Screen Sharing over a WAN can be a bit slow. But you can send less data and receive a less latent connection. To do so, you are going to augment the controlObserveQuality key of the com.apple.ScreenSharing.plist property list. If you set the key to a 1, which I see commonly suggested then it will be black and white, which in todays world is another way of saying practically illegible. Instead try the number 2, which sets it to grey scale, which is pretty good (that’s what I use). To do so run: defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing controlObserveQuality 2 You can also set the controlObserveQuality key to 3, 4 or 5 which…
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Programatic Screen Sharing
You can remotely start ARD with kickstart, which I have previously covered at length. But Screen Sharing is a bit of a different little beast. To start up Screen Sharing, you can just use the following command: echo -n enabled > /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd I still prefer kickstart, but this method functions when you need something quick and easy. To then disable Screen Sharing, you can just toss the launchd item: rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd Once you have Screen Sharing started, you can then open the Screen Sharing application from a client by using the open command, followed by the protocol, which would be vnc and then the IP address. As with FTP you…
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Finder: I Just Can't Quit You
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YESYou You can get a Quit menu for the Finder by editing the com.apple.finder.plist, which we can do here using the defaults command: defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES Now you can run a command to kill the Finder: killall Finder Then when it comes back to life you should see the new menu item.
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Send FrontRow to a 2nd Monitor
Scenario: You’re working on one display but you want to use the second display as a media center while you’re working. Well, Front Row 2.0 can be used on a second display that is connected to your computer. Mac OS X uses a unique identifier to track each display connected to a computer. To get started you’re first going to need to figure out what the unique identifier for that second display is. In order to do so, download the displaysInfo utility. Open terminal and run the ./displaysInfo command using the directory that it was downloaded to. Look for the d2_ID field (you can also use | grep d2_ID followed…
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Mac OS X Directory Services Plug-ins
In a number of contexts, we hear about directory services plug-ins. A directory services plug-in is a way for a Mac OS X computer to leverage the DirectoryServices daemon to obtain account information (be it authentication or policy information) from a server. This might be an Active Directory server that uses the Active Directory Plug-in or an Open Directory server that uses LDAP. You disable plug-ins that you don’t need and enable plug-ins (ie Active Directory plug-in or third party plug-ins) that you need in order to access directory services of various types. These plug-ins are developed in the form of .dsplug files. The default plug-ins that Apple includes with…
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Suppressing Time Machine on Disk Mount
By default, when you are using Time Machine in Mac OS X, every time you insert a drive the system will ask you if you would like to use that drive as a Time Machine backup destination. If you are like me and you swap drives around a lot then this can get annoying. So to stop it you can actually just disable a launchd System Daemon, com.apple.backupd-attach. To do so, simply move the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-attach.plist to another location and viola, on the next restart when you attach a disk Time Machine won’t ask you if you wish to add the disk to your Time Machine destinations. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-attach.plist While this is one…
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Disable SyncServices
Microsoft Entourage’s Sync feature can be a bit problematic for certain environments. And while administrators can disable the feature users seem to often simply turn it back on. But you can turn it back off programatically if you wish to do so. The settings are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.entourage.syncservices.plist. To read the contents of the com.microsoft.entourage.syncservices domain, use the following command: defaults read com.microsoft.entourage.syncservices This will net you the following results: { “sync calendar” = 1; “sync contacts” = 1; “sync notes” = 1; “sync tasks” = 1; } These are boolean and so changing the 1’s to 0’s will disable syncservices. To do so you would use the following command: defaults write…
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Mac: Disable AutoUpdate
Here’s a quick command line you can send out to disable the Microsoft Office auto-update functionality. This is particularly useful in environments where you are freezing systems and then pushing out all updates, rather than allowing hosts to automatically install updates: defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate HowToCheck -string “Manual” Note: Autoupdate has now been updated to version 2, so the string for more modern versions of Office is now: defaults write com.microsoft.autoupdate2 HowToCheck -string “Manual” Thanks to @seankaiser for the update!
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Mac OS X: Fast User Switching
Fast User Switching is a feature in Mac OS X (and Windows for that matter) that allows you to switch user accounts without logging out of your computer. This allows multiple users to use the same computer without having privy to each others stuff and allows you a great way to leave the system if you have multiple people that use it (you don’t want others unlocking into your account, for example). Fast User Switching is disabled by default though. To enable fast user switching, open the System Preferences and click on the Accounts System Preference pane. Then, click on Login Options and click the Enable fast user switching checkbox. To enable Fast User…
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Disabling Dashboard
The other day I saw someone remove the Dashboard icon from the Dock as a way of disabling it entirely. Probably not the best route. It’s pretty easy though. The command to disable: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean yes And of course if you’ve disabled, you might want to turn it back on using this handy-dandy double-negative: defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean no