Pick of the Week - Oct 6 [Show all picks]
MercuryMover 2 - Keyboard-based window management
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MercuryMover 2 - Even better window management
Pick of the Week
Earlier this year, I selected MercuryMover 1.1 as a Pick of the Week. This week, it's being selected again, because I've found version 2.0 to be a very nice upgrade over the original. There are two main features of 2.0 that I really like: you can define single keystrokes to set window size (width and height) and/or location (left and top of window), and there's a nice little info window that shows the current window's size and location. While the info window is nice, it's the shortcuts that I find really useful.

For instance, after activating MercuryMover (Control-Command-Up Arrow), you can then press 8 to set the current window to 800x600, or 1 to create a 1024x768 window -- those are both pre-defined in the MercuryMover interface. But you can create your own shortcuts too -- "t" to move a window to the top left of the screen, or maybe "W" to create a 1200-pixel wide window, keeping that window's current height. I have a number of predefined sizes for use with the Finder, web browsers, and text editors.

The MercuryMover interface has been redone with version 2.0, and it's now clearer and easier to use than it was before. Dan Frakes covered MercuryMover 2.0 in this recent Macworld Gems entry, if you'd like to read even more about it. As a keyboard fanatic, it's one of my favorite utilities, as it helps keep my mouse at rest.
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Add 'day before' default alarm to iCal events
Apps
If you add alarms and reminders to your iCal events and are tired of putting in one day ("day before") or two days as the time period, iCal offers a feature to resolve this with a little math. Go into iCal's preference pane and look towards the bottom. Check the box that says "Add a default alarm to all new events and invitations." In the box below that, enter the minutes (15 by default).

To get an alarm the day before -- or two or three, etc. days before -- is to simply multiple 60*24 for a day, 60*48 for two days and so on. iCal will recognize that this is a day and by default make the reminder set to the day before.
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Open parent folder in a new window
Desktop
By default, double-clicking a folder in the Mac OS X Finder opens the folder in the current window. You probably know that you can open a new window for a folder that appears in the current window by holding down the Command key before double-clicking. You might also know you can open the parent of the current folder in a new window with Command-Up Arrow -- but this will close the original folder, too.

To open the parent folder of the current window in a new window, while leaving the current window open, hold Command and Control, and then press the Up Arrow key on the keyboard.
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10.5: Modify the login window with Workgroup Manager
System 10.5
I have always liked the result of this hint (and others like it in 10.4) that allowed me to customize the login window, but a quick search of the archive seems to show that no such hint exists for 10.5 (although I grant that I didn't try this one in 10.5). The existing hints for Workgroup Server don't address the login window specifically. However, I have figured out how to make all sorts of modifications to the login window by using Apple's free Server Admin Tools.

To modify your login window, follow the instructions in this hint to download and install the Server Admin Tools and open Workgroup Manager. (Note that the link I provided in the previous paragraph will download the version for OS 10.5.5. There are other versions as well. Search for "server tools" if you need a different version.)

Now that you've set up Workgroup Manager, here's how to view and change your local settings:
  1. There are five tabs on the left side of the window: a person, several people, a rectangle, two rectangles, and a bullseye. They correspond to users, group's computers, computer groups, and "all records." (Your configuration may not show the bullseye. I may have turned that on in the app's preferences, but I can't remember.)
  2. Click the computers tab (rectangle). Click the lock button on the far right side of the window to authenticate so that you can do some editing. Once you've authenticated, the New Computer button in the toolbar should become clickable. Click it. It'll add a computer to the list called Untitled.
  3. On the right side of the window, in the General tab, give your computer a name and a short name (I chose Mac Mini and mini, respectively).
  4. In the Network tab, fill in the fields with your computer's ethernet MAC address and IP address. (I'm on a LAN, so I used my LAN IP address: 192.168.100.1). In the lower-right corner of the window, click Save.
  5. Now, in the toolbar, click Preferences. Make sure that your computer (mini) is still selected in the computer list. The right side of the window should show several icons with labels. Click the one that says Login. That part of the window should change to a set of tabs with options. Select the Window tab.
  6. From here, you can change all sorts of settings. Change the Manage setting to Always. Be aware that Workgroup Manager does not necessarily import your current settings. Check all settings in the current tab, even the ones you didn't plan to modify, to make sure that they correspond to how you want them set.
  7. To change the login window so that it displays the time, change the Heading menu to Time. Click Apply Now, then click Done. That's it.
There are all sorts of other goodies in here that can be changed, but the standard disclaimer naturally applies: you can really mess up your system using Workgroup Manager, so don't change something unless you know what the effect will be (or you're feeling brave). It may be possible to edit only the settings you're interested in by clicking the Details tab when you're back to viewing all the preference icons, choosing the com.apple.loginwindow plist from the list, and deleting the keys in the plist that you didn't intend to modify (the list was empty before I altered anything). But I haven't tried that.
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Print to an HP Laserjet 6L via a parallel-to-USB adapter
Printers
I have tried adding an HP LaserJet 6L printer via Printer Setup Utility many times, and I always got the USB device to show under the default browser, but I could not add the printer. So I went to More Printers (holding down the Option key), clicked Advanced, and tried selecting USB Printer. This brought up usb://, but I could not find address using System Profiler or USB Prober.

