-
-
Check Out Our MacVoices Episode On The September 7th Apple Event
-
Episode 10 of the MacAdmins.org Podcast
Special thanks to @dials_mavis for being basically the best ever, cutting this thing together while he was sick, and for the rest of the team for being awesome to help hide the fact that I’m not. 🙂
-
Hide Items On Your Desktop In OS X
When speaking to a group of people, I once created a folder called Old and then moved all my files in there. However, you can create a temporary desktop that shows as clean and empty. To do so, write the CreateDesktop key in the com.apple.finder defaults domain, with a setting of false, as follows: defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false Then restart the Finder and it will show crisp and new: killall Finder Then once you’re done, delete the temporary desktop, by deleting the key, as follows: defaults delete com.apple.finder CreateDesktop Then restart the Finder to see your files again: killall Finder
-
Configure TextEdit To Save Files As Plain Text
Set plain text in TextEdit as the default format to save files in using the defaults command to write the RichText key into com.apple.TextEdit as an integer of 0, as follows: defaults write com.apple.TextEdit RichText -int 0 To remove the key: defaults delete com.apple.TextEdit RichText
-
Disable The Connect To Server Option
You can disable the Connect to Server menu in OS X. This can be done via MDM or using defaults. To do so with the defaults command, send a ProhibitConnectTo key into com.apple.finder as True and then restart the Finder, as follows using the defaults command: defaults write com.apple.finder ProhibitConnectTo -bool true ; killall Finder To undo: defaults write com.apple.finder ProhibitConnectTo -bool false
-
Change The Default Duration Of Calendar Events
I’ve been on a quest to have less meetings in this world. But since that doesn’t seem likely, I’m settling on shorter, more specific meetings. One of the ways I’ve been trying to achieve this is to send a key called “Default duration in minutes for new event” into com.apple.iCal with an integer. In this case, I’m going to reduce my default meeting times to 15 minutes. defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event' 15 And viola, just like that I get to have less time spent in meetings! Note that this doesn’t change the default time of Quick Events.
-
The Immutable Laws Of Game Mechanics In A Microtransaction-Based Economy Article on Huffington Post
My latest piece, called The Immutable Laws Of Game Mechanics In A Microtransaction-Based Economy is now available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-edge/the-immutable-laws-of-gam_b_11810172.html. In this piece I explore a few of the emergent rules that game developers should/need to follow when building out game play and planning for monetization of various aspects of their games. Hope you enjoy!
-
opendiff
There is a little tool in OS X called opendiff. This command can be used to bring up a quick and dirty graphical view of changes in a file. For example, if you run opendiff followed by two file names, you’ll see what’s different in the two files and what’s the same: opendiff test test1 The result then looks as follows. Note that in the above screenshot, a and b are in white lines and the others are grey, as those are consistent in the two files and the c has been removed and replaced with the four lines on the left. In larger files, this is pretty useful as…
-
Scripting Around Dropping Network Connections In OS X
Dropping network connections can be incredibly frustrating. And finding the source can be a challenge. Over the years, I’ve found a number of troubleshooting methods, but the intermittent drop can be the worse to troubleshoot around. When this happens, I’ve occasionally resorted to scripting around failures, and dumping information into a log file to find the issue. For example, you may find that when a network connection fails, you have a very strong signal somewhere, or that you have a very weak signal on all networks. I’ve found there are three pretty simple commands to test joining/unjoining, and using networks (beyond the standard pings or port scans on hosts). The…