Whether you are a new Apple developer or an experienced Cocoa engineer with roots in NeXTStep, you will understand the need to back up your hard work. Integrating Xcode with subversion not only allows you to back up your code, but it also enables you to keep a history of changes that you can revert back to or compare your code against. This is called version control. This article assumes that you already have your own subversion repository that you have read and write access to. If you want to setup a subversion server of your own, I suggest consulting the almighty google for a wide range of articles on how to accomplish this task. Read on for screenshots, details and lots of fun.

Step 1) Tell Xcode about your repository.

     Xcode has the ability to communicate with subversion using native svn communication, ssh+svn, http and https. The most popular of the various methods is https which allows you to save your data over an encrypted channel. Because after all, it is important that your trade secrets are never exposed to your competitor! To add a subversion repository, navigate to the “SCM” menu and select the “Configure SCM Repositories…” option. Fill in the relevant information which should be readily available to you, if it’s not, contact the person who administrates your SVN repository for more details.

Step 2) Let’s put your code on the Subversion server

     Go back to the SCM menu and select the “Repositories” menu item. From this screen you can now “import” your hard work into the repository. Click the “Import” button and navigate to your Xcode project’s directory. If you haven’t done so already, you might want to think about configuring your project to use a directory for builds that lives OUTSIDE of your Xcode project directory. If you configure your build paths (in your Project Settings) in this manner you will avoid checking in binary copies of your application, which is typically unnecessary as subversion is source control management (SCM) not binary control management. After you have settled on your build path situation, go ahead and select your entire Xcode project and import it. If the subversion server is “local” to your computer this process will be lighting fast. If not, wait a while for it to finish.

Step 3) Check-out your newly imported code from the repository

     Now that you have stored your source code on the subversion server, the current local copy of your Xcode project can be moved off to the side, or even better, deleted. Don’t worry since you placed the files inside of the repository, we can quickly check them out so that your working copy will be attached to the repository. Navigate back to the SCM menu (noticing a trend here?) and select “Repositories”. From the repository browsing window select your Xcode project and click the “Checkout” button. Xcode will ask you for a place to save the project. Any location will do, just save it.

Step 4) Inform your Project that it is under SCM control

     Time to tell Xcode that your project is being managed by SCM, or more specifically subversion. Pull your Project Settings and click the “Project Roots & SCM” button. It will bring up the window you see below where you want to select and then click the small black arrows until it reads your subversion repository. That it. Hit Ok and return to Xcode. Your project is now Subversion aware.

The Final Steps
     The hard work has paid off. You can now right click the menu bar of the navigation sidebar and check the “SCM” entry. This will place an additional column in the sidebar which will have an “M” in it if a file is “newer” (meaning it needs to be committed) than what is in the Subversion repository. You can now right click a file and commit it to the repository. When you do that, Xcode will ask you to enter a comment that describes what changes were made to the file.

You can easily resize any disk partition in Mac OS X using the included Disk Utility app, located in /Applications/Utilities, you can even resize a mounted volume but that’s not the best idea in the world. Before you go messing around and resizing your partitions, be sure to backup your data in case something goes wrong.

Since Mac OS X Leopard (and obviously Snow Leopard) you can grow or shrink HFS+ (Mac OS X) Partitions on the fly, with the resizing done live regardless of whether the drive is internal or an external drive.

[ tip idea and animated gif from CreativeTechs ]

Command-Tab in Mac OS X works really well as a quick application switcher and I use it all the time, but there’s more features available within the Command-Tab application switcher than just hitting Command+Tab itself. Once you’re in the application switcher you can try some of these other commands.

