Dual Boot OS X 10.7 & OS X 10.8

OS X Mountain Lion is Apple’s latest Mac operating system that is complete with a bunch of new features that iOS users will find familiar. It’s looking like a great addition to the Mac OS family, but for the time being it’s still in Developer Preview, has a fair amount of bugs, and isn’t quite ready for prime time. For those who want to explore and develop for OS X Mountain Lion without losing their primary – and stable – OS X Lion installation, the best thing to do is create a dual boot set up. This lets you have both Mac OS X 10.7 and OS X 10.8 on the same Mac, which you can easily switch between with a reboot.

Before beginning, do the following:

• Check system requirements to insure OS X Mountain Lion compatibility
• Download OS X Mountain Lion from the App Store
• Back up the Mac within OS X Lion using Time Machine

If you already made an OS X Mountain Lion boot installer, you can use that, or you can partition directly from Disk Utility in Lion. It shouldn’t matter although OS X Lion can be pickier with partitioning the boot drive than prior versions of Mac OS X. After you have backed up your Mac, you can proceed.


Set Up Dual Boot for OS X Lion & Install OS X Mountain Lion
We’ll walk through partitioning, installing, and booting either version of Mac OS X:

• Open Disk Utility, click on hard drive and then click on “partition”
• Click the + icon to add a new partition, make it at least 14GB and name it something obvious like “Mountain Lion”, then click “Apply”

• Confirm the creation of the partition (see note below if you have problems here)
• Launch the OS X Mountain Lion Preview installer (or mount the InstallESD.dmg file) and open the “Install OS X Mountain Lion Preview 1.app” to begin installation
• Click through to install, and select the newly made partition “Mountain Lion”

• Let installation commence, the Mac will reboot and installing OS X Mountain Lion will begin

You’re done! After installation is complete, you will be greeted by the familiar OS X welcome and set up screen.

Choosing which OS X version to boot
Hold down Option during reboot to bring up the boot loader. You’ll find four drives; one for OS X 10.7, one for OS X 10.8, and a recovery partition for each OS X version. This is why it was important to name the OS X Mountain Lion partition something obvious.

Select “Mountain Lion” and boot as usual. Boot disk settings can also be adjusted through System Preferences’s Startup Disk panel at any point in either Mac OS X 10.7 or OS X 10.8.

Competing Recovery Partitions
Having two active recovery partitions can cause issues if you attempt to restore from one or the other, and it’s recommended to not use either to restore the OS in the current dual boot setup. If you are going to remove either the OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion partitions, don’t forget to remove the Recovery partition accompanying that version of Mac OS X. If not, you could inadvertently restore the wrong OS, or encounter boot problems if you delete the wrong OS and find the recovery partition to be incompatible with the remaining version of OS X.

Note about partitioning in OS X 10.7
OS X Lion is pickier than past versions of Mac OS X when partitioning the boot drive. If you run into problems partitioning the active boot drive, reboot into Recovery Mode (Command+R at boot) and use Disk Utility from there to create the partition, then reboot again into OS X Lion and continue with installation.

Dual Boot OS X 10.7 & OS X 10.8

OS X Mountain Lion is Apple’s latest Mac operating system that is complete with a bunch of new features that iOS users will find familiar. It’s looking like a great addition to the Mac OS family, but for the time being it’s still in Developer Preview, has a fair amount of bugs, and isn’t quite ready for prime time. For those who want to explore and develop for OS X Mountain Lion without losing their primary – and stable – OS X Lion installation, the best thing to do is create a dual boot set up. This lets you have both Mac OS X 10.7 and OS X 10.8 on the same Mac, which you can easily switch between with a reboot.

Before beginning, do the following:

• Check system requirements to insure OS X Mountain Lion compatibility
• Download OS X Mountain Lion from the App Store
• Back up the Mac within OS X Lion using Time Machine

If you already made an OS X Mountain Lion boot installer, you can use that, or you can partition directly from Disk Utility in Lion. It shouldn’t matter although OS X Lion can be pickier with partitioning the boot drive than prior versions of Mac OS X. After you have backed up your Mac, you can proceed.


