to it’s location prior to the Trash. If you’re not a fan of keystrokes, try Right-Clicking on the file within the Trash and select ‘Put Back’ from the contextual menu (see screenshot).

This may be Snow Leopard only, but how amazingly useful! You can select many files, or all the files in the Trash if you want, it will put them all back in their original location on your Mac.

If you’ve ever accidentally deleted pictures from your digital cameras memory card, you’re not alone. That feeling of dread when you forever lose photographic evidence of memories and experiences in digital form can sometimes be resolved though. Exif UnTrasher is a Mac OS X app that does exactly that, it will attempt to recover deleted images from your memory cards, and it works pretty well. Here’s the caveat though, you have to be able to mount the digital cameras memory card as a volume on your Mac, which some cameras can do but others can’t. If your camera doesn’t support mounting of media, you can always just use an external card reader which works just as well.

Exif UnTrasher is not a miracle worker but in our test it recovered all images that were taken before a ‘Quick Format’ on a Canon digital camera, so I imagine the success rate depends largely on how the images were deleted from your memory card. Try it out, it’s free, it certainly won’t hurt anything, and it’s got a pretty good chance of working to get your deleted images back!

Developer home
Download now

[ Carsten Blum via LifeHacker ]

You can easily sync your Mac’s Address Book contacts with your Google Contacts, here’s how to do it:

* Launch Address Book
* Click on the “Address Book” menu and select “Preferences”
* Click on the “Accounts” tab
* Select the “On My Mac” under the left accounts
* Check the checkbox accompanying “Synchronize with Google”
* Click on “Configure…”
* Enter your Google Account login, click “OK”
* Then click “Sync Now” from the menubar
* Now your Address Book is synchronized with your Google contacts!

This walkthrough is set within Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard but the ability to sync Google contacts with Address Book is within 10.5 as well (users have mixed results, I don’t have Leopard 10.5 so I am unable to help much). Syncing makes everyones life easier. Your Gmail contacts will now be the same as what is on your iPhone, Mail.app, and anything else that uses the Mac Address Book!

Update: I apologize if the above instructions weren’t clear. If you’re having troubles, one of our helpful readers, Steve Guttbinder, suggests the following:

This process uses iSync to synchronize. You need to manually hit sync from the menu bar OR use iSync. The menu bar icon is the SAME as the MobileMe sync icon (since that uses iSync as well). If you do not manually hit sync, it will NOT DO ANYTHING, you merely just set it up.

Thanks for the tip Steve!

I’ve heard of people controlling their Mac’s via their iPhone but assumed it was something just for the jailbreak crowd. Well, I assumed wrong. It’s actually really easy to control your Mac from the iPhone, the steps are basically this simple:
* Turn on ‘Screen Sharing’ in your Sharing preferences (set a password!)
* Download a VNC client on the iPhone (Mocha VNC Lite is recommended, it’s free)
* Connect to your Mac’s IP address via the iPhone VNC client
* That’s it!

It’s really about that simple, if you want some more guidance though, check out TechChimp’s walkthrough on the matter, it’s easy to follow and trust me, it’s easy.

Tech-Chimp: Remote control your Mac via the iPhone

Merry Christmas from all of us at OS X Daily!

Looking to repair your Mac? Troubleshooting hardware problems on your Mac? Planning a do-it-yourself battery replacement with a Unibody MacBook Pro? How do you change the harddrive on a 20″ aluminum iMac? If it involves dissembling a Mac and putting it back together, there is no better resource than iFixIt, who has the single most comprehensive list of free guides to take apart and rebuild nearly any Mac that is still in use. Every screw, tab, connector, and cable has been covered, if you follow these guides carefully you really can’t go wrong.

This site is absolutely fantastic and a must bookmark for any techy Mac user, Mac IT professional, or general enthusiasts who aren’t afraid to get their hands a little dirty. Do not miss it!

