Ever wondered what shell you are using at the command line? It’s not unusual to want or need to know which shell is running, and though you may hear this question many times, the answer could be different for every user, thus the easiest thing to do is to issue a terminal command which determines the currently active shell.
I love the web, I hate Flash. I know this isn’t always a popular opinion, but for me it causes a lot of problems. It’s a slow bloated resource hog that makes browsing the web painful, loud, and obnoxious. Really the only time I actually want to use it is on video sharing sites like YouTube, when using Flash is MY choice and not some obnoxious web advertisers with a “Congratulations… blah blah blah” talking Flash ad blasting in the background, so annoying! Ok now that my rant is over… let’s get to the point and find a solution to this problem; what we really want to do is prevent Flash from loading without our permission, right?
Do you need to access and mount an SMB share from the command line on a Mac? You may be used to connecting to Windows PC from the Mac networking features to mount a Windows share on Mac, but you can also connect to Samba shares from the Terminal too.
This article will show several ways to mount and access SAMBA / SMB network shares from the command line of Mac, including with the latest MacOS versions and older Mac OS X releases too, as the process is different depending on the system you are using.
Want to hide all desktop icons on a Mac? Desktop icon clutter can really impact workflow by overwhelming you with files and just too much stuff to look at. Inevitably, it can be hard to avoid since a lot of apps download things to the Desktop by default, we save things there, screenshots go there, it quickly becomes the generic catch-all location for documents and stuff that we’re working with.
If you decide you have too many icons on the desktop and maintaining the desktop is just too much to deal with, you can actually toggle a secret setting in Mac OS X to turn off the Mac desktop icons completely, thereby preventing them from being displayed at all. This effectively hides all the icons from showing up on the Mac desktop only, but all of your files and stuff will still be accessible from elsewhere through the file system and Finder. You can think of this kind of like disabling the desktop, because you can still actually save files and folders to the desktop, it’s just that the icons will not show up. Instead, you’ll just see your desktop wallpaper.
While geeking around I discovered another way to check if your Mac is 64 bit compatible by using the command line. Launch terminal and type “sysctl hw |grep 64bit”
Here’s me using the command on my MacBook which does not have a 64 bit processor:
$ sysctl hw |grep 64bit
hw.cpu64bit_capable: 0
on my friends newer MacBook Pro his results were:
$ sysctl hw |grep 64bit
hw.cpu64bit_capable: 1
meaning it is a 64 bit processor.
I have a million different genres in iTunes and not nearly enough album art, which is fine and dandy until you put iTunes 9 into genre ‘grid’ view and then suddenly you have a bunch of boring looking music note icons. Apparently how iTunes sets genre art is by looking for album art set in that genre, and if it can’t find any album art it will resort to the boring grey box. But not anymore! Thanks to a crafty Mac user, you can now change those dull music note icons into virtually any image you want, which dramatically spruces up your iTunes grid view appearance. Highly recommended iTunes tweaking! Check out the how-to guide here:
Want Gmail Push Notifications on your iPhone? In a crafty workaround, you can get Gmail to push notifications to your iPhone by setting up Gmail as a Microsoft Exchange account. The downside to this method is that you can only have one Microsoft Exchange account setup on your iPhone at a time, so if you already have an Exchange account configured you would have to replace it with the Gmail one. In any case, you can follow the instructions directly from Google on setting up the account so that you can get push notifications: Google Sync: Set Up Your iPhone or iPod Touch
[ via TechCrunch ]
The “uptime” of a computer is how long it has been since it was last rebooted or started up. Since Macs are very stable and generally OS X users rarely have to reboot their machines, the uptime of Macs can reach impressive numbers. You can check the uptime and reboot history of any Mac if you want to find this information yourself, we’ll show you how.
Here’s how to check the uptime in days (or hours) and the rebooting history both via the Command Line of OS X, and also how to find ‘time since boot’ through the System Information profiler on a Mac.
This is just a quick security tip based on some recent news, a couple Japanese computer scientists have figured out a way to crack WPA TKIP encryption in under a minute. This news came out a few weeks ago but after updating my wireless routers firmware I realized I hadn’t made the encryption type change yet myself, so I imagine many other people haven’t as well.
WPA is still more secure than WEP, but now that TKIP has been hacked, it’s best to change your Wireless Router’s encryption method to AES to continue to be secure.