Set Up Dual Boot for OS X Lion & Install OS X Mountain Lion
We’ll walk through partitioning, installing, and booting either version of Mac OS X:

• Open Disk Utility, click on hard drive and then click on “partition”
• Click the + icon to add a new partition, make it at least 14GB and name it something obvious like “Mountain Lion”, then click “Apply”

• Confirm the creation of the partition (see note below if you have problems here)
• Launch the OS X Mountain Lion Preview installer (or mount the InstallESD.dmg file) and open the “Install OS X Mountain Lion Preview 1.app” to begin installation
• Click through to install, and select the newly made partition “Mountain Lion”

• Let installation commence, the Mac will reboot and installing OS X Mountain Lion will begin

You’re done! After installation is complete, you will be greeted by the familiar OS X welcome and set up screen.

Choosing which OS X version to boot
Hold down Option during reboot to bring up the boot loader. You’ll find four drives; one for OS X 10.7, one for OS X 10.8, and a recovery partition for each OS X version. This is why it was important to name the OS X Mountain Lion partition something obvious.

Select “Mountain Lion” and boot as usual. Boot disk settings can also be adjusted through System Preferences’s Startup Disk panel at any point in either Mac OS X 10.7 or OS X 10.8.

Competing Recovery Partitions
Having two active recovery partitions can cause issues if you attempt to restore from one or the other, and it’s recommended to not use either to restore the OS in the current dual boot setup. If you are going to remove either the OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion partitions, don’t forget to remove the Recovery partition accompanying that version of Mac OS X. If not, you could inadvertently restore the wrong OS, or encounter boot problems if you delete the wrong OS and find the recovery partition to be incompatible with the remaining version of OS X.

Note about partitioning in OS X 10.7
OS X Lion is pickier than past versions of Mac OS X when partitioning the boot drive. If you run into problems partitioning the active boot drive, reboot into Recovery Mode (Command+R at boot) and use Disk Utility from there to create the partition, then reboot again into OS X Lion and continue with installation.

Clear Versions History & Auto-Save Cache Data

Mac OS X 10.7 and later include the Versions feature and Auto-Save ability, this lets users restore back to previous editions of a file by creating a constant sequence of saved file states while they are being worked on. All around, Versions and auto-save are useful, but they can also leave traces of sensitive documents and files you may not wish to keep around. Other than the privacy implications, this same technique can resolve some erroneous behavior with Versions as well. The simplest solution to these issues is to manually delete the Versions saved states cache directory.

The Versions cache directory is stored within the root of a Mac OS X installation here:

/.DocumentRevisions-V100/

The safest way to remove this folder will be multiple steps, so launch the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/) and type the following:

cd /

To be certain you’re about to remove the proper directory, verify the directory name:

ls -l .DocumentRevisions-V100

Delete the directory and its contents with rm:

sudo rm -rf .DocumentRevisions-V100

Doing this one-time will not disable the feature, it will just remove all existing history of files that have been managed by Versions.

After a file has been processed automatically by Versions again, the directory will be rebuilt. Because this is involves editing system files and using the potentially catastrophic ‘rm -rf’ command, you shouldn’t use this tip unless you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Also, be aware that deleting the directory can cause some temporary issues with existing files that are locked or have saved states, even if file locking is turned off. Typically this will be in the form of an error message when using the file the first time, but it shouldn’t cause any serious issues.

Clear Versions History & Auto-Save Cache Data

Mac OS X 10.7 and later include the Versions feature and Auto-Save ability, this lets users restore back to previous editions of a file by creating a constant sequence of saved file states while they are being worked on. All around, Versions and auto-save are useful, but they can also leave traces of sensitive documents and files you may not wish to keep around. Other than the privacy implications, this same technique can resolve some erroneous behavior with Versions as well. The simplest solution to these issues is to manually delete the Versions saved states cache directory.

The Versions cache directory is stored within the root of a Mac OS X installation here:

/.DocumentRevisions-V100/

The safest way to remove this folder will be multiple steps, so launch the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/) and type the following:

cd /

To be certain you’re about to remove the proper directory, verify the directory name:

ls -l .DocumentRevisions-V100

Delete the directory and its contents with rm:

sudo rm -rf .DocumentRevisions-V100

Doing this one-time will not disable the feature, it will just remove all existing history of files that have been managed by Versions.