Command+Tab launches the Application Switcher. Continue holding down the Command key and then try the following buttons:

• tab – move selection to the right in the app list
• ` – move selection to the left
• h – hide the selected application
• q – quit the selected application
• mouse scrollwheel – move the selection back and forth
• left arrow – move selection to the left
• right arrow – move selection to the right
• up arrow – enter expose within the selected application
• down arrow – enter expose within the selected application

Memorize these tips to master the Mac application switcher and speed up your workflow! (Note: the expose features appear to be Snow Leopard only)

Not to brag or anything, but I love the fact that that unless I’ve run Software Update I rarely have to reboot my Mac, this might not be that exciting to most Mac users but as a relatively recent Windows convert, I find this particularly nice. So naturally with my Mac geekiness I find it fun to check the uptime and reboot history of my Mac and others, it’s easy to do and it’s actually functionally useful too for troubleshooting certain Mac problems. Here’s how to do both via the Command Line:

How to Check your Macs uptime

To check your Macs uptime, simply type ‘uptime’ in the Terminal. In the below example, we have a Mac that has been up for 21 hours and 40 minutes.
YourMac:~ user$ uptime
10:33 up 21:40, 4 users, load averages: 0.09 0.19 0.21

How to Check your Macs reboot history

To check the reboot history of your Mac, type ‘last reboot’ in the Terminal. This will provide you with the dates and times of the last few reboots the machine has gone through.
YourMac:~user$ last reboot
reboot ~ Tue Sep 22 12:52
reboot ~ Sun Aug 30 23:17
reboot ~ Sat Aug 29 01:12
reboot ~ Fri Aug 28 22:07

wtmp begins Fri Aug 28 22:07


Nice huh?

So you want a small lightweight portable Mac OS X machine, the closest thing Apple has in this area is the MacBook Air which is $1600 or more. No doubt about it, the MacBook Air is a great machine but I don’t want to spend anywhere near $1600 for another laptop when I already have a MacBook Pro. I’m thinking a small budget, like really small by Mac standards, how about $250 or less? Impossible you say? Wrong! It’s possible and I did it! Here’s how you can too. Be warned, this is not sanctioned by Apple, and it’s breaking the Mac OS X EULA agreement.

What You Will Need

* $200-$250, expenses vary based on your particular model, coupon code, and luck at the Dell Outlet
* 8gb USB key or external USB hard drive you don’t mind formatting
* Mac OS X 10.5 install DVD or image
* some patience

Finding a Cheap Dell Mini 10v for Hackintosh Purposes

So now you need to find the cheap Dell Mini 10v, the refurbs from Dell Outlet serve this purpose wonderfully. Combined with a discount code from the DellOutlet Twitter, and you have yourself a very affordable Hackintosh. My final price was $204 shipped!

Twitter: DellOutlet – follow DellOutlet on Twitter to get product discount codes, I got one for 15% off from here. They pop up once a week or so and have a limited duration.

Dell.com/Outlet – Mini 10v – check stock and sort by price, it’s a live search so you can constantly refresh it and see different stock from other people dumping their carts. I have seen a Mini 10v for as low as $219 BEFORE using the 15% coupon!

Hackintosh: Installing Mac OS X on the Dell Mini 10v

Gizmodo Guide to install Snow Leopard on the Dell Mini 10v – this is based on the information from MyDellMini forums but it’s made a bit easier to follow and has some nice pictures of progress. If you want to install Snow Leopard on your Mini 10v, this is a great guide to follow.

MyDellMini: Fool Proof No Hassle Mini 10v Install Guide – Fellow OS X Daily author Bill Ellis wrote about theHackintosh Dell Mini 10v several weeks ago, which is what first perked my interest in the topic. I followed the guide he suggested, it works, just follow the steps carefully and it will work for you too.

Upgrades, Troubleshooting, and more

MyDellMini – Install 2GB RAM Upgrade on Dell 10v – I followed the videos here to upgrade the memory. Ok I admit, the RAM upgrade was a total pain, but OS X smokes with 2gb of ram on the Mini 10v so if you’re technically competent and have the patience, it’s the best $19 you’ll have spent in a while. For what it’s worth, OS X runs just fine with only 1GB of RAM but you will see a noticeable speed bump with the 2GB upgrade.

MyDellMini Forums – this is a wildly helpful bunch of people that are quick to help and extremely knowledgeable on the topic, if you have any questions or run into problems at all, this is probably the best place to go.