Making the change is quick and easy, just login to your router’s administrative panel and you should find an option to switch the encryption from TKIP to AES.
Obviously this isn’t strictly Mac news, but since it’s a security issue that effects everyone equally, it’s worth posting here. You can learn more from the linked article.
The key takeaway is this: make sure you use the strongest wi-fi security protocol that your wireless router supports, and WEP is not secure. Use WPA2 or WPA anytime it is available, and with a strong password.
Yahoo News: New Attack Cracks Common WiFi Encryption in a Minute
Here’s something you don’t see everyday, Safari in an epic freakout and taxing 7,909.9% CPU usage. WTF?
Disabling Spotlight in Snow Leopard is pretty easy, launch the Terminal and type the following command:
sudo mdutil -a -i off
This tells the Spotlight manager to disable all indexing on all volumes, the command will require your administrative password to execute.
Re-enabling Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is just as easy, just reverse the command to:
sudo mdutil -a -i on
Now Spotlight indexing will be back on and work as usual.
MouseOver popups, self-starting blasting audio, auto-refreshing webpages, random sound effects, obnoxious flash ads, resizing of your browser window… oh the web is filled with all sorts of things that are sure to annoy web browsers a world over. Lifehacker came up witha great list of fixes that you can implement in Firefox to reduce the most obnoxious encounters on the web (some work in Safari too). If your pop-up blocker isn’t doing enough for you, try these tricks out too:
First a quick note, we absolutely adore Apple and all it’s software and hardware offerings, but… Hackintosh machines offer an impressive alternative to the official Apple hardware that we all know and love, and in some cases even fill a niche where Apple has yet to dabble (eg: Netbooks). If you’re in the market for a new Mac and you don’t mind sacrificing Apple hardware’s good looks, and you either want to save some serious cash or just want to geek around a bit, building a Hackintosh is a great solution. The Hackintosh movement is growing strong and steady, so grab a Netbook or build a Desktop PC, follow these hackintosh guides, and join us!
Here’s a whole slew of guides for creating a Hackintosh Netbook, and some other very helpful links. I’d personally recommend the Dell Mini 10v for ease of use and functionality, but my own hackintosh is actually an Acer Aspire One (which works great with 10.5.6 but wasn’t easy to get there, required a wifi card upgrade, etc).
Hackintosh Mini 10v – this is our guide on how to get a Hackintosh Dell Mini 10v that runs Mac OS X for just over $200. In my opinion, the Dell Mini 10v is the best option for a really awesome Hackintosh Netbook, it’s got good looks, a 10″ screen, and you can get one extraordinarily cheap by following these steps. Only downside is the RAM upgrade hassle.
Dell Mini 9 / Vostro 90 – if you can get over the awful keyboard on the Dell Mini 9/Vostro 90, it makes a great little hackintosh netbook
MyDellMini Forums – Snow Leopard – the most helpful forum group for the Hackintosh Netbook community is catered to Dell Mini owners, check out the Snow Leopard guides and if you have any questions or problems the MyDellMini forums should be your first line of defense
Asus EEE 1000h – a Hackintosh walkthrough for the Asus EEE PC 1000h
HP Mini 1000 – guide for hackintoshing the HP Mini 1000, just about everything works
Lenovo S10 – onboard ethernet does not work but otherwise following this guide you’ll get a fully functional Hackintosh S10
BoingBoing Netbook Compatibility Chart – a pretty solid chart to see which Netbooks can be turned into a Hackintosh and what works and what doesn’t, last updated in July 2009
Virtually Scale Window Size – very helpful hint for Hackintosh Netbook users with limited screen resolutions and real estate to virtually scale down window sizes
Here’s the best information I know of for building a desktop Hackintosh machine, it’s all based around the infamous Lifehacker guide that shows you how to build a really sweet desktop Hackintosh PC for around $900. The process has gotten even easier thanks to a PKG from Stella and it requires no hacking, just a simple pkg install.