After a file has been processed automatically by Versions again, the directory will be rebuilt. Because this is involves editing system files and using the potentially catastrophic ‘rm -rf’ command, you shouldn’t use this tip unless you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Also, be aware that deleting the directory can cause some temporary issues with existing files that are locked or have saved states, even if file locking is turned off. Typically this will be in the form of an error message when using the file the first time, but it shouldn’t cause any serious issues.

Launchpad for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users can now add OS X Lion’s iOS-style Launchpad feature to their desktops with a free third party utility called MacLaunchPad.

MacLaunchPad is pretty similar to the real thing, and some features are closer to the version of Launchpad that appears in OS X Mountain Lion, like the real-time app search function. You can set some customizations that don’t exist in the Lion version too, like giving you the ability to change the amount of visible icons per Launchpad page. As usual with Launchpad, you can set hot keys to activate and deactivate the app, or even arrange and uninstall apps directly from the panels.

Get MacLaunchPad free from SourceForge

MacLaunchpad is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard.

Launchpad for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users can now add OS X Lion’s iOS-style Launchpad feature to their desktops with a free third party utility called MacLaunchPad.

MacLaunchPad is pretty similar to the real thing, and some features are closer to the version of Launchpad that appears in OS X Mountain Lion, like the real-time app search function. You can set some customizations that don’t exist in the Lion version too, like giving you the ability to change the amount of visible icons per Launchpad page. As usual with Launchpad, you can set hot keys to activate and deactivate the app, or even arrange and uninstall apps directly from the panels.

Get MacLaunchPad free from SourceForge

MacLaunchpad is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard.

Navigating & Selecting Text in Mac OS X

6 Text Navigation Shortcuts
The first group of keyboard shortcuts allow for quickly moving around text:

• Jump to beginning of a line – Command+Left Arrow
• Jump to end of a line – Command+Right Arrow
• Jump to beginning of current word – Option+Right Arrow
• Jump to end of current word – Option+Right Arrow
• Jump to beginning of all text – Command+Up Arrow
• Jump to end of all text – Command+Down Arrow

By adding a shift key to the above shortcuts, we are given six new tricks that allow for quick text selection of lines, words, and entire documents.

6 Text Selection Shortcuts
The next group of keyboard shortcuts allow for quickly highlighting and selecting elements of text:

• Select text to beginning of a line – Shift+Command+Left Arrow
• Select text to end of a line – Shift+Command+Right Arrow
• Select text to beginning of current word – Shift+Option+Right Arrow
• Select text to end of current word – Shift+Option+Right Arrow
• Select text to beginning of all text – Shift+Command+Up Arrow
• Select text to end of all text – Shift+Command+Down Arrow

These shortcuts should work in all versions of Mac OS X and with all Cocoa based apps, including Safari, Chrome, TextEdit, Pages and the iWork suite, and most other Mac apps and text editors.

Navigating & Selecting Text in Mac OS X

6 Text Navigation Shortcuts
The first group of keyboard shortcuts allow for quickly moving around text:

• Jump to beginning of a line – Command+Left Arrow
• Jump to end of a line – Command+Right Arrow
• Jump to beginning of current word – Option+Right Arrow
• Jump to end of current word – Option+Right Arrow
• Jump to beginning of all text – Command+Up Arrow
• Jump to end of all text – Command+Down Arrow

By adding a shift key to the above shortcuts, we are given six new tricks that allow for quick text selection of lines, words, and entire documents.

6 Text Selection Shortcuts
The next group of keyboard shortcuts allow for quickly highlighting and selecting elements of text:

• Select text to beginning of a line – Shift+Command+Left Arrow
• Select text to end of a line – Shift+Command+Right Arrow
• Select text to beginning of current word – Shift+Option+Right Arrow
• Select text to end of current word – Shift+Option+Right Arrow
• Select text to beginning of all text – Shift+Command+Up Arrow
• Select text to end of all text – Shift+Command+Down Arrow

These shortcuts should work in all versions of Mac OS X and with all Cocoa based apps, including Safari, Chrome, TextEdit, Pages and the iWork suite, and most other Mac apps and text editors.

