You always want to stop a process gracefully. However, sometimes it’s just not possible to do so. Sometimes, you have to kill a process. Sometimes you have to end a process or a process tree when you can’t restart them gracefully. To stop a process in Linux and Mac, use the kill command. In Windows, there’s a Powershell cmdlet called Stop-Process that enables you to terminate a process. As with kill, just add the process ID at the end of the command. For example, to stop process 318: Stop-Process 318 Or you can stop based on the name of the process using the -processname option. For example, to kill a…
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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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Disable the Go To Folder Menu Item
For many environments, securing OS X is basically trying to make the computer act more like an iOS device. Some of the easier tasks involve disabling access to certain apps, sandboxing and controlling access to certain features. One of the steps en route to building an iOS-esque environment in OS X is to disable that Go to Folder… option. To do so, set the ProhibitGoToFolder key as true in com.apple.finder: defaults write com.apple.finder ProhibitGoToFolder -bool true Then reboot, or kill the Finder: killall Finder To undo, set the ProhibitGoToFolder as false: defaults write com.apple.finder ProhibitGoToFolder -bool false
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Disable Dock Autohide
One of those annoying little things is when you ARD into a system and the Dock is nowhere to be seen. Why do we (or should I say they) autohide Docks on servers? Either way, when I ARD into a box and I don’t see a Dock I have this line saved as a Template: defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool false; killall Dock By writing an autohide key that is false into com.apple.dock for the currently logged in user, I don’t have to deal with the Dock disappearing any more. You need to kill the Dock and let it respawn, thus the killall as well. Once I’m done working with…
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Showing iTunes Track & Song Titles In The Dock
When I’m writing, I like to listen to music in the background. When writing, I also like to have everything minimized so I can quickly grab a screenshot of the desktop where needed. This means that when I run into a track that doesn’t work with whatever I’m writing that I would need to unminimize iTunes, click the next button and then re-minimize iTunes. Awhile back I found a better way but can’t remember where for attribution. So, part of my default user template and imaging framework now includes setting the iTunes Dock icon to show the track that I’m playing so I can easily go to the next song,…
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Mac OS X Server: Directory Services Just Stops working
In Mac OS X Server occasionally the Directory Services daemon will just stop working. To term it you can just run the following command: killall DirectoryService
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Changing the Screenshot Location in OS X
Each user in Mac OS X can customize the location that their screenshots (aka screencaptures) will go. To do so you would edit the com.apple.screencapture property list, customizing the location key. You can easily edit this file using the defaults command. For example, if we wanted to set the location to go to a folder called screenshots in the home directory of a user we could use the following command: defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/screenshots You can also change the default type of screenshot which I cover here https://krypted.com//mac-os-x/mac-os-x-changing-the-default-screen-shot-format.