Signature when composing in Mac Mail appears to have a bigger font

1. Go to Mail > Preferences
2. Click on Signatures
3. Select the offending signature
4. Highlight the text that is mysteriously enlarged by Mac Mail (ie probably the entire signature)
5. Right-click (bottom-right side of trackpad) and go to Font > Show fonts or select these from the menu bar. (but don't forget to highlight the text)
6. Now set the size to your desired size. Mine was set at 13 but should be 12. 
7. When you now open a new mail, NOTHING HAS CHANGED. This is normal.
8. Send a test mail, for instance to your own gmail acccount. 

Now the size should have been adjusted. I have found that there is no way to 'apply' or 'confirm' the changes. Just select a new size and close the inspector window. Hope this helps!

Prevent Dock from showing Recent Files

defaults write org.videolan.vlc NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0
defaults delete org.videolan.vlc.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments
defaults write org.videolan.vlc.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments -dict-add MaxAmount 0

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0
defaults delete com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments
defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments -dict-add MaxAmount 0

defaults write org.m0k.transmission NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0
defaults delete org.m0k.transmission RecentDocuments
defaults write org.m0k.transmission RecentDocuments -dict-add MaxAmount 0

defaults delete org.niltsh.MPlayerX.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments
defaults write org.niltsh.MPlayerX NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0
defaults write org.niltsh.MPlayerX.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments
defaults write org.niltsh.MPlayerX.LSSharedFileList RecentDocuments -dict-add MaxAmount 0

Source - http://simon.heimlicher.com/hints/macosx/disable_recent_items

Basic SQL

Host - localhost
user- root
password - root
DB Name - Feedback

Connecting to a DB
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql -u root -proot

Exporting a DB
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqldump -u root -p FEEDBACK > FEEDBACK.db

Importing Data into a DB
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql -u root -proot -h localhost FEEDBACK < FEEDBACK.db

Time Machine Backups to Network Drive

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Changing Picture date and time

Date/Time Shift Feature ^

Have you ever forgotten to set the date/time on your digital camera before taking a bunch of pictures? ExifTool has a time shift feature that makes it easy to apply a batch fix to the timestamps of the images (ie. change the "Date Picture Taken" reported by Windows Explorer). Say for example that your camera clock was reset to 2000:01:01 00:00:00 when you put in a new battery at 2005:11:03 10:48:00. Then all of the pictures you took subsequently have timestamps that are wrong by 5 years, 10 months, 2 days, 10 hours and 48 minutes. To fix this, put all of the images in the same directory ("DIR") and run exiftool:

exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal+=5:10:2 10:48:0" DIR
The example above changes only the DateTimeOriginal tag, but any writable date or time tag can be shifted, and multiple tags may be written with a single command line. Commonly, in JPEG images, the DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate and ModifyDate values must all be changed. For convenience, a shortcut tag called AllDates has been defined to represent these three tags. So, for example, if you forgot to set your camera clock back 1 hour at the end of daylight savings time in the fall, you can fix the images with:

exiftool -AllDates-=1 DIR
See Image::ExifTool::Shift.pl for details about the syntax of the time shift string.

Source - http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Using apt with a proxy in Ubuntu 10.10

1. Edit the fiel /etc/apt/apt.conf. Create one if it does not exist.
2. Add the following lines after making changes to the proxy server.


Acquire::http::Proxy "http://proxy.example.com/";
Acquire::ftp::Proxy "http://proxy.example.com/";

SyncServer running with high CPU

Run the following.

/System/Library/Frameworks/SyncServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/resetsync.pl full

More Details - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1627?viewlocale=en_US

Enable Cut in Finder

To enable cut operation in Finder,

defaults write com.apple.finder AllowCutForItems 1
killall Finder
open Finder

Finally to add the keyboard shortcut,
Go to System Preferences
Keyboard
Keyboard Shotcuts
In this windows press + on left botton
All Applications
Menu Title:Cut
KeyBoard Shortcut:command+X

Show hidden files in macos

Use the following command to show hidden files in Finder.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Restart Finder for changes to take effect

iTunes Scripts

In Finder, go to your Home/Library/iTunes folder.
In this folder look for a folder named "Scripts", and if it does not exist create it.
By copying Applescript scripts inside this folder you make scripts available in iTunes Script menu, on the right or normal iTunes menus.

iTunes Script folder is only available on a per-user base, there is not a system-wide iTunes Script folder.

Delete Thunderbird Search Index

Thunderbird search index can get corrupted causing bad search results. You can delete the search db which in turn causes thunderbird to reindex all the email. Follow the process below.

1. Quit Thunderbird
2. Locate your global-messages-db.sqlite file.
/Users//Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/
3. Rename (or delete) both global-messages-db.sqlite and global-messages-db.sqlite.journal
4. Start Thunderbird
5. Reindexing begins

Change screenshot save location on MACOS

By default, anytime you take a screen capture in Mac OS X it will save the screenshot file to the current users desktop. You can adjust where Mac OS X saves a captured screenshot to any other location, here is how to do this:

Launch Terminal and use the following syntax:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/

For example, if I want to have the screenshots appear in my Pictures folder, I would use:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/

To have the changes take effect, you then must type:

killall SystemUIServer

So the next time you take a screenshot (or as Windows converts like to say, Print Screen on a Mac), the screenshot file will appear at the location you specified.

You can change the saved screenshot location back to the default setting by specifying the desktop again:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/

Again, you’d need to kill SystemUIServer for changes to take effect.

Moving SVN to new server

I recently had to move our main Subversion repository to a new server the other day, so I thought I would pass along this quick how-to.

