You can watch all open network connections for both incoming and outgoing transfers using a free command line utility called open_ports.sh. Open_Ports is much more useful than using lsof to list open internet connectionsbecause it provides extensive network information in a very easy to read format, including what program or process is opening the connection, … Read More
Most lefties have adapted to the righty-centric world of computing, but this isn’t necessary on a Mac. The Apple Magic Mouse, Apple wireless mouse, wired mouses, trackpad, and even most 3rd party mice have a symmetrical shape, so those that are left handed just need to adjust a few settings in Mac OS X to … Read More
I’m going to walk through the process of making a bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion installation drive out of any USB flash drive key. This is similar to the process of making a bootable Lion installer DVD, but I prefer a USB flash drive because it’s faster, smaller, and I have a MacBook Air … Read More
The powerful textutil command for Mac offers an amazing capability to convert a text documents font family and text size, transforming the document with ease and precision right from the command line of Mac OS.
Mac OS X has a fancy way of refreshing your Dashboard widgets. It’s better watched than described or shown in pictures, so open up Dashboard, click on any widget, then hit Command+R and watch the widget disappear and reappear into a twirl. The larger and more colorful the widget the better the effect, and you … Read More
The easiest way to get HTTP header information from any website is by using the command line tool curl. The syntax to retrieve a website header goes like this:
Update: JailbreakMe 3 is out! It’s the easiest jailbreak ever and works to jailbreak iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.3. It is recommended to use JailbreakMe.com directly.
Pixel art of the 8-bit flashback NES variety is all the rage right now, be it in games like The Incident and Sword & Sworcery or just for avatars on the web. If you’re wondering how some of that beautiful pixel art is created and how you to do it yourself, here are some tips … Read More
If you just want a basic command line mp3 player, you could use afplay, but if that’s not enough for you, install ViTunes. The little VIM plugin gives you full access to iTunes directly from the command line text editor VIM, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just a boring old music player, it … Read More
Modern Mac OS releases from Mac OS X 10.7 & OS X 10.8 onward default to hiding the users Library directory, this is probably to keep people from accidentally deleting or damaging files that are necessary for OS X Lion & Mountain Lion to function properly. That is fine for novice users, but for some … Read More
DoublePane is a simple window manager for Mac OS X that is impressively useful. It works by resizing a selected window to fit precisely on one half of the screen – on the left or right – which then allows you to place another resized window directly next to it on the opposing half. This … Read More
If you have a MacBook Air, you also have that nice little USB restore key. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to use that as a normal USB drive if you wanted to? You can do it, but first you have to ‘unlock’ the USB restore key. Here’s where I think this is most … Read More
Using the same trick to create a new image file based on clipboard contents, you can extract high resolution icons from any Mac OS X application. Preview is smart enough to extract just the icon and not try to copy the app file itself (like Windows would). Select any app in Mac OS X Finder … Read More
If you want to remove the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion “Recovery HD” partition, you’ll need to do a little bit of work because it’s a hidden partition. Hidden means it’s not just a matter of using your dual boot to go into 10.6 and then deleting it with Disk Utility. Quick side note for … Read More
Do you need your computers IP address often? If so, IPMenulet is likely the quickest way to have the number handy all the time, it’s a free and simple menu item that displays your current external IP address in the Mac OS X menu bar, there’s no other frills or features.
If you have a lengthy amount of text to read or review that you don’t have time to actually read, another alternative is to convert that text into an audio track. This is kind of like making an audiobook out of any text block, and it can be as long or as short as you … Read More
With Mac Preview you can quickly create a new image file from your clipboard contents. On it’s own that might not be too enthralling, but this feature extends beyond Preview, meaning any image that you have copied from anywhere using Command+C will work as the source image to create a new image file. This includes … Read More
Using Mac OS X Text to Speech tools, we can convert any .RTF or .TXT file into a spoken audio file which can then be transferred to your iPod or iPhone for later listening. Update: There is an easier way to do a text to audio file conversion using the OS X Services menu, the … Read More