MyDellMini Forums: Snow Leopard – Now that Snow Leopard is out I’d love to get it running on my little Hackintosh, but I’m going to wait until the process is a bit more streamlined before attempting this. If you follow the MyDellMini forums though, you’ll see many people have successfully installed it already, it’s just a bit complicated. I imagine the Hackintosh community will sort this out pretty soon, it’s a smart group.

Final Thoughts on Hackintosh

Considering how vibrant the Hackintosh community is, particularly focused on Netbooks, I think it points to a hole in Apple’s current product line: a cheap, lightweight, super-portable Mac. Until Apple fills this niche with something (the rumored Mac Tablet, or whatever), I’ll bet the Hackintosh community continues to grow, especially when people are pinching pennies in a recessionary economy. Hopefully Apple steps up and delivers, an Official Mac Netbook or equivalent would be awesome and I would buy one!

Apple certainly means well with the Software Updates, but sometimes I get update notifications I just don’t care about, or just don’t want to install. You can stop Software Update from pestering you about these particular packages by selecting the package in the Software Update screen, then navigating to the ‘Update’ menu and selecting “Ignore Update” (see screenshot below). If you accidentally ignore a package you do want, or you change your mind later, no problem – simply go to the Software Updates main menu and select “Reset Ignored Updates”

The Hackintosh community is rather controversial but increasingly popular, and some of the most appealing Hackintosh machines are those based around Netbooks, tiny lightweight laptops that fill a niche Apple has yet to dabble in. The Dell Mini 9 has long been the cream of the Hackintosh Netbook crop, but it looks like the Dell Mini 10v is giving it a run for it’s money, the internals are largely the same but it has a 10″ screen. (Note that the Dell Mini 10 and 10v are completely different units with different hardware, the 10v is Hackintosh compatible, the 10 is not). It’s worth noting that installing Mac OS X on something other than Apple hardware is against the Apple OS X EULA, so the legitimacy of the entire Hackintosh movement is dubious at best, but morals aside…

If you want to run Mac OS X 10.6.2 on a Dell Mini 10v and want to pay around $200 USD, check out our guide for a cheap hackintosh netbook

Installation is pretty simple, check out these how-to guides on MyDellMini.com, which guarantees a fool proof, no hassle, everything working Mac OS X 10.5.8 or even Mac OS X 10.6.2 installation on the Dell Mini 10v:

MyDellMini: Fool proof no hassle Mini 10v Hackintosh guide

It’ll be interesting to see how Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard runs on these Hackintosh machines… time will soon tell!

Updated 2/25/2010: You can now easily install Snow Leopard 10.6 on the Dell Mini 10v, we have linked the easiest guide on MyDellMini forums for your convenience.

MyDellMini: How to Install 10.6 on a Mini 10v

Creating your own cheap Mac Hackintosh out of a PC Netbook is pretty popular right now, so I compiled a list of various how-to guides mostly for myself but figured I would share it with our readers as well. The guides rank from reasonably easy (Dell Mini 9) to an arduous hack, and it’s technically against Apple’s OS X EULA agreement, so whether or not it’s worth proceeding with making one of these frankenstein Macs is entirely up to you.

Gizmodo: How to Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9

MyDellMini: Fool proof no hassle Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh guide

MSiWind Forums: How to Install Mac OS X on an MSI Wind

InsanelyMac: Install OS X on an Acer Aspire One

Stuart Shelton: How to install Mac OS X on a Samsung NC10

S10Lenovo: Install Mac OS X on a Lenovo S10

MyHPMini: Install Mac OS X on an HP Mini 1000

Enik: Install Mac OS X 10.5.6 on an EEE 1000h

It’s worth mentioning that BoingBoing has a pretty good OSX/Netbook compatibility chart but much of the info looks out of date (from December of 2008) so it’s worth doing some of your own due diligence before relying 100% on the chart.

Update: A reader has sent this in, saying that these files work for installing Snow Leopard on a Dell Mini 10v but we have not been able to test it… this link was pulled from the MyDellMini Forums. Not for novice users, proceed with caution!

