Macintosh Resources

May 2008 Meeting Notes

Nick's Leopard Tips from May, 2008

Save disk space: Use Archive and Install to remove unused printer drivers and unneeded language support (fonts, etc)
Get more system information: Click on text under MacOS X in the login window
Hidden accounts: create an Administrative account that doesn't show up in the GUI - the home folder is in a different location from the standard and the account is not visible to others logged in - right-click on account name to see "Advanced Options" (including User ID, Group ID, shortname, UUID) - not wise to change short name here, use alias instead - Nick can e-mail you a command line routine to set up a hidden account
Guest Accounts and Dropbox: All information in guest home folder is deleted when guest logs out, but you can use a Group to set up a dropbox for Guests
Link agggregation: multiple ethernet ports which are connected can become a virtual Ethernet port - System Preferences > Network - Actions menu is the small gear at the bottom above the lock - from here you can set service order, manage interfaces and make services inactive - cannot bond different types(e.g.10 gig with 100 gig or Airport with Ethernet) - Nick also provided links to more information: On a Xserve, Mac Pro or G5, it is possible to have more than one ethernet port. You can actually bond both of the ports in tandem to almost double the speed of your ethernet connection. Doing this is called link aggregation. You can use link aggregation to bond more than two ports into one large pipe. It also makes your link fault-tolerant so if you lose one part of the link, the others will continue to work. Think of it as raiding your network cards. However, the magic can't just be on your computer for this to happen. Link Aggregation also needs to be enabled on the switch the ethernet card is plugged into. One word of caution is that It can disable lights out management. For more information see these helpful sites:
Apple 1
Apple 2
Apple 3
Apple 4
Apple 5
Manage home directories for multiple users: http://jochsner.dyndns.org/scripts/NHR.html links to Network Home Redirector for use with Mac OS X Server - redirects network user's Caches, Fonts and Microsoft User Data folder to the local machine - written by systems engineer Jeff Oschner

Keep mail inbox small: IMAP inbox with 700 or more messages or POP inbox with 1500 or so messages will noticeably slow down mail - try using Smart Folder if you are using more than one mail service (e.g. "Mail Older than 2 Years") - 43 Folders also has Inbox-Zero Series advice
Print mailing labels and envelopes from Address Book: print settings include envelopes, Avery mailing labels, group printing
Set up private fields in vCard using Address Book: Select Preferences in Address Book, click vCard, Select "Enable private me card" and close window - Select your card and choose Edit - select checkboxes next to information you with to share
Use OSU LDAP in Address Book: see http://8help.osu.edu/1212.html for directions on how to set up OS X mail to query OSU's LDAP server
Send a web loc without copy and paste: Drag URL to desktop to give you a webloc you can e-mail
Enable the Develop menu in Safari: Advanced preferences has option to enable the Develop menu, giving you access to web inspector, error console and other developer tools
Use the log file to decode crashes: Apple has the anaatomy of a crash log online, giving you information to decode the crash log
Copying colors in Pages (iWork): magnifying glass in colors wheel will copy, but only within constraints of colors palette chosen
Make use of text formatting options in TextEdit: actions menu (gear at the bottom of show fonts window) offers Typography window, characters and colors windows - TextEdit also supports kerning adjustment (spacing of letters) and drag and drop special characters
See the resources pertaining to an application located in a package/folder: Right click on application icon and choose "Show Package Contents" - resources which are non-English can often be blown away, but with exceptions (see next tipe)
Be wary of delocalizing applications to save space: Conradium has useful information on how and when not to delocalize - go to Mac OS X Category for this and other useful Mac OS X information