Find iMessage Users & Contacts

iMessage is a great addition to iOS and OS X that lets you send unlimited text messages, pictures, videos, documents, and even files, between other iMessage users. Though you probably know at least a few people who are using iMessages, chances are good that more of your contacts have set it up and you just didn’t know about it yet. The good news is that iMessage users are easy to find, and as long as they have it configured properly on their iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac, you’ll be able to find who is using the service and who can receive things sent through the iMessage protocol.

Here’s how to find out who can receive iMessages easily in both iOS and on a Mac with OS X.

Find Other iMessage Users on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
You’ll need iOS 5 or later to do this:

• Launch the Messages app in iOS (set up iMessage if you haven’t yet)
• Tap the Compose button in the upper right corner to start a new message
• Type the contacts name, or just put the first letter of their name and have a list populate
• iMessage users will show a blue iMessage icon alongside their name

Now that Apple has brought iMessage compatibility to the Mac, the same functionality is provided but in a slightly different way.

Find iMessage Contacts with Messages for Mac

• Messages for Mac is available to OS X 10.7 and OS X 10.8 users only:
• Open Messages for Mac (download the beta for free if you haven’t already)
• Hit Command+N or click the “Compose” button in the upper left corner of the iMessage window
• Start typing a name to see the contacts list populate
• Look for the blue iMessage badge next to names of users who can receive iMessages

One thing missing is that you won’t know what device they’re using, so whether or not you’re sending a message to a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or all of the above, you just won’t know. With how iMessages sync between devices, that doesn’t really matter much, but it would be a nice bonus to be able to find out what hardware they are using at the moment.

Find iMessage Users & Contacts

iMessage is a great addition to iOS and OS X that lets you send unlimited text messages, pictures, videos, documents, and even files, between other iMessage users. Though you probably know at least a few people who are using iMessages, chances are good that more of your contacts have set it up and you just didn’t know about it yet. The good news is that iMessage users are easy to find, and as long as they have it configured properly on their iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac, you’ll be able to find who is using the service and who can receive things sent through the iMessage protocol.

Here’s how to find out who can receive iMessages easily in both iOS and on a Mac with OS X.

Find Other iMessage Users on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
You’ll need iOS 5 or later to do this:

• Launch the Messages app in iOS (set up iMessage if you haven’t yet)
• Tap the Compose button in the upper right corner to start a new message
• Type the contacts name, or just put the first letter of their name and have a list populate
• iMessage users will show a blue iMessage icon alongside their name

Now that Apple has brought iMessage compatibility to the Mac, the same functionality is provided but in a slightly different way.

Find iMessage Contacts with Messages for Mac

• Messages for Mac is available to OS X 10.7 and OS X 10.8 users only:
• Open Messages for Mac (download the beta for free if you haven’t already)
• Hit Command+N or click the “Compose” button in the upper left corner of the iMessage window
• Start typing a name to see the contacts list populate
• Look for the blue iMessage badge next to names of users who can receive iMessages

One thing missing is that you won’t know what device they’re using, so whether or not you’re sending a message to a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or all of the above, you just won’t know. With how iMessages sync between devices, that doesn’t really matter much, but it would be a nice bonus to be able to find out what hardware they are using at the moment.

10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Text Navigation

7 Navigation Shortcuts
Navigate around blocks of texts faster with the following shortcuts:

• Jump to Beginning of Line – Control+A
• Jump to End of Line – Control+E
• Go to Next Line – Control+N
• Go to Previous Line – Control+P
• Delete Previous Word – Control+W
• Delete Line from Cursor to Beginning – Control+U
• Delete Line from Cursor to End – Control+K
• Of course you can also use the arrow keys to navigate within text blocks and to place the cursor for using all commands mentioned.

3 Cutting & Pasting Shortcuts for the Command Line
The command line also has it’s own version of cut and paste, called “kill” and “yank”, and you can reuse two previously mentioned commands for this purpose:

• Cut from Cursor to Beginning of Line – Control+U
• Cut from Cursor to End of Line – Control+K
• Paste Previously Cut Text at Cursor – Control+Y

Because the latter two kill and yank commands do not overwrite the clipboard buffer, they can function as a secondary cut & paste command in many GUI based Mac OS X apps as well.

