Technology Tips, and Anything Else
There may be times when you just want to do a quick check to see whether a web site is up, and/or what status message the web server is showing. This won’t actually show you if the page it served up is correct or not, purely the web server status code on whether or not …
Continue reading “Quick command to check the status of a URL (Linux, BSD, OS X)”
This is a quick little tip, to turn text into speech on OS X. Open a Terminal and use the command say as follows: say droptips rocks Remember to have your speakers turned up and you’ll hear whatever you’ve typed after say. Interestingly, if you type: say x It’ll Say “exx” or similar. But if …
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As you start using the command line, you’ll come across thousands of different commands, all with their own options and ways of taking options. Every command is different, but help is on hand in the form of man pages. Manual Pages (or man page for short) are the documentation distributed with every command (or, at …
Continue reading “Command Help using Manual Pages (man) (OS X, Linux, BSD)”
When you take a screenshot in OS X, using the default button combination, you’ll notice that it’s saved in PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format. You may prefer another format, such as JPEG, but it’s not obvious on how to change it. From within a Terminal, you can change it pretty easily: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type …
Continue reading “Changing the Default Format Screenshots are Saved As (OS X)”
When you take a screenshot in OS X, using the default keyboard shortcuts, it places the image file on the Desktop. This might be OK in some instances, but what if you want to place it in a different directory, maybe one just for screenshots? You can change the path using a Terminal. Open Terminal …
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If like me you never use the Dashboard within OS X, you’ll be aware that it’s silentely in the background using up some resources. You may have removed all of the widgets from the Dashboard, but it’s still there in the background, just not displaying anything. This process definitely works in OS X Leopard (10.5), …
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If you use OS X, and manage multiple machines over SSH, you’ve probably come across and used screen. You may have noticed that if you SSH to a Linux host from Mac OS X, and try to use the backspace or tab key within a screen session, that you get the “Wuff —- Wuff!!” prompt at …
Continue reading “Wuff —- Wuff!! from Mac OS X to a Screen Session on Linux”
There may be times when you would prefer to mount a Windows (smb) share from a Terminal in OS X; I certainly prefer to use the command line, and use it as much as possible – I just find it quicker than using Finder. Mounting a share is pretty simple, using the mount command: mount …
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Say you have a text file, and you want to know either how many lines are in the file, how many words are in the file, or how many characters are in the file. How can you do that? Counting them manually would take way too long. This is where wc comes in! The wc …
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Wondering where that Print Screen button is you’re used too? Well, it’s not available on a Mac – instead, there is a key combination to take a screenshot (remember to press all buttons at the same time in this order!): Full Screenshot Apple/cmd + Shift + 3 The file will then be put onto your …