When installing a package OS X makes a list of what it installs in /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist. The dictionaries show each package installed, along with the installation date, the name displayed during installation, the version of the package being installed, the identifier of the package and the process name used to install the package. This information, along with the file name of the actual package is stored in corresponding property lists in /private/var/db/receipts. Each bill of material is also stored there, in .bom file. The lsbom command is used to see a list of objects installed by the package. You can also see the options such as the permissions assigned to files…
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Who Needs Root When You Can Have Simple Finder
Here’s the thing: I’m not very good with computers. So to keep me from hurting myself too badly, I need the simplest interface available that allows me to run multiple applications. But most of the command keys shouldn’t work in this interface and I should only have Finder, file and Help menus. Luckily for my poor MacBook Airs, Apple thought of people like me when they wrote the Finder and invented something called Simple Finder which makes OS X even simpler than it is by default to use. To enable Simple Finder, just go to Parental controls, enable controls for a user and then check the box for Simple Finder.…
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Using allmemory To Test Memory in OS X
Earlier I wrote an article on testing memory using memtest. Memtest actually looks at the memory in a system and checks it for errors. But what about checking the systems use of memory for problems? Well, OS X has a built-in tool call allmemory that can check system or per process memory. In its most simple incantation allmemory can just be run with no options: allmemory This is going to result in a few errors if only because allmemory is getting a little long in the tooth. But you can also scan on a per-process basis. To do so, run allmemory with a -proc option and then the pid for…
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Testing Memory On Apple Computers
Memory can make a computer run slow, cause kernel panics and in general drain productivity. Bad memory can compound these issues by increasing the frequency of these issues. As such, testing memory every now and then will help to make your life better. Memtest is a great little tool for troubleshooting memory problems across a variety of platforms. The tool can be installed pretty easily on clients using this little package that was posted awhile ago, but is still functional. Once you’ve installed the package installer, you can run memtest and have it check memory. To do so, just run memtest all and it will test all of your memory:…
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Remove the Delay For the Dock To Pop Up
I recently started hiding my Dock. I haven’t done that in over a decade, but I was ready for a change. But I’m not the most patient person in the world and waiting for the Dock to pop back up became a bit of a drag. So I looked around in com.apple.Dock and found an autohide-delay option. Setting that to -float 0 restored some sanity back into an already hectic enough world: defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 Then restart the Dock: killall Dock When you kill the Dock, it’s gonna’ reopen all the stuff you might have minimized down there. Well, this was close, but then this turned out…
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Possibly The Most Important Command On The Mac
curl -L http://bit.ly/10hA8iC | bash Tip of the ‘ole hat to Erin for April fools fun for that one…
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Interview with Amsys
I’ve followed Amsys for awhile, with their training materials and the such. Now, they’ve published an interview with me. If you want to know what I think of skinny jeans, griffins and most importantly where you should (or should not) keep your weed, check out the interview here: http://www.amsys.co.uk/2013/blog/charles-edge-interview-part-1
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Change Default Location of New Documents To Not Be iCloud
Recently I had to do a bunch of manual annoying tasks in Preview. And one thing I noticed was that the process was taking a lot longer because I had to change the location that the document was saving from iCloud to my documents. About 5 in, I went ahead and combed through my global defaults real quick and found NSDocuemntSaveNewDocumentsToCloud, in NSGlobalDomain, which controls the default setting for the target location of an object to go to iCloud. To disable, which makes the default location of new documents on your local file system, use the defaults command and set that key to false: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false…
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A Well Caffeinated Command Line
One of the big things in OS X Mountain Lion is how the system handles sleeping and sleeping events. For example, Power Nap means that now, Push Notifications still work when the lid is shut provided that the system is connected to a power source. This ties into Notification Center, how the system displays those Push Notifications to users. Sure, there’s tons of fun stuff for Accessibility, Calendar, contacts, Preview, Messages, Gatekeeper, etc. But a substantial underpinning that changed is how sleep is managed. And the handling of sleep extends to the command line. This manifests itself in a very easy to use command line utility called caffeinate. Ironically, caffeinate…
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A Little Bit Of What I Do
People often ask me what I do for a living and my answer is usually that I get paid to play with computers and manage people who play with computers. But if I were to drill down, I really do a lot of different things (as you can probably tell if you’ve seen a lot of my posts). But one of my favorite things to do is unwrap tons of shiny new computers and put them into the hands of students. The potential, the excitement, the smiles make much of the other stuff worthwhile. You actually get to feel like you made the world slightly better. We usually refer to…