10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Text Navigation

7 Navigation Shortcuts
Navigate around blocks of texts faster with the following shortcuts:

• Jump to Beginning of Line – Control+A
• Jump to End of Line – Control+E
• Go to Next Line – Control+N
• Go to Previous Line – Control+P
• Delete Previous Word – Control+W
• Delete Line from Cursor to Beginning – Control+U
• Delete Line from Cursor to End – Control+K
• Of course you can also use the arrow keys to navigate within text blocks and to place the cursor for using all commands mentioned.

3 Cutting & Pasting Shortcuts for the Command Line
The command line also has it’s own version of cut and paste, called “kill” and “yank”, and you can reuse two previously mentioned commands for this purpose:

• Cut from Cursor to Beginning of Line – Control+U
• Cut from Cursor to End of Line – Control+K
• Paste Previously Cut Text at Cursor – Control+Y

Because the latter two kill and yank commands do not overwrite the clipboard buffer, they can function as a secondary cut & paste command in many GUI based Mac OS X apps as well.

Find a MAC Address in Mac OS X

A MAC address is a unique identifier that is assigned to each physical network interface on a computer. Different than a computers IP address, MAC addresses are frequently used for network access control and to monitor network connectivity, and they can be spoofed for virtualization needs or to circumvent some network limitations. If you need to access yours, here’s how to find one from the friendly GUI and the command line.

Locate a MAC Address in Mac OS X
To quickly find a MAC address:

• Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu
• Click on “Network”
• Select your currently active network connection from the left menu (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc) and then click on “Advanced” in the lower right corner
• Look at the bottom of the window for “Wi-Fi Address”, the hexadecimal characters next to this are the machines MAC address

The address is always in the form aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff, looking something like “ce:9e:8d:02:1d:e9″ or a variation of.

Note that the wireless MAC address will be labeled as “Wi-Fi Address” in OS X 10.7 Lion and later as well as iPhone and iOS, whereas it’s called “Airport Address” in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and before.

List All Network Hardware MAC Addresses in Mac OS X
To quickly list all MAC addresses of network hardware on a Mac, even if they are currently inactive, launch the Terminal and type the following command:

networksetup -listallhardwareports

This may return something like this, look for the string following “Ethernet Address” to find the MAC address per interface:

Hardware Port: Bluetooth DUN

Device: Bluetooth-Modem

Ethernet Address: db:26:cd:41:c3:79

Hardware Port: Ethernet

Device: en0

Ethernet Address: 21:d3:91:bb:11:bd

Hardware Port: FireWire

Device: fw0

Ethernet Address: c6:18:ed:fa:ff:15:db:51

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi

Device: en1

Ethernet Address: f2:8b:fc:ae:bb:f5

Notice that even a wi-fi cards MAC address will be referred to as “Ethernet address” using the networksetup command. You can also retrieve individual IP addresses and MAC addresses together with the ifconfig command, although the output isn’t nearly as user friendly.

If your intention is to spoof an address, generating a random MAC address is usually the best bet to avoid any network conflicts.

Find a MAC Address in Mac OS X

A MAC address is a unique identifier that is assigned to each physical network interface on a computer. Different than a computers IP address, MAC addresses are frequently used for network access control and to monitor network connectivity, and they can be spoofed for virtualization needs or to circumvent some network limitations. If you need to access yours, here’s how to find one from the friendly GUI and the command line.

Locate a MAC Address in Mac OS X
To quickly find a MAC address:

• Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu
• Click on “Network”
• Select your currently active network connection from the left menu (Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc) and then click on “Advanced” in the lower right corner
• Look at the bottom of the window for “Wi-Fi Address”, the hexadecimal characters next to this are the machines MAC address

The address is always in the form aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff, looking something like “ce:9e:8d:02:1d:e9″ or a variation of.

Note that the wireless MAC address will be labeled as “Wi-Fi Address” in OS X 10.7 Lion and later as well as iPhone and iOS, whereas it’s called “Airport Address” in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and before.

