Preview Widgets

If you download new Dashboard widgets, you have to install them to your Dashboard before you can run them. This is counter intuitive because it might transpire that the widget isn’t much use, in which case you have to go through the work of uninstalling it.

However, if you double-click a downloaded widget to open it and then hold down Option+Command when the installation dialog box appears, you’ll see that the Install button changes to Run. Clicking this button will then run the widget from its current location in your Downloads folder, without actually installing it.

After trying the widget in Dashboard using this technique—regardless of whether you want to keep it—you must close the widget by holding down Option and clicking the close button at the top left of the widget. Then, if you want to install the widget, you can do so in the usual way by double-clicking it and choosing the Install option. If you decide you don’t want the widget, drag it to the trash like you would any other file you want to delete.

See a Big Long List of Your Contacts

Here’s a tip that lets you view all your contacts in a long list, alongside which you’ll be able to see each contact’s email address or their telephone number(s). It uses a debug setting within the Contacts app.

1. Close the Contacts app if it’s open, open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double- click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.AddressBook ABShowDebugMenu -bool true

2. Open Contacts, and you should see a new Debug menu option. Select the Show People Picker Panel option. This will open a new window showing all your contacts in one long list with their email addresses alongside.

3. Click the Email heading to switch to show telephone numbers alongside the list of contacts.
Note that the same list showing only email addresses is also available within Mail; just click Window→Address Panel. From either list you can click, hold, and drag to create .vcf files by which contacts details can be exported to another computer

Close the window when you’re finished. To deactivate the Debug menu option, again close Contacts, and open a Terminal window, typing the following:

defaults delete com.apple.AddressBook ABShowDebugMenu

Prefer Plain-Text Emails

Once upon a time all email was sent in plain text, but nowadays HTML emails —that feature alternative fonts, colors, and images—have become the norm. Yet most of these emails come with a plain-text version hidden inside them. This is included for those who might have email clients that can’t display HTML.

While the Mail app in OS X is fully compatible with HTML email, you can hit Option+Command+ P to switch the email currently being viewed to a plain-text rendition, sans any kind of formatting.

This is only temporary, however. Just select another email in your email list, and then select the original email again to view it with its formatting intact.

Setting Plain-Text View

To always view emails in plain text, you can change a secret setting that makes it prefer the plain-text component of emails, if they’re included in the message (and they nearly always are). This will mean you should never see another HTML email!

To activate the setting, shut down Mail, open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double- click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

Restart Mail, and you’ll see that any HTML mails are now shown as plain text. Should you subsequently want to view the full HTML-formatted email, you’ll see that most messages include a link at the top that lets you view the email at the sender’s website.

Restoring Default Settings

To return to Mail’s automatic displaying of HTML emails, again close Mail, open a Terminal window, and type the following

defaults delete com.apple.mail PreferPlainText

Restart Mail for the changes to take effect.

Let OS X Create Passwords

If you’re looking for a memorable yet secure password (that is, one involving numbers, capital letters, and symbols), you can let OS X do the hard work, as follows:

1. Open Keychain Access, which is the application in OS X that handles password and certificate security. You’ll find it in the Utilities folder of the Applications view in Finder.

2. Once the app has started, click File→New Password Item. Don’t worry— we’re not actually going to create a new item for the keychain. Instead, we’re simply going to make use of its password tool.

3. In the dialog box that slides into view, click the small key icon alongside the Password textbox. This will open the Password Assistant, which is what we’re interested in.

4. In the Password Assistant dialog box, ensure the Type drop-down list is set to Memorable. Then look in the suggestion box for the password that’s been created for you. To generate another, once again select Memorable from the drop-down list.

5. The Length slider lets you create longer passwords, and it’s wise to slide this a little to the right. The green Quality bar shows how secure the password is, which is to say how theoretically easy it is to crack. However, a password of twelve letters is normally considered extremely strong within the wider security community, even if it means the green bar doesn’t entirely fill.

Once you’re happy, you should attempt to learn the password. This can be done by saying it out loud ten to twenty times or by typing it into a blank document the same number of times so that you learn it by rote.
You can close Password Assistant and then click the Cancel button to close the Keychain Access dialog box. You can then quit Keychain Access.

Control QuickTime Player Using Keys

The following keyboard shortcuts let you control QuickTime Player without touching the mouse:

• Space: Start playback, or stop it if it’s already playing. 

• Up/Down cursor keys: Increase/decrease playback volume. 

• Option+ Up/Down cursor key: Maximize/mute playback volume. 

• Left /Right cursor keys: Hold down to cue in slow-motion back and forward. Tap to advance frame by frame. 

• Command+ Left /Right cursor keys: Start cueing backward and forward; Space restores playback to normal (repeated presses of the cursor keys while still holding Command will speed up cueing). 

• Option+ Left/Right cursor keys: Move to beginning or end of movie file. 

• Command+ + / - : Increase/decrease the size of the playback window ( Command+ 1 restores it to its actual pixel dimensions).