To move a Subversion repository from one system to another you only have to enter a couple of easy subversion commands. To start, go to the source system and at a command prompt or terminal window type:

svnadmin dump /path/to/repository > repository-name.dmp

If the dump file is rather large you can compress it with your favorite zip utility. Now you need to get the dump to your new server, so simply transfer the file via FTP, local share, CD, thumbdrive or whatever it takes.

Once the dump file is on the new machine and uncompressed, you need to set up and load the new repo by typing:

cd /path/to/new-repository
svnadmin create repository-name
svnadmin load repository-name< repository-name.dmp

A couple of small things to note – the dump file will be rather large as it represents every commit made on your repository. If your repository is rather large and mature, this file could get quite large. Also this method works across platforms so moving from UNIX to Windows or visa-versa is also possible.

Recent Docs in Dock

You can add a Recent Applications stack to the Dock. To do so, open Terminal and type this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

After that, type killall Dock to restart the Dock and see your new folder. The only thing is that I haven't found a way to have it show as a fan, it only shows in tile view. But it is already a nice trick.

Password protect a directory using basic authentication

In this How-To guide, we will show you how to set up a password protected directory using basic authentication.

Authentication directives in Apache can be used in the following contexts - directory and htaccess. For directory context this means in , , and blocks in your httpd.conf or your distro's main Apache config file or virtual host config file. Additionally, for Apache 2.2, blocks are also included in the directory context. The htaccess context is self explanatory. This means you can use authentication directives in htaccess files. In this tutorial, we will show recipes for both contexts.

The first thing in this example we need to do is to create a directory to password protect in our document root. Let's say our document root is /var/www/html. We'll create a directory called protected in the document root - /var/www/html/protected.

The next thing to do is to create a password file with users. We will use the htpasswd utility provided in the core Apache package. The password file can be stored anywhere on your hard drive. In our example we will create our htpasswd file in /etc/htpasswd.

Note that the location of the htpasswd file can be anywhere you want on your local drive. You just need to specify the full path to the htpasswd file with the AuthUserFile directive. Choose whatever you deem to be a sane location for your password files.

/path/to/htpasswd -c /etc/htpasswd/.htpasswd user1 /path/to/htpasswd /etc/htpasswd/.htpasswd user2

/path/to/ is the full path to the htpasswd utility. The full path to the htpasswd utility is necessary if htpasswd is in a nonstandard location. After running the htpasswd command, you will be prompted to enter the user's password. Notice the difference between both commands. The first command uses the -c flag. This flag is used when creating a new htpasswd file. After that, the -c flag is not used for subsequent users you wish to add. Also, you need to make sure Apache has read access to this file, so make sure your permissions are correct.

This is the recipe to use for setting up a password protected directory in the directory context:

   AuthType Basic   AuthName "Authentication Required"   AuthUserFile "/etc/htpasswd/.htpasswd"   Require valid-user    Order allow,deny   Allow from all 

The lines to focus on are AuthType, AuthName, AuthUserFile, and !Require.

1. AuthType tells Apache what type of authentication to use. In our case, basic authentication.
   

2. AuthName is what will be displayed on the password prompt from the browser.
   

3. AuthUserFile is the location of your htpasswd file.
   

4. Require tells Apache which authenticated users will be granted access to a resource. In our case, any authenticated user will be granted access.

The following below is the recipe to use for setting up a password protected directory in the htaccess context:

First we will create a .htaccess file in our protected directory, /var/www/html/protected and set the contents of the file to be:

AuthType Basic AuthName "Authentication Required" AuthUserFile "/etc/htpasswd/.htpasswd" Require valid-user

Now we need to create a block in httpd.conf or your distro's main apache config file or your virtual host config file in order to have Apache process this htaccess file.

   AllowOverride AuthConfig   # The Options below is an example. Use what you deem is necessary.   Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec   Order allow,deny   Allow from all 

Notice the AllowOverride line. It tells Apache to process the htaccess file and to allow htaccess to set the authentication for that directory.

Remember to restart Apache after making any changes to httpd.conf or your distro's main Apache config file or your virtual host config file.

Using either recipe, you can now go to http://localhost/protected and be prompted by the browser to enter your credentials. If you enter correct credentials you will be granted access to protected. If you don't enter correct credentials, you will be continually prompted to enter credentials until you enter correct credentials or click the Cancel button.

For more complete information on the Apache directives used, see the Apache Docs.

Disable Bonjour in Cyberduck

Every time I load up Cyberduck, I get flooded with Bonjour Growl notifications. Since I never use Bonjour with Cyberduck, I figured it’s acceptable to disable it. It’s a simple Terminal command, like so many other things are in the Mac world. To disable Bonjour, fire up Terminal and execute this command:

defaults write ch.sudo.cyberduck rendezvous.enable false

If you want to re-enable Bonjour, do the same command but change false to true.

Windows 2008 Update with Proxy Server

I just installed a Windows 2008 behind a proxyserver and i saw that it couldn’t update.

To solve this issue you can do the following:

* Run the Command Promp as Administrator
* Type netsh
* Type winhttp
* Type import proxy source=ie

Now Windows Update will ask you for a username and password before it wants to check for an update.

Mozy Backup Hidden Files Setting

If you would like to have MozyHome show hidden files, please run the following command from the Terminal application:
defaults write com.mozy.Config "BDSShowHiddenFilesKey" -bool YES

Speed up vmware Fusion 3.x

Do the following things.

1. Issue the command 'defaults write com.vmware.fusion PLLibrarySpotlightSearchDone -bool YES'

2. Move the vmware component away from /Library/Spotlight or ~/Library/Spotlight

3. Exclude the vmware directory from the Spotlight scanning.

Sorting in iTunes

To sort albums correctly in iTunes, you might need to set the Alum Artist to 'various'.