List All Network Hardware MAC Addresses in Mac OS X
To quickly list all MAC addresses of network hardware on a Mac, even if they are currently inactive, launch the Terminal and type the following command:

networksetup -listallhardwareports

This may return something like this, look for the string following “Ethernet Address” to find the MAC address per interface:

Hardware Port: Bluetooth DUN

Device: Bluetooth-Modem

Ethernet Address: db:26:cd:41:c3:79

Hardware Port: Ethernet

Device: en0

Ethernet Address: 21:d3:91:bb:11:bd

Hardware Port: FireWire

Device: fw0

Ethernet Address: c6:18:ed:fa:ff:15:db:51

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi

Device: en1

Ethernet Address: f2:8b:fc:ae:bb:f5

Notice that even a wi-fi cards MAC address will be referred to as “Ethernet address” using the networksetup command. You can also retrieve individual IP addresses and MAC addresses together with the ifconfig command, although the output isn’t nearly as user friendly.

If your intention is to spoof an address, generating a random MAC address is usually the best bet to avoid any network conflicts.

Top10 Mac Tips

The Safari Bookmarks Bar
The Safari Bookmarks Bar puts websites one click, or even one keystroke, away.

Edit and use Safari′s Top Sites
Safari makes your favourite websites readily available with its Top Sites feature. Here’s how to customise the Top Sites to reflect your preferences.

Safari Autofill
Let Safari fill in forms for you.

Merge and split windows in Safari
Web browsing how you like it: combine multiple Safari windows into one, or break Tabs out into separate windows. Includes video.

Lock your Mac screen
It’s a pain to logout just to keep casual passers-by out of your files while you make a coffee. Instead you can set a screensaver to require a password. Here’s how.

Check your battery’s health with System Profiler
If you use a Mac laptop, take a look at System Profiler to give it a battery health check.

Clean up a Thumb Drive
Many people use thumb drives — those tiny ‘sticks’ you plug into a USB port — for storing backups of important documents, and they’re great for that purpose: quick, easy, convenient. Copy files to the drive, drag files from the drive, add, delete — it all takes but a moment. How to reformat a USB ‘thumb’ drive.

Resize images with Automator
Save hours of tedious work by using Automator to resize images for you. Here’s how.

Share files easily with Dropbox
Dropbox makes sharing files — with yourself or other people — a matter of a simple drag and drop.

How to Trash and Put Back files
There are at least 6 different ways to put unwanted files in the Trash on a Mac, and to get them out again. Here’s how.

Top10 Mac Tips

The Safari Bookmarks Bar
The Safari Bookmarks Bar puts websites one click, or even one keystroke, away.

Edit and use Safari 5′s Top Sites
Safari makes your favourite websites readily available with its Top Sites feature. Here’s how to customise the Top Sites to reflect your preferences.

Safari Autofill
Let Safari fill in forms for you.

Merge and split windows in Safari
Web browsing how you like it: combine multiple Safari windows into one, or break Tabs out into separate windows. Includes video.

How to ‘lock’ your Mac’s screen
It’s a pain to logout just to keep casual passers-by out of your files while you make a coffee. Instead you can set a screensaver to require a password. Here’s how.

Check your battery’s health with System Profiler
If you use a Mac laptop, take a look at System Profiler to give it a battery health check.

Clean up a Thumb Drive
Many people use thumb drives — those tiny ‘sticks’ you plug into a USB port — for storing backups of important documents, and they’re great for that purpose: quick, easy, convenient. Copy files to the drive, drag files from the drive, add, delete — it all takes but a moment. How to reformat a USB ‘thumb’ drive.

Resize images with Automator
Save hours of tedious work by using Automator to resize images for you. Here’s how.

Share files easily with Dropbox
Dropbox makes sharing files — with yourself or other people — a matter of a simple drag and drop.

How to Trash and Put Back files
There are at least 6 different ways to put unwanted files in the Trash on a Mac, and to get them out again. Here’s how.

Disable restored windows when re-opening specific apps

There’s a great tip over on the Macs in Chemistry blog on how to stop Lion from restoring your previous windows when re-opening specific apps. In System Preferences there’s a checkbox for turning this on and off globally, but using a handy little AppleScript you can disable it on a per-app basis.

One of the new features in Lion is the ability of applications to resume activity at the point an application was quit. This means that when you reopen an application it will open and display all the documents you were editing in the state when you quit the application. This is obviously very useful but there are times when you may not want confidential documents automatically opened and displayed when you open an application.

