I just came across a really useful QuickLook plugin called SuspiciousPackage that lets you inspect those .pkg package installer files that so many Mac apps and downloads come in. Using this plugin, you can determine if an admin password is required, how many install scripts are in the package file, where the installation locations of files is going to be, and if a restart is required.

Installation is simple and like any other QuickLook plugin. Download the SuspiciousPackage QuickLook plugin and drop it into ~/Library/QuickLook/ and you’ll be good to go (restart the Finder if necessary).

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You can change the Mac OS X login screen background picture using a few different methods. We have covered this tip before but it was based around a few Terminal commands that might not be easy to follow for the average Mac user without command line experience. With that in mind, here are ways to change the Mac login wallpaper:
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You can convert many different image file formats in Mac OS X for free using the included Preview application, there’s no need to download additional tools or do anything overly complex.

As of any somewhat modern version of Mac OS X, the Mac Preview app supports the following file types and will convert between any of them: GIF, ICNS, JPEG, JPG, JPEG-2000, Microsoft BMP, Microsoft Icon, OpenEXR, PDF, Photoshop (PSD), PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, TIFF. Some of those image formats will be hidden from your default view when saving, requiring the usage of the “Option” key when saving to reveal them. In any event, converting from one image type to another is simple.

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Need a therapy session? Your Mac has you covered. Yes, you read that right. You can use your Mac as a psychotherapist from the Terminal, thanks to emacs the text editor. Say what? If you’re confused don’t be, it’s an easter egg that has long existed and it’s easy to access.

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Mac OS X Server is infinitely better equipped, more stable, and just generally more pleasant than any of Windows offerings (yes I am biased, but it’s true), if you’re needing a server I highly recommend checking out Apple’s offering. Instead of shelling out the $499 for a copy though, you can get a free evaluation copy! If you’re a large corporation, small business, nonprofit organization, government agency, or educational institution, you can get a free and fully functional evaluation copy of Mac OS X Server directly from Apple. I just found out about this and I think it’s a pretty great thing for Apple to do, so if you qualify for a copy, check it out and you will be impressed.

Apple: Snow Leopard Server Evaluation

If you’re ever wondering how long your Mac has been turned on and running for, you can discover exactly how long the computer has been on since last boot with two different methods available in OS X.

Let’s learn a bit more about discovering how long a Mac has been left turned on for, and also, theoretically at least, how long you could leave a Mac turned on for.

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You can delete specific pages from a PDF file with the built-in Mac Preview app, available in all versions of OS X. This is really useful for paring down large PDF documents if you only need a few select pages, and learning how to delete specific pages from PDF files is bound to make any student or researchers life easier when emailing or printing documents.

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Locker is a very simple Dashboard widget that does something Mac OS X should have included by default, it instantly locks your Mac desktop.

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You may already know that you can use a keystroke to make a Stickies Note from Safari app in Mac OS X, but did you know that same keystroke works in many more apps on the Mac?

Yes, it turns out you can instantly create a Stickies note from almost anywhere and any application in Mac OS X by highlighting the text or image, and hitting the Command+Shift+Y keys concurrently.

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iTunes 9 is great and has a lot of improvements, but changing the background color in Grid view from the nice easy-on-the-eyes dark to the bright retina torching white is not on my happy list. Now they made this different recently but Manish is still am not thrilled. Thankfully French designer Damien Erambert has come up with an easily installable hack to change the grid mode colors in iTunes 9 back to an attractive dark color scheme.

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Update: Since iTunes 9.0.2 you can change this without a hack. See comments below.

Are you constantly checking your favorite RSS feeds? Me too, I am pretty much addicted to my favorite sites. Thankfully, RSS Menu makes it really easy to keep on top of all the latest posts coming out of our online world, by sitting in my menu bar and notifying me if there are any new posts. It works just like the Google Notifier or Facebook Notifier and has a nice little RSS icon that lights up to let you know there are new posts to be read. RSS is dead? I think not.

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If you know a phrase that is contained within a document, but can’t remember the document file name, try searching for the phrase that you know appears within the document. Make this phrase search even more precise by putting the phrase itself within quotation marks, for example “all rights reserved” will find all files that contain that exact phrase only.

I love icons and customizing my Mac desktop, so I decided to share with you all my personal bookmark list of free mac icons. These are the sites I visit when I want to change my Mac appearance and all the icons that define the OS X desktop and dock. Of course if you’re on the other end of the spectrum and you hate icons you can hide all desktop icons in Mac OS X, but that’s not the purpose of this article. You are here for great icons, so if you too are an icon geek, look no further.

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Mac’s have a very distinct startup sound that chimes whenever they boot, this is fine for most people but if you’re in a quiet office or library it can be very obnoxious to have the loud startup sound announcing to the world that you are on a Mac. Thankfully there’s a nice little utility that’s easy to install and works just like any other Preference Pane on your Mac. Aptly named StartupSound lets you adjust the volume of your Mac’s startup sound, and of course to stop it chiming and mute it entirely.
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Snow Leopard changed the way the Dock behaves when a Dock item has been clicked on and held down, since 10.6 it launches Expose for that specific application. You may recall how Leopard handled the click-and-hold though, which was to launch the contextual menu (the same one you get when you right-click in 10.6). Using the Terminal and the defaults write command, you can alter this behavior between the 10.5 contextual-menu and 10.6 Expose style click-and-hold Dock behavior. So launch your Terminal:

Show contextual menu rather than Expose when Dock item has been clicked and held (like 10.5)
defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -bool no; killall Dock

Revert to Expose upon click-and-hold (10.6 default)
defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -bool yes; killall Dock

I actually like the new Expose click effect (which is slightly different in 10.6.2 than it is in 10.6), so for me this is a matter of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but to each their own.

via Lap Cat Software

Converting a PNG file to JPG, or converting JPEG to PNG, is really easy in Mac OS X. You can use the built-in Preview utility to perform the file format change quickly, and Preview is a great choice since it’s bundled with all versions of MacOS and Mac OS X, meaning it does not matter what version of software you have installed on the Mac. No additional downloads are necessary, Preview is built right in on the Mac.

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Have you ever had an iPhone experience cellular data problems? Maybe the iPhone has an inability to connect to a cellular network, or some other cellular connection issue occurs that makes it unable to send and receive data or even calls.

If an iPhone is experiencing cellular connectivity and cellular data issues or problems, you may be able to resolve your cellular or general network data problems with a relatively simple trick, which is to reset the iPhone Network Settings. This article will show you how to do just that.

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It’s Sunday funday again… and though this doesn’t really fit into a ‘fun’ category it’s sure interesting anyway… we bring to you a rather unfortunate incident that caused a MacBook Pro to be pierced with a bullet hole, right through the screen! Yikes!
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