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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Virtual memory serves a crucial task in modern operating systems, essentially how it works is that when you run out of real memory (RAM), the slower hard disk will take over as a temporary memory source. The downside is that the hard disk is slower, so running things in virtual memory is not ideal, one of the many reasons why more physical RAM is better. If you’re curious to see how your Mac is handling virtual memory though, you can see a quick overview from the command line with the help of the vm_stat command.

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We all want our Mac performing at it’s best, and this list is quite long addressing all sorts of things. Many of the tips are common sense but there’s still some decent advice and it’s worth checking out. Not everyone is happy with the 52 tips though, MacUser has released a lengthy rebuttal addressing each of the 52 tips. Check out the original ImAFish article, and then perhaps check out the MacUser article to get a more realistic idea of how these tips may effect your Mac.

ImAFish: 52 ways to speed up OS X
MacUser: Breaking down 52 ways to speed up your Mac

If you have an extra iPod laying around that isn’t getting much musical usage, perhaps you’d like to try using it as a boot disk. Yes seriously, though obviously by doing so you will lose the iPod ability to play music, and gain a bootable Mac volume instead.

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I am frequently developing web pages and often times I find it frustrating when I can not restart my browser because I’m in the middle of a download. So when I need to download a large file and I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not Safari, Chrome, or Firefox continues to run with out interruption, I turn to the trusty Terminal! In fact, you can easily download any files from the web by using the command line on a Mac.

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If you make a living on Ebay or if you are the casual bargain shopper, GarageSale deserves a look. At first glance GarageSale looks like any other Mac OS X application but after a few minutes of use you will begin to feel how powerful this little tool can be. Most every function available on Ebay’s website is available through GarageSale’s intuitive interface including a WYSIWYG editor for setting up professional and eloquent auctions. The advanced auction editor removes any need for knowledge of HTML and even integrates nicely into an iPhoto collection. Readers who still enjoy a dial-up connection to the internet will appreciate GarageSale’s ability to build auctions offline. GarageSale is an Ebay API certified client and operates within Ebay’s terms of use. GarageSale is available for a nominal shareware fee.

Download GarageSale

Frozen apps happen to the best of us for reasons we don’t always understand, and a Mac application can just suddenly become unresponsive and we see the spinning beachball of death (sometimes called SBOD for short).

For those new to the Mac platform, getting around the spinning wait cursor might be confusing, so here’s two ways to do just that. The first method is through the GUI using a trick called Force Quit, and the second method is using the command line kill utility, which should be familiar to Mac users coming from a unix background. Both work, so it’s just a matter of choosing what you’re comfortable with the next time you discover the spinning color ball cursor taking over your Mac when a program freezes up.

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Want to encrypt a file quickly? You can do so with OpenSSL at the command line.

A few months ago a question was posed to our readers about encrypting or password protecting a text file [How can I password protect a file?]. We got several good responses but one in particular has really stuck with me. A reader named Jim posted in the comments a tip about using OpenSSL that I have used a bunch since then, and I think others will find this useful as well. This tip is repeated from a reader provided snippet, but slightly modified and annotated to better accommodate for Mac OS X users:

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Have a handful of games that require game discs to be inserted in order to play? This was common with a lot of Mac Blizzard games, like Warcraft 3 for example. Obviously Carrying around a stack of CD’s and DVD’s just so you can play games can be very annoying, adding unwanted bulk to your pack.

Well, you don’t really have to do that.

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There are several ways to go about changing the volume on your Mac, but did you know you can use the command line? I’m a big command line junkie so the more things I can do from the Terminal the better.

If you want to adjust your system volume level directly from the command line, you can do so with the ‘osascript’ command, which is basically a terminal front-end to AppleScript and all that it can do.

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GeekTool is a really cool utility that allows you to place the output of unix commands on your desktop. Things like system logs and calenders can be superimposed on your background picture, allowing for quick reading and creating a very nice looking effect (here’s a screenshot of it in action). My only complaint with GeekTool is that it’s not particularly user friendly, but thankfully there’s some easy to follow help. MurphyMac has created a wonderful screencast walking users through the setup of GeekTool and how to get objects placed on your desktop. So download GeekTool then check out MurphyMac’s screencast for a nice walkthrough on it’s features:

Download GeekTool 2.1.2
MurphyMac ScreenCast: Getting Started with GeekTool

There has never been a time when I am saving a document in Mac OS X that I don’t click the expand arrow to see the full save dialog screen. That little button is situated alongside the file name input, and when you click on it, you have access to the expanded dialog that allows users to navigate the folder hierarchy on their Mac to save files to exactly where they are wanted, rather than in the default location for that specific app.

If you don’t want to manually hit that expand button all the time, you can use the defaults command to set that expanded save dialog window to be the new default setting. Yes, you won’t have to click that expand arrow anymore after this is run – the directory structure will already be open and there for you to navigate! Follow the easy instructions below to try it out yourself.

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