Archive for the ‘OSX’ Category:
How-to Modify the Default User Settings in OSX
After my post on modifying default user settings in Vista I thought I should follow up with how to accomplish a similar thing in OSX. For OSX there is only one way to accomplish this, and that way is the manual way.
Just like with the manual way in Vista set up two user accounts, your local admin and a template user. Change all the settings you want for the template user and then restart and log in as admin. To copy the files to the default user you will need to open the terminal and follow the commands below.
Local admin isn’t enough, you will need to actually be using the terminal as the root user. If you don’t have root enabled you can find out how to enable it here.
sudo su
The English.lproj is the default user directory for any user that uses the English language. All we are doing here is copying the English.lproj folder and its contents to English.lproj.bak. For these important files ditto is better than cp because ditto will preserve the “resource fork” using the –rsrc option. It is also a good idea to keep a copy of this default user somewhere else besides just this computer in case something happens. I would recommend zipping up the English.lproj folder and storing it on a backup drive somewhere.
cd /System/Library/User\ Template/
ditto –rsrc English.lproj/* English.lproj.bak
Now that we copied a backup we can remove all the files/settings in the old English.lporj directory. If you accidentally delete the English.lproj folder (instead of just its contents) you can create it again with mkdir.
rm -rf English.lproj/*
Here we are just copying everything from our user we set up to the user template folder. Replace “rothgar” in the below command with the username you gave your template user.
cp -R /Users/rothgar/* English.lproj/
This final step will change the owner and group of the files and folders inside the user template to what they should be. All of the default user files should be owned by root and the group wheel.
chown -Rv root:wheel English.lproj
Those are all the steps needed to modify the default user. It would also be a good idea to reboot the computer, log in as admin, and check/repair disk permissions on the drive just to make sure everything is correct before you take an image of the computer. If everything is correct you can test out your settings with a new user and if everything checks out delete your template user.
Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or problems with the process in the comments.
Enable “path view” on top of Finder window
I saw this at The Unofficial Apple Weblog and thought it was nice because I hate that you can’t see what folder you are in by default.
Open a terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
And you have your location at the top of the window. I don’t even have a Apple anymore but this still may be useful in the future. Only works in OSX 10.5.5+
Why the Mac Mini sucks for MythTV/PVR
I bought the mac mini for a few reasons:
1. It is very small and very quiet
2. It looks good with my AV equipment
3. There are a lot of accessories that match the looks of the mini
4. It came with good enough specs for video playback and recording
The main problem I had was dealing with the small/slow hard drive. So I wanted to upgrade that but here are some of the things I ran into.
First of all, the Mac Mini had almost everything I wanted (and some things I didn’t care about) built in. I wouldn’t need to add any features to the device unlike other small computers I was looking at. Most other small computers came with almost everything I needed except one or two thing, built in IR for a remote or firewire. These were requirements for me. I know I could have used a USB -> IR adapter but I wanted this computer to look a little less DIY than my last MythTV. And not having firewire seemed too complicated to try and add my own through expensive adapters.
My goal for the Mac Mini was to upgrade the internal hard drive and use an external 1 TB drive. 
The reason for this was storage and speed. The internal hard drive in the Mac Mini is only 5400 rpm and while that works fine for web pages and word documents, when reading and writing large media files all day it just would not be fast enough for the task. One option was to install the OS on the internal hard drive and use a external hard drive just for storage over USB but the CPU overhead of USB and the read/write speeds would just not cut it (internal SATA II is over 6 times faster than USB 2.0/Firewire 400). There also is no firewire 800 port so that wouldn’t work either. I tried following a walk through that someone else already did with a mini hard drive upgrade but apparently Apple has updated their device since this was done and adding a hard drive the same way is no longer possible. If this worked for you on a post Nov 2007 Mac Mini please let me know in the comments. The problem I had was the Mac Mini would never detect any hard drive outside of the chassis. I tried with multiple cables, hard drives (2.5″ and 3.5″) but never once was able to get OSX or Ubuntu installed on the bigger hard drive.
To break it down, the reasons the Mac Mini actually sucks for building your own PVR are these.
1. Slow (low storage) hard drive
2. Expensive features that are not needed but you don’t have a option but pay for. (OSX, iLife, Apple tax, etc.)
3. Hard to upgrade processor and memory
And these are the reasons I picked the AOpen over the Mac Mini.
