Friday, December 22, 2006

 

MacBreak: Minimize distractions on your Mac

MacBreak 33: The Distracted Mac (Direct MOV Download)





Although it covers a lot of the same ground as a previous MacBreak we did on the subject, I think Leo and my segment on un-distract-ifying your Mac turned out pretty good (my atrocious hairstyle at shoot time notwithstanding). Download 10:28 MOV file now…


Here’s the apps and tricks that we covered, with links:


Edit 2006-12-21 16:51:22: Check after the cut for reader suggestions from comments for this post…


Recommended by 43f readers in comments




(Via 43 Folders.)

 

The BEST iSight security use yet

iSight
When I came across this tip at macosxhints.com today, my jaw dropped. It has to be the most brilliant use of the iSight yet. Seriously. It describes how to make your iSight snap pictures any time someone tries to log into your Mac and fails. Now you can catch your jealous roommate in the act.
It requires a tiny bit of technical knowledge, but the author of the hint has repackaged the required code as an installation package to make it easy. For those interested in how it’s done, it’s a little bit of a Unix hack. Basically, it uses a script that watches the end of a log for a failed login attempt and when the appropriate line is written, your iSight is invoked and takes a picture.
No doubt you could hack this even further to upload the pictures to somewhere on the net. That is left as an exercise for the reader.

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(Via MacUser.)

Friday, December 08, 2006

 

FFOSS (Freeware/Free & Open Source Software) Friday

Collection of free applications for your mac...
I’ve long been interested in Open Source applications for proprietary Operating Systems like Microsoft Windows and, more recently, Mac OS X. I’ve only been a Mac user for less than 2 years. But, I’ve been learning a lot by collecting F/FOSS (and free web based services) information on my personal blog as a learning tool. I thought some MacDevCenter readers might find some of the Mac F/FOSS findings interesting too. So, I’ll be posting summaries from my blog here whenever I have an interesting list to contribute. And, if you know of interesting/useful F/FOSS for Mac OS X, please let me know!


(Via Mac DevCenter.)

 

The "Lost" prompt

Blogger David Winter has a posted a cute how-to showing you how to change the prompt in your terminal to the ">:" used in Lost.

Basically, you update your .zprofile or .bashrc or .kshrc to include the line export PS1=">: ". Me? I'm a csh weenie. I'd have to use set prompt=">: " to get the same effect. (The same thing applies for tcsh users.)

Winter also includes instructions on how to get the green-on-black color settings used in the program.

4 8 15 16 23 42 and all that.
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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

 

10 Little Known Command-Line Utilities

OS X Daily has a nice list of OS X command-line utilities today that you may have forgotten about or might never have encountered. For example, the article suggests using ifconfig to check your IP address or lsbom to peek at the contents of an OS X installer package. If the notion of extending your command line vocabulary appeals, it's worth a visit to this quick article. You might pick up a trick or two you can incorporate into your day-to-day routines.
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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

 

iPod 101 support docs

Apple just went nuts releasing a slew of iPod 101 support documents, most likely just in time for all the iPod-toting user who are about to unwillingly embark on a new side career this holiday season: supporting their family members and friends who just got their own little white (or black, or pink...) music player. Instead of forcing you to trudge through Apple's Support docs, using their less-than-stellar search, I thought I'd link everything I found for your bookmarking pleasure. Don't forget the last doc about backing up one's library, as well as the backup overview our own Scott McNulty wrote about this rocking new feature when iTunes 7 launched:

and of course, the ever-pertinent:
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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

 

Apple Launches iTunes Store New Zealand

Good news for the people of New Zealand. Thats one less country until Saudi Arabia, Apple, we are waiting.

After tons of rumors and speculation, the New Zealand iTunes store debuted today. The online store offers over two million songs, with individual tracks priced at NZ$1.79, music videos at NZ$3.59 and many albums at NZ$17.99. Many New Zealand artists are featured exclusively in the New Zealand store, including Fat Freddy's Drop, Brooke Fraser, Tim Finn, The Datsuns and Bic Runga as well as extensive catalogues from New Zealand greats including Shihad, Crowded House, The Black Seeds, Breaks Co-Op, Elemeno P and Dei Hamo.
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(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)

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