Lifehacker: How to build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard from Start to Finish – a breakdown of all the hardware and procedures required to build a smoking desktop hackintosh machine, use their newer guide for installing Snow Leopard though
Lifehacker: Install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh PC with no hacking required – after reading the “how to build” guide from Lifehacker, read this for a much easier method of installing Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh
InsanelyMac Discussion on the Lifehacker Guide – a helpful forum with other Hackintosh users that have followed the Lifehacker guide, and any issues they’ve encountered along the way
Stellarola: Snow Leopard Hardware Compatibility List – repeated below for convenience, Stella is the genius behind the Lifehacker “no hacking” guide
Webcams:
* Dynex DX-WEB1C 1.3MP (Fixed Focus Cam and mic built-in)
* Xbox 360 Live Camera (Manually adjustable Cam only)
* Logitech Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac (Autofocus cam and mic built-in)
* HP KQ246AA (Autofocus cam and mic built-in)
Wired Ethernet Cards
* Netgear GA-311 (PCI)
* Trendnet Gigabit TEG-PCITXR (PCI)
* Rosewill RC-400 (PCI)
* Encore ENLGA-1320 (PCI)
* SMC9452TX-1 (PCI)
* Sonnet Presto Gigabit GE1000-E (PCI-e)
Wireless “Airport” Cards
* Asus WL-138G V2 (PCI)
* Dynex DX-BGDTC (PCI)
* Dell Wireless 1505 (PCI-e)
USB Audio
* SYBA SD-CM-UAUD
* SYBA SD-CM-UAUD71
* M-Audio Jamlab
* Griffin iMic
(above desktop hardware compatibility list courtesy of Stellarola):
Got anymore Hackintosh information or links? Share them with us!
Looking for a free iPhone Twitter app that is awesome? Allow me to rave for a moment about Echofon (previously Twitterfon), it’s without a doubt the best free iPhone Twitter app I have found and it has become an integral part of my day. I know there are various paid solutions out there which are pretty cool too, but since Twitter is free, I’m looking for a free solution for the iPhone, and Echofon does exactly the job I need it to do and quite well. You can easily tweet out, follow your friends, and track @messages going back and forth, and so much more. If there is a better free iPhone Twitter app out there, I want to know about it!
Download now [iTunes link]
Developer home
I apologize to everyone that has seen this, but if you haven’t it’s pretty funny. It’s the entire Apple 9-9-09 keynote address condensed into just under two minutes of superlative adjectives. It’s incredible, awesome, easy, better and better, wonderful, remarkable, easy, amazing, awesome, amazing, amazing, easy, great, great, easy, great, amazing, awesome. It’s awesome. Check it out.
[ via TechCrunch ]
Though the Mac is fairly error free and tends to run much more stable than some of the competitors out there, many of us will find a bug or two in day to day usage anyway.
Sometimes the bugs are minor, sometimes they’re fairly major and can dramatically impact how Mac OS X or iOS works or behaves.
Bugs are just a reality of software development, but that doesn’t mean we as end users can’t do or say anything about it.
An interesting opinion piece on kottke.org can be summarized as: the iPhone is taking over the world. Arguing that between the iPhone’s built-in functionality and the myriad of apps developed for it, the iPhone is going to win the fight for consumers limited pocket and purse space, and many devices (and thus, companies) are doomed as a result. The readers digest version for those of you who don’t want to read the entire article says the following devices are either now or going to be in direct competition with Apple:
* Mobile phones (duh)
* PDA’s
* iPod (duh)
* Power and shoot cameras
* Personal computer
* Nintendo DS
* PSP
* GPS (duh)
* Flip video camera
* Compass (disagree based on personal experience)
* Watch (yup)
* Portable DVD Player
* Kindle
* Pedometer
* Tape recorder
* Heart monitor
* Calculator
* Remote control
* USB key
* etc
Read more here: Kottke: Your Company? There’s an App for that
The iPhone Dev Team sure works quickly, and they have just released Jailbreak for iPhone 3.1 / iPod Touch firmware 3.1.
If jailbreaking your iPhone with 3.1 software appeals to you, then Pwnage Tool is what you’ll be looking for.
Before you attempt to jailbreak your 3.1 iPhone be sure to read the full post on the iPhone Dev Team blog so you can see potential pitfalls.
And as always, back up your iPhone or iPod touch before you do this.
Note that this version of the Pwnage tool does NOT work for the iPhone 3GS running 3.1, that’s apparently still under development.
Check out the jailbreak info here: iPhone-Dev.org: 3 o fun