Mac Mini uses a older 945GM chipset with 667 Mhz vs. GM45 chipset with 1066 Mhz, it uses a more power hungry 65nm (T5600/T7200) processor vs. 45nm (T8100 or any socket p processor you want), and GMA950 GPU vs. GMA X3100. Not really big deals considering both should have the ability to play back most 1080p content. But having updated specs just make things a little easier, and the ability to upgrade helps make the PVR future proof…well almost.
For anyone interested, here are some pictures of the steps I took to make the Mac Mini NOT work with an external eSATA 1 TB hard drive.
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Sata to eSATA adapter. I was sent the wrong adapter and Microbarn would not accept the fact that this was a female SATA to male eSATA cable when I needed male to male. Even after sending them this picture. P.S. don’t order this, order this. |
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Adapter plugged into the Mac Mini SATA riser card with a male to male sata adapter I had to buy extra thanks to Microbarn. Maybe I just don’t understand male and female connectors.  |
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SATA cable run inside the case. This wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. See the picture above for what it looked like coming out of a slightly modified Kensington lock hole. |
Let me know how a Mac Mini is working out for you as a PVR or what other machine you bought as a substitute in the comments.
Create user template in OSX
After my last post I realized I have never explained (or documented for myself) how to create a user template in OSX. The best how-to I found was on Jim Epler’s Blog which I found via google. Here are his steps slightly modified
1. Tweak your default account including setting dock, clearing cache, recent items, etc.
2. Restart and login to the machine as admin.
3. Issue the following commands in the terminal:
:~root# cd /System/Library/User\ Template/
:~root# sudo ditto -rsrcFork English.lproj/* English.lproj.bak
:~root# sudo rm -rf /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/*
:~root# sudo cp -R /Users//* /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/
:~root# sudo chown -R root English.lproj
:~root# sudo chgrp -R wheel English.lproj4. Restart, log in as admin and repair permissions before creating a new account to see if it worked.
Now all your new users that log into the machine (including mobile users) will have these same settings as your template user.
OSX 10.5 keychain and user templates
We decided to have our Apple computers joined to our Active Directory server so we have a little more control and our users have a little more continuity and features when using different machines. We also finally figured out how to set up a user template similar to Windows default user profile. A problem we ended up with was our user template had a blank password for the keychain access but we need our users to have their keychain password be the same as their login password. If the keychain passwords do not match, the keychain keeps popping up every time they need to use a password stored in the keychain.
To fix this you can simply delete the login.keychain file from the /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/keychains/ folder before a user logs in or you can just deleted the login.keychain from the /User/
I just wanted to help with this problem before too many people got stuck with this like we did.
Leave me a comment if it worked for you or if you have any problems.
How to restore a Apple computer to factory defaults
I occasionally need to set up a Apple computer to act like it just came from the factory to give to a new person or to sell it. There are 2 ways I found to do this. The first is with the original install disk that came with your computer. But honestly who still has those around?
The second is as easy as deleting one folder and two files.
All you have to do is boot the mac into single user mode (command+s at start up) and enter the following commands at the terminal you are presented with.
mount -uw /
rm -rf /Users/
reboot (or shutdown -h now if you don't want the machine to turn back on)
Replace
This isn’t exactly the same as a fresh install but it is close enough. It removes all of the users and has the person go through the steps of naming the computer and registering with Apple.
Let me know if you have any other tips for restoring a Apple computer to true factory defaults.
Funny how that works.
I am not really trying to mix things up too much but I do find it very interesting that the weeks prior to MacWorld everyone was saying how much they would love to see a Mac Tablet and how great it would be to finally catch up with what the PC world has, without paying $2k+ for the Modbook.
And ever since the MacBook Air was announced everyone just said how awesome it would be to have a incredibly thin and light notebook would be. No more word on the tablet or all the other things they had wished would be there.
I also found it funny with the more powerful processors in the Mac Pro’s and how that would just “get in the way” of all the other amazing things that were going to happen at MacWorld. But really most people, who don’t throw money at Apple, came away very disappointed in the whole thing. If you truly look back and see what Apple did announce, it was actually pretty sad. Updated hardware and movie rentals is all I really saw. That is something that every company does. No company would go on stage and announce a thicker and slower notebook, or a inferior desktop. Every time there is a press release it is because something is faster, thinner, lighter, or just plain better than its predecessor.
Apple is supposed to innovate beyond just making something slightly better. The fact that they don’t do that really just makes them another company.
I really look forward to the coming ~6 months when a couple companies follow suit and build thin driveless machines but they don’t sell well. The really smart companies will watch how the MacBook air does and see that it won’t sell incredibly well, especially at its current price, and they will continue to make thinner, lighter, faster notebooks at a cheaper price.
