Latest Updates: os x

  • Checking the Uptime of your OS X Machine

    03:45 on January 8, 2010 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: os x,

    Uptime, uptime, uptime.  Everyone loves massive uptime, right?

    The “Who’s PC has been on the longest without a reboot?” sort of challenges.

    Well, finding out the uptime on an OS X machine is quite easy!

    If you open a Terminal (by using Spotlight, then searching for Terminal or open Applications/Utilities and double click Terminal) and then type:

    uptime

    … so it looks something like this:

    user@mac:~$ uptime
23:46  up 11:55, 3 users, load averages: 0.17 0.21 0.23

    There is multiple parts of information from this command.  The part we’re focusing on is the second part:  ”up  11:55″.  This means that the machine I’m currently on has been booted up for 11 hours and 55 minutes.

    So, what’s your uptime?  How often do you manually restart your computer?  Let me know via comments below!

     

  • How to Stop .DS_Store From Being Created on Network Drives (OS X)

    05:36 on January 4, 2010 | 3 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: os x,

    .DS_Store files can make even the tidiest network shares look horrible to none-OS X users.

    Whenever an OS X machine accesses a network share, it creates a .DS_Store file for it’s own use (on SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV servers).  These files are invisible to the OS X user, but will show up to anyone else using other operating systems such as Windows or a Linux distribution.

    Turning them off is easy though, by running the following command:

    defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

    You will need to either log off or restart the computer for the changes to take affect.

    For more information, please see the official knowledge base article here:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629

     

  • Mounting SSH and/or FTP Servers in Finder (OS X)

    00:27 on January 3, 2010 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: os x,

    With more and more people using remote servers nowadays, usually via SSH or FTP, the challenge of uploading data/editing data is ever growing.

    I personally SSH to my remote servers and use command line tools such as Vim to edit files.  But you may not have SSH access, and only FTP access – in that case, you’d need to edit the files locally, open another application and upload them manually.

    There are times though, when I like to use desktop applications such as Textmate to edit files remotely on various servers via SSH – but, of course, Finder and the applications on my computer wouldn’t be able to see them – until now!

    Macfusion solves this problem.  Along with MacFUSE, it allows you to “mount” the remote server space you have as a normal network drive.  What this means is, if you go to File -> Open in any application locally, you’ll see the remote drive.  You’ll be able to see, copy, move, and even create new files directly on the remote server – infact, it acts exactly like any other drive would.

    I’d highly recommend you take a look – both tools are free to download (the GUI and the underlying daemons) and I’ll guarantee once you start mounting your remote server space, you’ll wonder how you ever managed with older methods!

    Macfusion: http://www.macfusionapp.org/about.html
    MacFUSE:  http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

    You’ll need both of the above.

     

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