How to toggle invisible files in OSX

Written on 01/15 • 0 Comments

OS X has numerous invisible files and folders. They are hidden to protect users from mistakenly moving or deleting critical files that might break the system or the applications that depend on them. Sometimes however you may need to find and use these files but OS X unlike its Windows counterpart has no options to show/hide hidden files anywhere. There are options, third party software is one and here a few others.

The Finder

If you need to find a hidden file for a one off situation you can use the search criteria in Finder. Launch the Finder (Command+F ) and select File → Find… to reveal the filter options. Select Kind → Other… to open a dialog sheet listing search attributes and select Visibility (if you are running Snow Leopard the attribute has been renamed to File invisible) and click OK. You should now be able to select either visible or invisible as a search criterion.

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Using SSH in Terminal.app on Mac OS X

Written on 10/30 • 0 Comments

This article will teach you how to open a SSH connection using the Terminal application in OS X. OS X's UNIX background means there is an easy way to exchange data with your Linux/UNIX web server using the built in Terminal application. SSH, if enabled, allows you to remotely execute commands on your webserver that can be helpful for all sorts of purposes.

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Make iPhoto open for your Camera not your iPhone

Written on 08/21 • 0 Comments

If you are an iPhone user who charges your phone using your Mac when you are at home or at work it can get tiresome having iPhoto launch every time you connect your phone. It would seem like there would be an obvious way to stop iPhoto opening each time you connect and there is but its not in the place where you change other iPhone settings — iTunes nor is it in iPhoto itself but you will find it in the sometimes forgotten Image Capture application.

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Installing Memory in a Early 2008 Mac Pro

Written on 07/24 • 0 Comments

My Mac Pro has just had it's first birthday and it was time to buy it a present - some new memory. The Mac Pro (Early 2008) comes with a minimum of 2GB but has a maximum capacity of 32GB. Although a have been trundling along with 2GB for the past year I am aware a memory boost would improve my machines performance with Photoshop, Aperture, Illustrator and in general. I decided another 8GB was what I needed and purchased a matched pair of 4GB DIMMs, I could have brought more 1GB DIMMs that has the advantage of filling all the slots and making best use of the memory buses, but decided the larger DIMMs would allow me to install the maximum 32GB at a later date.

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20 Handy Apple OSX Keyboard Shortcuts

Written on 07/03 • 0 Comments

Keyboard shortcuts can be a real timesaver, if you get to know a few for common tasks you can cut hours off your working week. The keyboard shortcuts are not application specific and should work in virtually any program running on OSX.

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What is iTunes “grouping” tag for?

Written on 06/05 • 0 Comments

When tagging music in iTunes, I have often wondered what the “Grouping” column was for. I rarely, if ever, saw any data in this column after importing CD’s, but it seemed like it would be useful to “group” music by some other criteria. After some digging in the AppleScript dictionary for iTunes I found the official use:

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More articles can be found in the archives, feel free to have a look around and leave your comments.

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