Mac OS X Leopard only: Dig into advanced user settings on your Mac by Ctrl+clicking on an account name in the System Preferences>Accounts area. There you can change Leopard’s default login shell, the account’s home directory or short name, and other important, scary, things that are just daring you to mess with them. (Actually, don’t, unless you really know what you’re doing.) As for shell options? Mac OS Hints explains: In the resulting Advanced Options screen, either type in the path to your preferred shell, or choose among the various shells already installed in /bin: bash, tcsh, sh, csh, zsh, or ksh.
Do you prefer an alternative shell on your Mac? Why? Tell us in the comments. Change your login shell in Leopard [macosxhints.com]
Mac OS X only: Dashquit is an elegant response to an niggling issue many Mac users have known for years—that the Dashboard widget screen, while awfully convenient sometimes, can also be a memory-sucker. When activated, the Dashquit widget shows you how much memory the Dashboard feature is using at the moment, and offers a big, bold “Stop” button to shut it down (after confirmation). It’s basically a graphical way to perform the terminal commands that shut down Dashboard, which is going to be a lot more convenient for many folks with less memory. Dashquit 3.0 is a free Leopard-only download and uses 50% less memory than it predecessors, but a 10.4-friendly version can also be found at the link. Dashquit 3.0 [via Download Squad]
Tech blogger Phil Windley grew tired of trying to eject his external back up disk, first the suggested Apple+E way and then by yanking a cord, just to see that ominous red stop sign of warning every day, even when he knew his disk operations were (or should have been, at least) done. His suggestion for others suffering from clingy back up drives: Parse together a terminal command similar to the one below (substituting name and other portions for whatever fits your system):
Mac OS X Leopard only: If you’ve got a FireWire drive hooked up to your Mac, chances are Leopard’s dead simple backup utility, Time Machine, has you backing up your data—and that’s a huge step forward if you weren’t backing up at all pre-Leopard. But Time Machine is only one piece of a full backup scheme. Macworld runs down what Time Machine can do (effortless, regular, intervention-less local backups) and what it can’t (system clones and online backup). If you want to complete your backup scheme, use an online service (Mozy Home Unlimited is the best 5 bucks I spend per month) and once in awhile, mirror your entire system to a bootable drive. That way if your FireWire drive gets stolen or dies, or your whole system crashes, you’ll be up and running instantaneously. What other backup services do you use in addition to Time Machine? Tell us in the comments. Is Time Machine all you need? [Macworld]
Reader Ace writes in with a nifty customsation that will set your Mac apart from the rest. Find a desktop wallpaper image (Social Wallpapering‘s a good bet), save it to your desktop as background.jpg, and in the Terminal type: sudo cp background.jpg /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg
You’ll have to enter your password to complete the operation, and when you do, next time you log off, your logon screen will have your new custom background. Slick. Thanks, Ace!
Mac OS X only: Yesterday’s software update added several subtle options all over Leopard for Mac users, especially for Stacks—to see them, simply Cmd+click on a Stack. We’ve posted before how to overlay icons on your Dock’s Stacks for easy visual identification, but now under “Display as” you can choose “Folder” instead to see the folder icon. (Easier, but I still like the drawer icons better.) Instead of your Mac deciding how the Stack should be viewed (as a grid or list), you can choose under “Display as.” Even more exciting, the “List” view isn’t that arcing fan any more—it’s a throwback to Tiger’s hierarchical file list which lets you navigate down into subfolders. Getting to Know the New Stacks [MacTips.org]
Apple officially pushed out the 10.5.2 update to Leopard today, a release filled with the promise of numerous bug fixes and stability improvements. We’re talking improvements with your AirPorts, Back to my Mac, Dashboard, Stacks, iCal, iChat, Finder, Mail, Time Machine, and oh-so-much-more. Hated the menu bar transparency from the get-go? Apple has felt your pain, and you can now disable transparency without third party apps. For a full rundown of changes, fixes, and improvements, check out the update details from Apple.
Mac OS X only: The latest version of our favorite system cloning/backup utility for Mac, SuperDuper, is now fully Leopard compatible. What do you need a third party backup utility for when you’re rockin’ Time Machine, you ask? Good question, friend. While Time Machine is incredible for incremental file backups that happen in the background, without intervention, SuperDuper’s strength is its ability to clone your entire Mac onto a bootable backup, which Time Machine does not do—well, not as easily as SuperDuper does.
Mac OS X Leopard only: You wouldn’t think that Leopard’s new Quick Look feature would work anywhere but from Finder, but you’d be wrong. From the command line in Terminal, you can invoke Quick Look to preview the contents of a file. Tips web site Mac OS X Hints details how: the command is qlmanage -p somefile where somefile is your document. As Mac OS X Hints recommends, setting up an alias (qlf, perhaps?) is a good way to save your typing fingers when reusing this technique. Use Quick Look from Terminal [Mac OS X Hints]
Of course you know all about Time Machine’s marquee feature—the ability to browse your files back in time—but Blogger James Duncan Davidson details Time machine’s equally-excellent-in-its-simplicity feature: restoring an entire system after a hard drive crash. The process is painless. Simply boot from the Leopard install disc with a fresh hard drive in place of your crashed drive; instead of continuing with the install process, go to Utilities -> Restore System from Backup. Then select your backup source (your Time Machine drive), choose which backup you want to restore (most likely you’ll want the most recent), then pick the destination drive (your new drive). Then it’s simply a matter of kicking back and waiting for Time Machine to do its magic. When all’s said and done, your entire system (with a few small exceptions) should be back in the exact same state you left it. I’ve already done this a couple of times myself, and frankly, it feels good. The simplicity of Time Machine really does compel you.
Restoring from Time Machine [DuncanDavidson via TUAW]