A bunch of new tools/tweaks
I don’t really like filling up my website with posts about every tool I find. But every once and a while my RSS feeds fills up with “pinned” items for me to remember and check out when I get time. Well, it has filled up again and I am going to throw a bunch of downloads at you so get ready.
Lets start with a few tools that I probably won’t use much but it may be good for me in the future. Test Everything is a all-in-one tester for your website. Want to test your CSS or Whois? They have it all in a pretty slick, but not very user friendly interface. Bottom line is, if it isn’t at Test Everything I would be surprised if it exists anywhere.
This next one is a tool I remember reading about in the PDAPhoneHome forums a couple of years ago when I had my xv6700 and it was just a idea. It is called WMWifiRouter and it makes your Windows Mobile phone work as a wireless router for your laptop/PSP/whatever. You have to connect via a Ad Hoc network because the phone cannot broadcast DHCP but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The tool comes in 3 versions. The first version will install the program on your phone and also set up the Ad Hoc network connection for you. The second will install the program but you will have to do the Ad Hoc network settings yourself. The third is just the program. You will have to drag the program over to your phone and then run it and set up the network yourself. I really can’t wait till I get my new phone so I can give this one a try.
Now on to some tools I know I will probably use. The first two allow you to work on computers remotely. What is always the first step of working on a computer remotely? Figure out what is wrong. LSGrab helps with that. It allows you to remotely get a screenshot of a computer on your network. I tried it out on a couple of computers on my work network and had mixed results. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to try. The same web site, Moernaut.com, also had a tool called Remote interactive executer. I didn’t get a chance to try out this tool but if it works the way I think it does I will be keeping this around for a while.
Speaking of remotely managing computers. If anyone out there has a good program for remotely administering computers please leave a comment. I have been having a hard time finding a good one for my work. And just to narrow things down a little bit, LanDesk and Desktop Authority require too much integration (domain admins/servers), and NetSupport and Radmin don’t have all the features I need. So if you find something in between please let me know. I need to be able to remotely administer a computer without disrupting the user.
The next tool comes from the How-To Geek. They helped me out in a big way by showing me how to disable the internal system beep in Windows. If I still ever used internet explorer I would also have loved their tip on enabling more simultaneous downloads. In order to keep things nice and tidy on your computer, lifehacker has a tool called Belvedere that can automatically manage files for you. I have a couple set up that lets my downloaded files move after 1 week of creation and then if they aren’t opened in a couple weeks after being moved they are automatically deleted. A great way to keep junk files off my computer.
Finally, there is something I am never fond of but it is still fun to mess around with and that is making your OS look like a different OS. But, if you ever wanted to make your Windows XP machine look like OSX you don’t need to look any further than FlyakiteOSX. How-To Geek tipped me off to the program and I gave it a try on my virtual machine and it doesn’t look to bad. I mean, for what it is.
That should clean out my RSS feeds for a little while. Enjoy the new tools.
Mac OSX
I had a realization today. I really like osx. I think the operating system as a whole is just pretty good. I am not used to it and it would take me a good long time to learn all of the shortcut keys that are available, but on a whole I like it.
The downside I found with the operating system is the supporting programs. Things like email, photo editing, media players that are everywhere for Windows seem to be a bit harder to find in OSX (especially if you don’t use it much). And even programs that are ported over from windows *cough* Entourage *cough* seem to be crippled compared to their windows counterparts. Sure all the best programs are made straight from Apple themselves but what if you don’t like iphoto, imovie, and *gasp* itunes? You really don’t have vary many other options.
Then I got to thinking, 90% of the problems I run into on Windows are… the supporting programs. Sure there are TONS of everything available but a lot of the time they are half assed or not updated. I would say supporting programs is what makes both OSX and Windows suck. OSX because the lack of programs and Windows because of the overwhelming amount of crappy programs (some of which are Microsoft’s doing).
Then I move over to using Linux. In Linux there are lots of options, except for video editors, and the programs are updated a lot, for some every day. But then I run into the problem that every time I turn on my computer I have to do updates before I use it. Yes I know I don’t HAVE to do updates but I have this compulsion of running the latest/greatest. I feel as if I am missing out on something if I am not beta. In a sense I really would be. I am running the latest beta Ubuntu with a beta Compiz Fusion and I just recently took off the beta video driver I had.
When it comes down to it operating systems are only as good as their supporting programs. If you make the greatest operating system in the world with no holes and more usability than you can shake a stick at, it is still just a operating system if you don’t have programs.
Kinda reminds me of the current video game system race…