Anyway, my grandson comes in, and asks "what's that Unknown button right at the bottom of the Advanced panel?" So I click it, and it comes up with a URL: usb://Unknown/Unknown?serial=0. I tried this, using the Gutenprint HP 6L driver -- and it works perfectly, even waking the printer if necessary.

This works with OS X 10.4.11; hope it helps others -- I googled for help on this, but didn't find anything on the subject.
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10.5: Use a built-in command line audio player
UNIX
OS X 10.5 includes a command line audio player (in /usr/bin) called afplay. This is very useful if you want to play a sound file from the command line, shell script, Automator action, etc. The /usr/bin directory is in your path by default, so you can just type afplay file.mp3 to play that file.

afplay makes use of Core Audio, so I think it can play any audio file that QuickTime supports (including mp3, aiff, wav, etc.). If any one is interested, Apple also provides the source code for this application with the Xcode developer tools. You'll find it in this folder: /Developer » Examples » CoreAudio » Services » AudioFileTools.

[robg adds: There's a very simple man page for afplay, which then tells you that help is available with afplay -h. There are a few interesting options, including the ability to play a defined (in time) segment of a file, and to play a file to a defined audio output device.]
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Clip to Evernote via Quicksilver and AppleScript
Apps
The latest release of Evernote includes very straightforward AppleScript support. Hopefully someone will build an Evernote plug-in for Quicksilver, but in the meantime here is a script for clipping text directly from Quicksilver into Evernote:
(*

Clip to Evernote for Quicksilver, by Jed Verity (junk at veritys dot com)

INSTALLATION

1. Put this script in ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/
2. Restart Quicksilver

CONFIGURATION

Set default values in the "defaults" property below.
    - Tags must be separated by spaces (so multiple word tags would not work)
    - Notebooks and tags are case-sensitive. If it doesn't match properly it won't work at all.
    
property defaults : {notebook:"", tags:"", title:""}
property special_delim : ";"

global txt, pspecial, cpos

my mainprogram("test note: tags:car")

using terms from application "1Passwd"
    on «event DAEDopnt» qtxt
        my mainprogram(qtxt)
    end «event DAEDopnt»
end using terms from

on initvars(qtxt)
    copy qtxt to txt
    set pspecial to 10000000
end initvars

on mainprogram(qtxt)
    my initvars(qtxt)
    set ztags to getdata("tags:", defaults's tags)
    set znotebook to getdata("nb:", defaults's notebook)
    set ztitle to gettitle()
    if pspecial < txt's length then
        set pend to (pspecial - 2)
    else
        set pend to txt's length
    end if
    set znote to getnote(pend)
    set ztags to itemize(ztags, " ")
    --return {ztitle, znote, znotebook, ztags}
    my CreateEvernote(ztitle, znote, znotebook, ztags)
end mainprogram

to CreateEvernote(t, n, nb, tg)
    tell application "Acorn" to «event EVRNcrnt» given «class Enxt»:n, «class Entt»:t, «class Ennb»:nb, «class Engg»:tg
end CreateEvernote

to getdata(label, default)
    set o to offset of label in txt
    if o > 0 then
        if o < pspecial then
            set pspecial to o
        end if
        set chunk to my trim(itemize(txt, label)'s item 2 as string)
        if label = "nb:" then
            set nxt to "tags:"
        else
            set nxt to "nb:"
        end if
        set chunk to my trim(itemize(chunk, nxt)'s item 1 as string)
        if (offset of special_delim in chunk) is not false then
            return itemize(chunk, special_delim)'s item 1
        else
            return chunk
        end if
    else
        return default
    end if
end getdata

to getnote(meta_start_pos)
    try
        set start_pos to cpos + 1
    on error
        set start_pos to 1
    end try
    if start_pos > meta_start_pos then
        return ""
    else
        return my trim(text start_pos thru meta_start_pos of txt)
    end if
end getnote

to gettitle()
    set title to my getdata("title:", defaults's title)
    if title = "" then
        set cpos to offset of ":" in txt
        if cpos > 0 then
            set title to my trim(text 1 thru (cpos - 1) of txt)
        end if
    end if
    return title
end gettitle

to itemize(var, delim)
    set delims_old to AppleScript's text item delimiters
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delim
    if var's class = list then
        set txt_new to var as text
    else
        set txt_new to var's text items
    end if
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to delims_old
    return txt_new
end itemize

on trim(someText)
    repeat until someText does not start with " "
        set someText to text 2 thru -1 of someText
    end repeat
    
    repeat until someText does not end with " "
        set someText to text 1 thru -2 of someText
    end repeat
    
    return someText
end trim
Create the script in ScriptEditor, and install it by placing it in ~/Library » Application Support » Quicksilver » Actions, then restarting Quicksilver. (Configuration instructions are in the top of the script.)

