Automator is a powerful automation tool that comes with Mac OS X, unfortunately it’s also another one of those applications that I basically never use. There are many tasks that I could automate, but I’ve just never gotten around to setting up automation. Well, if you’re like me, or if you’re new to Automator, this tutorial on MacApper might be beneficial to you. Covering the basics, it walks us through getting around Automator and how to setup a simple backup. Check it out if you’re curious:

MacApper.com: Tutorial for Automator Basics

We love tips that make your computing life easier, and this command line tip from Cedrik Morgan falls into that category, making a lengthy ssh command quite a bit shorter by creation of an alias.

Here’s what Cedrik writes in:
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If you use your Mac on a cross platform network often, you’ve surely run into the obnoxious creation of .DS_Store files.

If you’re curious what the file is used for, DS_Store is a hidden file for Mac OS X that stores various bits of data for the Finder to remember, like icon position, making it completely useless for anyone besides you to see.

By default, your Mac will create the .DS_Store file’s all over the place including accessed computers that aren’t Macs, creating an annoying mess for network users to find.

Thankfully you can easily turn off the creation of DS_Store files on network connections:

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Have you ever known that you need to open a specific text file to a specific line number? Perhaps for a code review or adjustment, whatever the reason this is fairly common. Rather than open the text file in nano or vim and then navigate to the line number you want to access, there is a faster way available to command line users.

In fact, you can jump directly to a specific line number of a text file on launch of vim or nano.

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If you want to quickly shut off your Mac without seeing the warning dialog and without any sort of confirmation from the familiar power dialog box or otherwise, you can do that with a little known key modifier trick. Be aware that this approach is fairly abrupt, so you’ll want to use this sparingly for most purposes.

To shut down a Mac without seeing the warning dialog box, try holding down the ‘Option’ key while selecting “Shut Down” from the Apple  Menu.

Holding the Option key while choosing to turn off the Mac will cause the system to shutdown without the two minute dialog box coming up to verify your shutdown or restart plans.

Do be careful with trying this one out casually, because there’s no warning, and the power controls box does not appear at all. Instead, all of your open apps will immediately begin to quit as the OS X shut down process begins and completes itself without any further user intervention (some apps with certain background processes may intervene unintentionally, such as Terminal with an active system specific task, but don’t rely on that since it certainly doesn’t apply to most users).

This is the power confirmation dialog box that gets skipped during this shut down process:

Even if the Auto-Save and Window & System Restore features of Mac OS X will save you sometimes from losing data, some apps don’t support those features, and with an abrupt system shut down, the Mac may not have enough time to generate adequate cache for the active applications to be able to gracefully restore. So again, use this sparingly, since most users like to keep their data.

Wireless networks are nearly everywhere nowadays, often you’ll be in range of several at a time. With so many seemingly available wifi networks, how do you know which to join? Enter WiFind, a cool little utility that integrates seamlessly into your existing Airport menu as a plugin, allowing you to see more than just wireless networks. WiFind adds icons to display signal strength and if the network is locked or unlocked, saving you the time and effort of checking on your own. WiFind is shareware, and costs $8. Try it, you’ll like it. Read on for a screenshot and links to download.

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The Mac has a built-in word completion and word suggestion feature that is intelligent and works incredibly well. This OS X feature is not quite predictive text or QuickType like exists in iOS, but it’s fairly similar and all you need to do is give it a start. You’ll find this very useful if you can’t remember how to spell a word, or a word is on the tip of your tongue and you know it starts with a particular letter or prefix.

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Ever closed a browser tab in Firefox and wished you hadn’t done so? A simple keystroke can retrieve that closed browser tab!

I can’t count the number of times I have been closing windows or tabs and have accidentally a tab that I wanted kept open.

In the past, it has been annoying at best and disastrous at worst, but now I no longer have any issues… why you may ask?

Because I know a keyboard shortcut that is perhaps amongst the most useful in Firefox… Command-Shift-T .

Yes that’s all you need, the next time you accidentally close a tab and you want it back, simply hit Command-Shift-T and the tab will magically reappear again! Now that you know it, try to live without it.