Here’s an example of the script for Safari:

set statePath to POSIX path of (path to home folder) & "Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState"

set quotedPath to quoted form of statePath

try

   do shell script "test -w " & quotedPath

    set current to "enabled"

on error

   set current to "disabled"

end try

if current is "enabled" then

   tell application "Finder" to delete every item of ((POSIX file statePath) as alias)

    do shell script "chmod u-w " & quotedPath

    display dialog "Disabled window restore for Safari" buttons "OK" default button 1

else

   do shell script "chmod u+w " & quotedPath

    display dialog "Enabled window restore for Safari" buttons "OK" default button 1

end if

Head over to macinchem.org for a quick explanation of how to add it to your scripts menu to give you an easy place to access it.

Disable restored windows when re-opening specific apps

There’s a great tip over on the Macs in Chemistry blog on how to stop Lion from restoring your previous windows when re-opening specific apps. In System Preferences there’s a checkbox for turning this on and off globally, but using a handy little AppleScript you can disable it on a per-app basis.

One of the new features in Lion is the ability of applications to resume activity at the point an application was quit. This means that when you reopen an application it will open and display all the documents you were editing in the state when you quit the application. This is obviously very useful but there are times when you may not want confidential documents automatically opened and displayed when you open an application.

Here’s an example of the script for Safari:

set statePath to POSIX path of (path to home folder) & "Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState"

set quotedPath to quoted form of statePath

try

   do shell script "test -w " & quotedPath

    set current to "enabled"

on error

   set current to "disabled"

end try

if current is "enabled" then

   tell application "Finder" to delete every item of ((POSIX file statePath) as alias)

    do shell script "chmod u-w " & quotedPath

    display dialog "Disabled window restore for Safari" buttons "OK" default button 1

else

   do shell script "chmod u+w " & quotedPath

    display dialog "Enabled window restore for Safari" buttons "OK" default button 1

end if

Head over to macinchem.org for a quick explanation of how to add it to your scripts menu to give you an easy place to access it.

Get iTunes track notifications in your Dock

In Lion there is a cool hidden setting to enable “Now playing” notifications that appear from the iTunes icon in the Dock. Every time a new song starts, a small popup containing the artist and the song name appears and then slowly fades out after a few seconds.

To enable this, start by opening Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), then paste in the following line and press Return.

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool YES

For the changes to take effect, the Dock has to be restarted. The easiest way to do this is to type killall Dock into the Terminal and press Return. If you change your mind and want to disable the notifications, repeat the above commands, but replace YES with NO.

For those of you who have your Dock set to hide when not in use, you’ll notice that when the Dock is hidden the iTunes icon is added to the notification. If you want the icon to show even when the Dock is not hidden, just use the following command in the same way as above:

defaults write com.apple.dock notification-always-show-image -bool YES

As before, remember to restart the Dock with killall Dock for changes to take effect.

It’s not entirely clear why this setting isn’t present in the iTunes preferences. It might still be under development — there is still room for improvement. For example it would be better if it included the album artwork like Bowtie, Growl and DockArt already do. It could also be a sneak peak of future plans Apple has for a notifications framework for all apps in Mac OS X, much like Growl provides at the moment.

Get iTunes track notifications in your Dock

In Lion there is a cool hidden setting to enable “Now playing” notifications that appear from the iTunes icon in the Dock. Every time a new song starts, a small popup containing the artist and the song name appears and then slowly fades out after a few seconds.

To enable this, start by opening Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), then paste in the following line and press Return.

defaults write com.apple.dock itunes-notifications -bool YES

For the changes to take effect, the Dock has to be restarted. The easiest way to do this is to type killall Dock into the Terminal and press Return. If you change your mind and want to disable the notifications, repeat the above commands, but replace YES with NO.

For those of you who have your Dock set to hide when not in use, you’ll notice that when the Dock is hidden the iTunes icon is added to the notification. If you want the icon to show even when the Dock is not hidden, just use the following command in the same way as above:

defaults write com.apple.dock notification-always-show-image -bool YES

As before, remember to restart the Dock with killall Dock for changes to take effect.