Here’s a great tip that creates a nice hover effect when your mouse goes over an application (or folder) within a Leopard stack. Why this isn’t enabled by default in Leopard is beyond me, because it makes navigating within stacks a whole lot easier. Don’t miss out, here’s how to activate it:

Launch the Terminal and type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilite-stack -boolean yes

then, you’ll have to restart the Dock by issuing the following command:
killall Dock

To disable the hover highlights, type:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilite-stack -boolean no

Quick Look is likely the only feature in Leopard 10.5 that I actually notice and something I would certainly miss if I went back to 10.4, it’s just too useful. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a decent post listing 10 useful Quick Look usage tips, some are built right in and won’t require modification, while others will require 3rd party plugins to use. Here’s the full list, minus the detail:

1. Identify files on remote machines.
2. Preview the contents of Zip files (plug-in required).
3. Preview the contents of a folder (plug-in required).
4. Examine snippets of code with syntax highlighting intact.
6. Prep your iWork documents for use with Quick Look.
7. Enhance TextMate.
8. Preview fonts.
9. Quick Look and Cover Flow.
10. Send images to iPhoto.

If these sound appealing, read more at TUAW: 10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look

The appearance of the new Dock in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has caused somewhat of an uproar in the Mac community, some of whom even claim it looks like it belongs in Windows Vista. If you’re totally insulted by the new 3D dock, or if you just prefer the old Dock appearance, it’s very easy to change and you don’t need to be a super Mac genius to figure it out. Simply launch your terminal and type the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

then you will want to kill the Dock to relaunch it without the glass effect:
killall Dock

to get the reflective 3D Dock back, simply type the following:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

again, you will want to kill the Dock to relaunch it. Enjoy!

Quick Look is a nice feature added in 10.5, I use it often for glancing at the content of various documents and it certainly beats launching an application. If you’re an avid command line user though, you may be browsing through a directories contents and wondering just what is that JPG or DOC file. Wonder no more, because you can easily use Quick Look from the command line:

From the command line, use the following syntax:

qlmanage -p filename.jpg

This will launch a Quick Look window with whatever file is specified as ‘filename.jpg’, the file type can be anything that Quick Look is compatible with (which seems to be just about everything).

The qlmanage command has other abilities, here is the full flag list, courtesy of qlmanage -h:


Usage: qlmanage [OPTIONS] path...
-h Display this help
-r Force reloading Generators list
-p Show a preview of the documents
-t Show thumbnails of the documents
-s size Size for the thumbnail
-f factor Scale factor for the thumbnail
-c contentTypeUTI Force the content type used for the documents
-g generator Force the generator to use


Note that you can have Quick Look launch in the background by using the following command, allowing you to continue using the Terminal as usual:

qlmanage -p filename.jpg &

Thanks to Quick Look in Leopard, you no longer have to drag files from the Trash to check them out. Simply hit Command-Y while on any file within the trash folder and Quick Look will behave as normal by launching a preview of the file contents. This great tip was found on TUAW (and screenshot was borrowed from them as well, obviously).

The geekier amongst us and those familiar with Unix should really like this trick. You can have Mac OS X 10.5 display the full directory path in the Finder window title bar by issuing a simple command from the Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
Then you’ll want to kill the Finder for changes to take effect:
killall Finder

To disable the full path title bars and revert back to the default, simply repeat the command with NO instead of YES as the operator:
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool NO
killall Finder

Note: this apparently only works within Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and newer (thanks kg!). Tested for 10.6.3 works fine as well.

The appearance of Mac OS X has slowly been drifting away from the old aqua style to a more modern and refined look that closely resembles iTunes. The change in this direction was really made obvious within Leopard with the introduction of the coverflow style finder and the removal of the brushed metal windows. For some reason, Apple ignored the scrollbars though, and we still have Aqua-styled candy looking scrollbars when everything else resembles iTunes. So you had to figure it was only a matter of time before a crafty Mac user would change that, and here we have it. Installation is very easy, but I would backup the .rsrc file before you replace it with this new version.

Download now
Source and discussion: MacThemes2.net
Click here for a full size screenshot