Codedrop™ Weblog » Mac OSX

Use your DNS-323 for Time Machine backups.

groll — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:14:22 +0000

If you don’t want to have to fork over the $$ to buy a time capsule want to make use of your existing DNS-323 hardware for backing up your Mac, here’s the steps to take.

1) Modify system preferences by executing this line in a terminal.
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

This will allow you to select the DNS as a backup device when you configure Time Machine.

2) You need to manually create a disk image that Time Machine can understand. The naming convention of this image is key. The name consists of the computers name and mac address of the local eno device without colons. (_.sparsebundle). Easiest way to find out the proper name is to attempt a backup after completing step 1 above. While this is attempting to run, use finder to browse the Volume (Volume_1 in my case) and write down the name of the file its trying to create. The filename will contain .tmp before the .sparebundle. Drop this from the filename and you have the complete name you need to use.

ie: gataca_0021413a0cce.tmp.sparsebundle -> gataca_0021413a0cce.sparsebundle

Open disk utility and create a new disk image on your local drive (you cannot create the image directly on the NFS drive) with the following options:

Format: Spare Bundle Disk Image
Partiions: No Partition Map
Encryption: None
Format: Mac OSX Extended Partition (Journaled)
Size – Maximum Size.. I choose Custom 250GB

After the image is created… manually copy it over to the root of your NFS volume.

3) Kick off the time machine backup and voila!

Now.. be prepared for the caveats of this solution mentioned here.

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Safari 4 Hidden Preferences

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:40:05 +0000

I recently started using Safari 4 and found in incredibly disorienting having new tabs appear at the very top of the window frame. To my suprise there’s a hidden setting that can change the location of the tab bar to something you might be more familiar with. Check out this blog for a complete listing of hidden preferences.

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Keyboard Shortcuts For MacOSX (screen capture)

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:31:53 +0000

Here’s a neat shortcut for doing selectable screen captures on a Mac:

⌘⇧4 (Command – Shift – 4) – will change your cursor and allow you to select a region on the screen to capture. After highlighting the region release the mouse button and voila!.. a new image file will be saved to your desktop of the selected region.
⌘⇧3 (Command – Shift – 3) – will take a screen capture of your entire desktop.

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How to install a specific software version using Mac Ports

admin — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:22:17 +0000

MacPorts is the preferred way of installing, managing, and upgrading ports of some the software I have on my Mac. Unfortunately mac ports does not let you specify a version. To mediate this you can create a local repository that is checked out to a specific version and install from there.

This example is how to install ruby version 1.8.5-p12.

1) Find out the svn revision number of the Portfile by looking in:

http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/log/trunk/dports/lang/ruby/Portfile

In my case it is 21127.

2) Set up a local port repository. In the file /opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf, add this line before the rsync line:

file:///Users/Shared/dports and create that directory.

3) Install the port into your local repository.

cd /Users/Shared/dports && svn co –revision 21127
http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports/lang/ruby/
lang/ruby/

4) Run portindex so that ports now finds your new (old) version of ruby.

portindex /Users/Shared/dports

5) Now you should be able to see ruby @1.8.5-p12 in addition to @1.8.6 by running:

port list

6) Install Ruby

sudo port install ruby @1.8.5-p12

You should be up and running now, so to check, run:

ruby -v

You will see something like this:

ruby 1.8.5 (2006-12-25 patchlevel 12) [i686-darwin8.10.1]

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Mac OSX Script To Toggle Hidden Files

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:20:01 +0000

Working in a Mac environment I often find myself needing access to the system directories that are typically hidden by Finder. I recently stumbled across the following script that I find quite useful for toggling back / forth between standard and full views.

Open ScriptEditor and save the following script:

try
set dotVisible to do shell script “defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles”

on error errorMessage number errorNumber
set dotVisible to 0
end try

if dotVisible = “0″ then
do shell script “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1″
else
do shell script “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 0″
end if

tell application “Finder” to quit
delay 1

tell application “Finder” to activate
if dotVisible = “0″ then
say “VISIBLE”
else
say “HIDDEN”
end if

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