Want more Firefox tips? Check out 15 must-know Firefox shortcuts and our Firefox tips archive!

Of course Firefox isn’t the only browser with this capability, some other browsers allow you to use the general UNDO shortcut of COMMAND Z to perform the same function. Try it out!

It is not unusual for companies and schools to block certain ports to prevent people from using things like P2P networks and AIM. But the AIM chat protocol is quite popular, so if you want to use it and you find it to be blocked on a network, you can probably get around it by making an adjustment to the ports used by iChat.

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This looks to be a week of SSH tips, beyond secure WebMail access with SSH tunnels, MacApper.com has a nice post about using secure tunnels to surf the web and talk on instant messengers. Why is any of this SSH stuff useful or important you may ask? In short, SSH provides a very secure protocol to send data across, meaning if you are ever on a public network at school or work, it will be nearly impossible to snoop your data and internet habits.

MacApper: Advanced OS X: Surf a Secure Tunnel via SSH

The Mac OS X GUI and all it’s eye candy is a pleasure to use and look at. Perhaps you’ll remember a while back from our Fun Eye Candy Effects article that by holding down the Shift key, you can slow down virtually any Aqua effect in Mac OS X, from minimizations, window sizing, to Mission Control and Expose.

If you want something kind of useless but also kind of fun, you can make the slow effect permanent by typing a defaults command string in the Terminal.

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Reader Mathew Prairen asks a common question about forcibly opening files with an application on the Mac, and it has a remarkably simple answer:

“I have a few documents and files from my PC that Pages refuses to open, is there any way I can force Pages to open these files?”

As a matter of fact, yes, you can force any application to attempt to load just about any file in Mac OS X, and the secret is using a keyboard modifier with a drag and drop trick. Let’s walk through how this works to force a file to open in a designated app.

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MacPorts, formerly DarwinPorts, is a free open source app that allows Mac users to easily install command line software and x11 software in Mac OS X by using the ‘ports’ command line tool for package management.

MacPorts is probably best for more advanced Mac users who have some experience with the command line, because MacPorts itself is also a command line tool.

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Almost everyone likes tweaking their Mac, and LifeHacker has posted a great list of tweaks for Mac OS X users that you’re sure to enjoy. A few of the tips have been covered by OS X Daily before, but there will likely be some that are new to you.

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Since Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been delayed until October, Apple is rumored to be working on an update to Mac OS X 10.4. The update will supposedly be released under the version number 10.4.10, a somewhat unusual number for Apple, who typically release a significant update like 10.5 after a .9 update. The update, which has begun to appear in Apple’s development circles, will add a few new features, bug fixes, and other improvements, although exactly what will be changed and added is unknown. Of course, this is all speculation based on an AppleInsider article, but the likelihood of seeing another update before 10.5 Leopard in October is pretty high.

Source: ArsTechnica: Apple issuing pre-release builds of OS X 10.4.10

Firefox is a great web browser for Mac that offers a lot of benefits, and one way to really improve your Firefox experience is to learn and master some keyboard shortcuts for Firefox on Mac OS. Whether you use Firefox as your default Mac web browser, or as just one of a variety of other options, you’re sure to find these useful.

One of the better ways to improve the user experience with any application is by learning some essential keyboard shortcuts, so here are fifteen such shortcuts for Firefox.

Whether you are new to Firefox or a long time user, this list of keyboard shortcuts will likely be useful to you.

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If your computer is hooked up to a network, you might want to think twice about security because it’s easier than you’d think to snoop private information and emails, particularly over wireless networks. One of the better ways to protect yourself is to use a secured connection like SSH, which will encrypt all the data being sent back and forth. Before you jump on the local wireless network and check your email, you may want to setup SSH so you can be sure that your data is kept secret, and this how-to guide from NonStopMac is a simple walkthrough on doing just that. Check it out:

NonStopMac: How to securely access webmail

Here’s a simple Dock hack that is really useful for those of us who have many applications open at once.

When activated, icons of applications that are hidden (either by right clicking the icon in the Dock, or by option-clicking away from the application) will appear transparent within the Dock like the screenshot shows with some Mac apps.

To activate this hack, open up your Terminal and use the following:
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