It’s not entirely clear why this setting isn’t present in the iTunes preferences. It might still be under development — there is still room for improvement. For example it would be better if it included the album artwork like Bowtie, Growl and DockArt already do. It could also be a sneak peak of future plans Apple has for a notifications framework for all apps in Mac OS X, much like Growl provides at the moment.

Display a login banner

Apple has a great article over on their support site on how to display an agreement window where users must read and click Accept before logging into the computer. This is really useful for people who manage lots of Macs in a school or company with an “Acceptable Use Policy” that all users must agree to.

To do this, just create a file in TextEdit that contains whatever text you want to display. You can embed images and use whatever text styling you want. Once you are done, save the file with the name PolicyBanner in the Security folder in the Library in Macintosh HD.

Display a login banner

Apple has a great article over on their support site on how to display an agreement window where users must read and click Accept before logging into the computer. This is really useful for people who manage lots of Macs in a school or company with an “Acceptable Use Policy” that all users must agree to.

To do this, just create a file in TextEdit that contains whatever text you want to display. You can embed images and use whatever text styling you want. Once you are done, save the file with the name PolicyBanner in the Security folder in the Library in Macintosh HD.

Display system stats

In older versions of Mac OS X, simply clicking on your computer name in the login window would cycle through displaying lots of useful system information. Unfortunately this feature has been removed in Lion, but you can bring it back to a certain extent. Open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), paste in the following line and press Return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfoHostName

Now when on the login screen, clicking on the time in the top right will cause the computer name to appear, followed by the OS version and build number, followed by the IP address.

Display system stats

In older versions of Mac OS X, simply clicking on your computer name in the login window would cycle through displaying lots of useful system information. Unfortunately this feature has been removed in Lion, but you can bring it back to a certain extent. Open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), paste in the following line and press Return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfoHostName

Now when on the login screen, clicking on the time in the top right will cause the computer name to appear, followed by the OS version and build number, followed by the IP address.

Display a short message

Before Lion, displaying a message on the login screen was a complicated process that involved entering commands into the Terminal. Luckily, Apple have now added an easy way to set a message using System Preferences. To do this, go to the Security & Privacy preference pane, and under the General tab, tick the checkbox Show a message when the screen is locked then add your message. Only about the first 200 characters you enter will be displayed, so make your message short and sweet.

Display a short message

Before Lion, displaying a message on the login screen was a complicated process that involved entering commands into the Terminal. Luckily, Apple have now added an easy way to set a message using System Preferences. To do this, go to the Security & Privacy preference pane, and under the General tab, tick the checkbox Show a message when the screen is locked then add your message. Only about the first 200 characters you enter will be displayed, so make your message short and sweet.

Changing the background

In Lion, the background used for the login screen is located at

/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/

The easiest way to get to this folder is to choose Go to Folder in the Go menu while in the Finder. Then just copy and paste in the above line and click Go. The image that is used for the background is NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png. You can replace this with any other image, and as long as you give it exactly the same name, it will be used for the login screen background. Before you make any changes, make sure you make a copy of the original file somewhere safe so you can go back to it if you want.

You’ll notice that the image is only a small 256x256 pixel square — this is because it is automatically tiled across the screen. If you want to use a similar type of texture, any size image is fine. However, if you would like to use a full size image without tiling, you need to make sure the image dimensions exactly match your screen and the resolution is 72 dpi. Either way, it must also be in PNG format like the original. It’s pretty simple to use Preview to adjust any image to the correct size and format.

Changing the background

In Lion, the background used for the login screen is located at

/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/

The easiest way to get to this folder is to choose Go to Folder in the Go menu while in the Finder. Then just copy and paste in the above line and click Go. The image that is used for the background is NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png. You can replace this with any other image, and as long as you give it exactly the same name, it will be used for the login screen background. Before you make any changes, make sure you make a copy of the original file somewhere safe so you can go back to it if you want.

You’ll notice that the image is only a small 256x256 pixel square — this is because it is automatically tiled across the screen. If you want to use a similar type of texture, any size image is fine. However, if you would like to use a full size image without tiling, you need to make sure the image dimensions exactly match your screen and the resolution is 72 dpi. Either way, it must also be in PNG format like the original. It’s pretty simple to use Preview to adjust any image to the correct size and format.

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