OS X

I'm fairly new to Apple's OS X, so some of these tips may seem quite obvious to long-time users, I needed somewhere to put tips to remind me. Most of my work is still on Windows and Linux, but I'm finding that OS X is a pleasant mix of both and then some, all wrapped in a great design. This reminder page will start pretty small, but should grow as I learn stuff.

Creating a "launcher" for a shell script : Simply change the extension of the shell script to .command and you'll be able to run it by double-clicking on the icon (it'll open a terminal window and run the script, and then close the terminal window when the script is done).

Where do applications keep their stuff? : In the ~/Library directory. To get to it, type command+shift+g then type ~/Library or in the finder, hold down option as you select the go menu.

To delete a file or folder from the keyboard : command+delete

To better customize mail : to work with gmail (or google apps) I followed the advice in this link

Command Line Tools for Xcode : I'm still learning Xcode, but I do miss having the easy-to-access gcc compiling options that were available from the Linux command-line. Now they're available; info here.

Xcode 4 binary locations : Xcode 4 creates binaries that you build (by default - this can be changed) in a subdirectory off of here: ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/

merge pdf's using preview : The detailed version is here, but basically, you need to drag a new pdf on top of an existing one to merge them (and then save the new pdf afterwards)

create a text document inside the folder in finder : This is something I miss from Windows and Linux. There are many add-on solutions, but I found this one to be the simplest (it's an applescript script that adds a button to your finder that allows the creation of a blank document in the current folder).

working with cgi on a mac : I found this one useful when migrating a cgi application for testing.

How to update an app that was installed by another user : as a Linux user, this one drove me crazy (I'm used to root/admin being able to do anything). Anyway, To make the AppStore forget the old credentials with which an app was downloaded, remove the _MASReceipt directory in the app itself. To do this, you must 1. Open Finder and navigate to Applications, 2. Ctrl+Click the application and choose "Show Package Contents", 3. Expand the Contents directory and click the _MASReceipt directory to select it, 4. Type Command+Delete to delete the directory permanently---you will be prompted for your credentials since this is a protected file. Then quit and restart AppStore, then find the application. The button should now say "Free" or "Install" instead of "Update". Clicking it will update your app to the latest version, doing so as the currently logged-in Apple user.

How to use Tonidoplug to store your Time Machine backups : Details here: OSX Time Machine and Tonidoplug.