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How to use Facebook Chat with iChat

2/12/2010 in Applications Notes by face | No comments

First, find your Facebook username by going to http://www.facebook.com/your_user/. Next, Open iChat, then select iChat » Preferences and click on the Accounts tab.

Click on the + (plus) sign to add a new account, with these settings:

Account Type is Jabber Account

Account name is your_user@chat.facebook.com, and enter your password

Click the drop-down arrow to reveal Server options. Enter chat.facebook.com as the server name.

Enter 5222 as the port and click Done.

Click Done again, and you are good to go.

via How to use Facebook Chat with iChat – Mac OS X Hints.

Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes – Mac OS X Hints

1/8/2010 in Applications Notes by face | No comments

In iTunes, a very useful feature is the File » Show Duplicates menu item. As expected by its name, you can use this feature to help weed out duplicates from your iTunes library. However, many people (myself included) have different versions of songs, remixes and such, which will show up as duplicates when using this feature.

The solution is to hold down the option key prior to selecting this menu item. When you do, Show Duplicates changes to Show Exact Duplicates. In this mode, iTunes shows only true duplicates, and not remixes or alternate versions.

via Show only exact duplicate tracks in iTunes – Mac OS X Hints:

Oh this is so nice. I can get rid of a few (bunch) tunes that are replicants in so many ways.

Resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM

12/29/2009 in Misc Notes by face | No comments

Summary

This document explains how to reset the parameter random access memory (PRAM) and nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) on Macintosh computers.

Important: If your computer does not retain parameter RAM (PRAM) settings when it is turned off, this generally indicates that the battery needs to be changed. Refer to Macintosh Family: Batteries and Part Numbers.

via Resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM.

Prevent a given partition from mounting at boot

12/25/2009 in Unix Notes by face | No comments

There are several hints on this site for unmounting a partition at login, but a better way to make this happen can be used. You need to create an entry point in your filesystem table to tell the OS not to mount that specific volume, and this is relatively easy. In Mac OS X, and under Linux and others unix systems, the volume mounting configuration file is located in /etc/fstab. This file in Mac OS X Tiger is empty in Panther, its commented, but type man fstab in Terminal to read some important information.

via Prevent a given partition from mounting at boot – Mac OS X Hints.

quotefixformac

11/17/2009 in System Software Notes by face | No comments

QuoteFix is a plug-in for Mail.app which fixes some issues with replying to e-mail:

it removes the signature from the original message

it removes certain unnecessary empty lines

it positions the cursor below the original message, instead of above it (in other words, bottom-posting instead of top-posting)

via quotefixformac – Project Hosting on Google Code.

W00T

Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold

11/6/2009 in System Software Notes by face | No comments

To use the old-style contextual menus when you click-and-hold on an applications icon in the Dock i.e. how it worked in 10.5 and earlier, type the following two commands in Terminal dont type the $:

defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -bool no; killall Dock

All credit for this hint goes to Jeff Johnson of Lap Cat Software, who blogged about the solution. This hint is a significant update to this one, which pointed out you can use Control-click to get the old-style contextual menus. [robg adds: To undo this behavior, you can either change no to yes in the above command, or delete the key entirely with defaults delete com.apple.dock show-expose-menus; killall Dock.]

via 10.6: Display contextual menus on Dock click-and-hold – Mac OS X Hints.

10.6: Quick Look generates tables for .csv files

10/22/2009 in System Software Notes by face | No comments

Snow Leopard not only lets you preview comma-separated value (.csv) files , but it displays them with table formatting. Try it out.

via 10.6: Quick Look generates tables for .csv files – Mac OS X Hints.

Monitor too bright? Put on some Shades

10/18/2009 in Utilities Notes by face

This one goes out to all the night owls. As much as I love my iMac, I was surprised to see how little control it gave me over the screen’s brightness. I often work on my iMac late at night in an otherwise darkened room, and even at the lowest brightness setting, the iMac is really, really bright. All of the Mac laptops I’ve used have the ability to dim the screen down to completely dark, but the iMac does not.

via Monitor too bright? Put on some Shades:

hfsdebug: A Debugger for HFS Plus Volumes

9/9/2009 in System Software Notes, Utilities Notes by face | No comments

A debugger is a program that facilitates debugging, which may be casually defined as the process of finding and fixing “bugs” in the object of interest: usually a piece of software, firmware, or hardware (although debugging may apply to any domain).

via hfsdebug: A Debugger for HFS Plus Volumes.

Forcing an IP Address

8/8/2009 in General by face | 2 comments

In the “real” world you simply add an entry to /etc/hosts like

1.2.3.4 myhost

The Mac OS X world is different. For version 10.5 and later you do the following

# Create the mapping
sudo dscl localhost -create /Local/Default/Hosts/x.y.z IPAddress 127.0.0.1
# flush the cache
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

# Show the mappings
sudo dscl localhost -readall /Local/Default/Hosts

# Delete a mapping
sudo dscl localhost -delete /Local/Default/Hosts/x.y.z
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

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