Mac Disassembly & Repair Guides

iFixIt Mac Guides – All Mac’s

iMac Repair Guides

MacBook Repair Guides

MacBook Pro Repair Guides

Mac Mini Repair Guides

Need to quickly boot from Mac OS X to Windows? Don’t want to fiddle around in System Preferences or hold down the Option key during the Mac restart to access the Boot Loader? QuickBoot to the rescue! QuickBoot is a great tool that sits in your menubar and lets you easily select boot volumes from Mac OS X to Windows and vice versa. Simply select the volume, reboot your Mac, and you’ll be in Windows. Reboot again and you’re back to Mac OS X (or whatever your default boot OS has been set to).

QuickBoot isn’t perfect though, as the developer points out that QuickBoot won’t work with MacBook Airs or Unibody MacBooks too well, and that operating systems outside of Windows and Mac OS are usually unrecognized.

QuickBoot developer home
Download QuickBoot now

[ via LifeHacker ]

Mac’s are amazingly reliable and have few problems, but it’s not incredibly unusual to run into problems connecting to a wireless network. If you’re having problems connecting your Mac wirelessly to an Airport or other WiFi router, check out this guide and try out these troubleshooting tips to fix your wireless internet connection.

Mac Wireless & Airport Connection Problem Troubleshooting: The Basics

* Turn Airport on & off – You can do this via the Airport menu bar or from the Network Preferences. This is the first thing you should try when troubleshooting Mac wireless problems.

* Reset your router – This is the second thing you should try doing. You can fix a surprising amount of wireless problems just by resetting the airport/router. All you need to do is turn the thing off for a few seconds and turn it back on.

* Reset your Cable/DSL modem – You’ll usually want to reset this in combination with your wireless router. Reset this first so the DHCP information will be pulled to the wireless router properly.

* Change Wireless Channels – sometimes your router’s wireless broadcast channel will interfere with a neighbors, be sure you have your router set to a unique channel. Even if it’s a weak signal there can still be interference.

* Make sure Wireless/Airport card software & firmware is up to date – This is usually done just by going to the Software Update menu, if there are any updates available for your Mac or Airport, install them.

Mac Wireless Troubleshooting: Intermediate

* Change wireless security protocol – You shouldn’t be using WEP anyway for security reasons, but sometimes changing from WEP to WPA/WPA2 or WPA to WPA2 can resolve wireless connection difficulties.

* Make sure router firmware is up to date – Check your router manufacturers website for firmware updates, if there are any available, install them.

* Delete and recreate connection – Try deleting and recreating/reestablishing the wireless connection, sometimes a setting can be corrupted and this may fix it.

* Create a new Network Location – Similar to the above suggestion, try creating a new and different wireless network location to see if it resolves the connection problems.

* Change DHCP auto settings to manual – sometimes there is a problem with the DHCP server, and if you manually set an IP address on the network you can be fine. Remember to set the IP to a high number so it wouldn’t interfere with other DHCP machines. As long as you have the subnet mask, router, and DNS settings configured manually as well, this shouldn’t be a problem.

* Disable “Wireless G/N/B only” mode – Sometimes a setting is selected that only broadcasts your wireless signal in Wireless B, G, or N mode (depending on the routers abilities). If this is set, try disabling it.

* Flush the DNS cache – Launch the Terminal and enter the following command onto one full line within the Terminal:
dscacheutil -flushcache

Mac Wireless Connection Problem Troubleshooting: Advanced

* Zap the PRAM – Reboot your Mac and hold Command+Option+P+R during restart until you hear another chime, let the Mac boot as usual.

* Delete Wireless Config files – Delete com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist and com.apple.internetconfig.plist files from ~/Library/Preferences and reboot

* Trash your home directories SystemConfiguration – Remove all files within ~/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ and then reboot your Mac.

* Reset your Mac’s System Management Controller (SMC) – For MacBook and MacBook Pro’s: Shutdown the MacBook/Pro, remove the battery, disconnect the power, hold the Power Key for 15 seconds. Replace the battery, reconnect power, and zap the PRAM and wait for 2 chimes before letting the keys go. Let boot as usual.

Many of these tips are from our fixing dropped wireless airport connection problems in Snow Leopard article.