To use this script, when you have text in your first Quicksilver pane, select Clip to Evernote (or whatever you call this script if you change the name). The text format is as follows -- you must have a title or note (or both), but everything else is optional.
title:your note here nb:notebook tags:space-separated tags here
The only thing that matters is that any specified notebook or tags must come after title and note. Here are a few examples:
  1. this is a note with no title or anything -- creates note with your default title, notebook, tags (if specified), otherwise just goes straight into Evernote as is.
  2. todo:buy batteries -- creates note with title todo and note buy batteries.
  3. remember to buy batteries: tags:todo household -- creates note with title remember to buy batteries and tags todo and household.
  4. great idea for meeting: tell everyone to put 20% of salary in mattress nb:Work tags:meeting finance meltdown -- creates note tell everyone to put 20% of salary in mattress with title great idea for meeting in notebook Work with tags meeting, finance, and meltdown.
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]
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Avoid a hardware model filter bug in OS X Server
OS X Server
This is more of a workaround than a hint, but will hopefully save some folks the hours of annoyance I've had to deal with.

The problem can be summarized as follows: In the Server Admin application, installed with Apple's Server Admin Tools, you can manage many of Mac OS X Server's features, including Netboot and Netinstall images. Once you have created a Netinstall image, you have the option in Server Admin to specify what types of Apple hardware are allowed to boot the image over the network. I refer to these filters as hardware model type filters, though I'm not sure of their official name. Anyway, once a model type filter is set for a given Netinstall image, a workaround is required to make future edits to the same filter in the GUI.

Steps to Reproduce the bug:
  1. Create a netinstall image.
  2. Edit the hardware model type filter by clicking the pencil button, then click OK, then Save.
  3. Try again to edit the same hardware model type filter, click Okay, then Save.
  4. Look at the filter a third time and the changes made in step three will not have been applied
Steps to work around the bug:
  1. Toggle the Enable checkbox. Note it does not matter what state the checkbox is in, so it can be toggled to either the enabled or disabled position.
  2. Edit the model type filter by clicking the pencil button. Important: do not click the Save button between this step and the prior step.
  3. After editing, click OK, then click Save.
Look at the filter again, and the changes made will have held this time. It appears that the state change of Enable is what triggers a write operation to the plist once the Save button is clicked. That is, nothing gets written when Save is clicked unless the state of the Enable checkbox has changed.
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Set the fax log level to possibly resend failed faxes
UNIX
OS X uses a disappointingly convoluted set of programs and preferences to send a fax. Trying to debug why a particular fax isn't getting through to a particular machine is frustrating, since Apple doesn't provide any help at all. If you happen to stumble upon it, you may see the CUPS log file in /var/log/cups/error_log, which may contain error messages about your failed fax. You can also see this file by opening the log from the fax printer queue (if you made one).

I've found that the Apple OS X fax formats aren't particularly compatible with a number of other fax recipients -- I sometimes get repeated errors in /var/log/cups/error_log that look like this:
E [date time] [Job 53] There was a fax protocol error.
E [date time] PID 352 (/usr/libexec/cups/backend/fax) stopped with status 1!
I [date time] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to "debug" to find out more.
But that leaves you wondering "how do I set LogLevel to debug?"
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Easily share Cycorder videos off jailbroken iPhones
iPhone
We have a number of first-generation iPhones fully unlocked and jailbroken using Pwnage from the iPhone Dev Team. (The iPhone 3G is not currently software-unlockable with any degree of reliability.)

One of the challenges for both 'official' (installed from Apple's App Store) and 'unofficial' (using installer.app or Cydia) apps that create content (photos, videos, text etc) is how to share the content. One approach taken by several apps is to offer to send an attachment via email. While this is fine for text files and photos, it's not so appropriate for larger files like video. You could also install OpenSSH and use scp to get the files, but that involves opening up root access which I didn't want to do for users who are a bit less tech savvy.

Here's our particular problem and solution. I have installed the Cycorder app, which allows you to capture video, but relies on scp and a knowledge of where the files are to move files off of the phone. By a bit of experimentation, I have managed to change the location where Cycorder saves its files. By changing the save location, I can then share/delete videos using Air Sharing (an 'official' app from the App Store). The general technique could also be useful for other applications.
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