Category: Utilities Notes

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System Software Notes Unix Notes Utilities Notes

Fix for postfix in Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

After installing OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, a few things in our web development environment stopped working (namely Apache with multiple vhosts, BIND/wildcard DNS, Phusion Passenger and the rmagick2 gem, and postfix). The reason being is that Apple overwrites all of the configuration files that those tools rely on (although the old ones are all backed up with an appended ~previous, so fixing is relatively straightforward). We rely on postfix for sending mail locally via smtp using PHP’s mail() (i.e. sendmail) or Rails’ ActionMailer.

Fix for postfix in Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

I didn’t find the backup copy of the plist – mine were just, simply, blasted.

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System Software Notes Utilities Notes

10.7: Enable the FTP server

Apple seemingly dropped the FTP Server support in Mac OX Lion. Only the GUI has been removed and the FTP Server can be activated. You can still enable it with the command line. To start it type the Terminal command:

sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

To stop it:

sudo -s launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

via 10.7: Enable the FTP server – Mac OS X Hints.

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System Software Notes Utilities Notes

How to customize a Magic Trackpad

The BetterTouchTool utility allows you to define your own gestures and actions. In addition to its not-yet-final support for the Magic Trackpad, BetterTouchTool works with many third-party trackpads and Apple’s Magic Mouse.

via How to customize a Magic Trackpad | Business Center | Working Mac | Macworld.

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Utilities Notes

Cliclick

“Cliclick” is short for “Command-Line Interface Click”. It is a a tiny shell / Terminal application that will emulate mouse clicks or series of mouse clicks including doubleclicks and control-clicks at arbitrary screen coordinates.

via Cliclick – Carsten Blüm: Mac Development.

This is such a nifty little tool. Want that shell script to do something?

Of course in the words of John Lennon – “Imagine there is no right-click”

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Utilities Notes

Monitor too bright? Put on some Shades

This one goes out to all the night owls. As much as I love my iMac, I was surprised to see how little control it gave me over the screen’s brightness. I often work on my iMac late at night in an otherwise darkened room, and even at the lowest brightness setting, the iMac is really, really bright. All of the Mac laptops I’ve used have the ability to dim the screen down to completely dark, but the iMac does not.

via Monitor too bright? Put on some Shades:

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System Software Notes Utilities Notes

hfsdebug: A Debugger for HFS Plus Volumes

A debugger is a program that facilitates debugging, which may be casually defined as the process of finding and fixing “bugs” in the object of interest: usually a piece of software, firmware, or hardware (although debugging may apply to any domain).

via hfsdebug: A Debugger for HFS Plus Volumes.

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Utilities Notes

How to duplicate CD on a Mac

How to duplicate CD on a Mac

My daughter’s music CD for her skating short program got badly scratched and because it was the last-but-one copy as skater you need many copies, in case you loose/forget/scratch/misplace it,  I was confronted with the task to create a new copy. Rather than starting Nero on Win-XP notebook, I have decided to learn finally how to do it on Mac. It must be simple, intuititive and much easier than on Windows. Right ? Wrong To my big surprise, there was no easy, idiot proof, very obvious way mac-ish drag and drop way how to acomplish it. It was not exactly hard either, but it actually took consulting the omniviscent Google to find it out. To save the search for the next time, I’ll write it down. Here is what you have to do:

1 Create a disk image from source CD

Insert the source CD the one you want to copy

Open the Finder, open Applications, then Utilities, and start the Disk Utility program

In Disk Utility, select File -> New -> Disk Image from Folder

The Finder will appear – select whole CD and click on the Image button

A new dialog box will appear. In the Where box, choose Desktop. In the Image Format box, choose DVD/CD master

Click Save

Now a new file will be created on your Desktop, titled the name of your CD with a “.cdr” extension. This file is a disk image of your CD. Btw, it works even if you do not select cdr format and write disk as generic Disk Image .dmg.

Now you need to burn it on new, blank CD:

2 Create new CD from a disk image

Eject your original CD from the CD drive

Return to the Disk Utility program.

You should now see the disk image of your CD on the left hand side, typically at the bottom of the list. Select the image, and then click on the Burn button

Follow the directions and insert a black CD-R disc when prompted

You can repeat step 2 as many time you need, of course . Next time I am going to use the image, of course assumed that it will be still the same music. Thanks to Spotlight magic, I am sure I will be able to find it, because I used proper, descriptive and obvious name “track 86.cdr”. Just kidding .

What do you think – why did not Apple make this process easier – as they did for many other chores ? Has it maybe anything to do with the fact that copying CD can be and quite often is used for copyright violation activities ?

via How to duplicate CD on a Mac « Miro’s World.

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System Software Notes Utilities Notes

Screen Sharing in Leopard

As with any other network service, Screen Sharing has a set of virtual “ports” which isolate network traffic for that protocol since it and web traffic and other network services are all using the same IP address and connections. These ports must be opened in all network devices for all computers involved in the screen sharing sessions. This means firewalls on the local computer, as well as any routers or hardware firewalls must also be set up to pass traffic on the following ports:

TCP: 5900 – 5902, (3389 for connecting to Windows machines)

UDP: 4500 (for Back to My Mac users)

Depending on the network devices used, these ports can either be opened completely, or forwarded to the local IP address for the desired computer, but you will have to consult the documentation for your router to see about how to change these ports. Additionally, if your router supports “UPNP” (Universal Plug & Play) or “NAT-PMP” (NAT Port Mapping Protocol), then it should work for Back to My Mac. The list of routers in this Apple Knowledgebase article are some that support Back to My Mac and other screen sharing.

via Tutorial: Screen Sharing in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5): How it works and how it doesn’t – MacFixIt.

I really need to get around to making the firewall behave for screen sharing.

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System Software Notes Utilities Notes

Using iChat with a firewall or NAT router


When using iChat with NAT routers and firewalls, certain ports must be open to allow video and audio conferencing behind a firewall. Some devices have these ports open by default, while others require configuration.

via Using iChat with a firewall or NAT router.

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Utilities Notes

Dictionary Back matter

I was looking up a word in Dictionary.app and decided to look at the menus.

Check out the cool things listed under
Go>Front / Back Matter

Fun

8)