Stop the Dock from Getting Broken

It’s very easy to accidentally re-size the Dock when using a Mac or delete icons from it. All it takes is a misclick of the mouse. The following two commands typed into a Terminal window will “freeze” the Dock, making it impossible to re-size it or to remove/rearrange/add icons:

defaults write com.apple.dock size-immutable -bool TRUE 
defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool TRUE;killall Dock

To “unfreeze” the Dock so you can resize it and add/remove/rearrange icons, issue the following two commands in a Terminal window:

defaults delete com.apple.dock size-immutable 
defaults delete com.apple.dock contents-immutable;killall Dock

Notify from the Command Line

There’s no official way of making a notification pop-up appear from the command line. This would be useful to send a message that a certain command has completed, for example. The good news is that you can use a Ruby gem called terminal-notifier to do so (gems are extensions to the Ruby programming language that’s included with OS X). To install terminal-notifier, open a Terminal window in the usual way, and type the following:

sudo gem install terminal-notifier

Type your password when prompted. Installation should take seconds.

Using terminal-notifier is easy. Just use the -message command option to specify the message, which should appear within quotation marks (or be escaped in the usual way), and use the -title option to specify the title of the notification dialog. Here’s an example:

terminal-notifier -message "Mac Kung Fu goes places other books don't dare" -title "Mac Kung Fu"

You can also specify things to happen when the notification dialog is clicked: using -open, you can specify a URL (which must include its http:// component), for example. You can find more information at the GitHub site for terminal- notifier.

Turn Off Java

Java doesn’t come as an out-of-the-box install on OS X Mountain Lion, but it will be installed automatically when an app needs it. Any app you install that needs Java will therefore install it the first time it runs, but this raises an issue: Java has persistently been proven to be a serious security risk.

One solution is to simply turn off Java unless you need it. To do this, open Java Preferences, which is in the Utilities folder of the Applications list of Finder, and then remove the check alongside Enable Apple Plug-In and Web Start Applications. Then remove the checks under the On heading in the list of Java SE engines installed on your system.

Should an app start that needs Java, you’ll be shown an error to the effect that Java isn’t installed. Simply repeat the previous steps in reverse and enable Java—but don’t forget to disable it again afterward!

You might also want to disable access to Java within Safari, bearing in mind this is a typical attack vector for malware. To do so, start Safari, start System Preferences (application menu→Preferences), and select the Security tab. Then remove the check alongside Enable Java.

Use a VIP Mailbox

Mail features a way of prioritizing email from certain people who you value above others—a feature Apple calls the VIP mailbox (short for Very Important People, of course).

The feature isn’t activated by default and can’t be found on any menu but is actually easy to set up.

Configuring VIP Mail

To activate the feature, you must first mark at least one person who sends you email as a VIP. To do this, select any email from the individual, and then click the empty star alongside their name in the mail, or right-click their name in the From field of an email and select Add to VIPs.

Once you do this, a new VIP mailbox will appear in the mailbox list sidebar and Favorites toolbar (if you have either visible—you can select to view either from the View menu). Selecting the new mailbox will cause your mail to be filtered so that only VIPs are visible, although you can also further filter the list of mails by selecting individual VIPs in the list that appears beneath.

Be Notified Only of VIP Mail

You can configure Mail so that you’re notified within Notification Center only of new VIP mail. To do so, open Mail’s Preferences dialog box (Mail→Preferences), and ensure the General tab is selected. Then select VIPs from the New Message Notifications drop-down list.

To return to being notified of all mail at a future date, repeat this step, but select Inbox Only from the drop-down list.

Deactivate the VIP Mailbox

To remove somebody from the VIP list, simply click once more the star alongside their name in an email, or right-click their name and click Remove from VIPs. To completely deactivate the VIP function, remove all VIPs in this way, and then quit and restart Mail.

See Your Mac’s Serial Number

To quickly view your computer’s unique serial number, as well as the build version of OS X (that is, the internal code used by Apple to track software releases), click the Apple menu, and then select About This Mac. In the window that appears, click Version several times (beneath the large “OS X”) to cycle through the available information.

You will almost certainly need your serial number if you phone Apple for technical support.

Update Your Profile Pic

You can change your login account profile picture by opening System Preferences, clicking the Users & Groups icon, and then clicking your existing profile picture when the Password tab is selected.

A pop-out window will let you select from the built-in (default) images or iPhoto images (assuming you have iPhoto installed). You can also select the Camera option to take a new photo using the iSight/FaceTime camera built into your Mac.

But how do you use a picture you’ve downloaded from a website or happen to have on your disk but that hasn’t been imported into iPhoto?

The solution is simple—just find the photo within Finder and then drag and drop it on top of the pop-out window. It will then instantly become your profile picture, and you can resize it using the slider at the bottom of the pop-out window and apply effects.

Share Reminders and Calendars

Within the Reminders app, you can share a reminder list with one or more people, allowing them to create or delete entries in the list or check off tasks. This can be useful if you’re working on group projects or perhaps if you simply want to share a shopping list with a family member.

You can also share a calendar within the Calendar app, which again can be useful if you’re working within a group. You could even create a special calendar for a particular project and then share it with others. Others will be able to view and create/modify/delete entries within the calendar, or you can share it as read-only so people can only view the calendar’s contents.

There are some caveats. The people to whom you want to share the reminder list or calendar must be updated to the latest OS X Mountain Lion release, must have an Apple ID (the login email address of which you’ll need to specify), and also must have iCloud activated within their Apple ID.

Sharing a Reminders List

To share a reminder list, click any reminder list and keep the mouse in position until a new icon appears at the right of the entry within the list—an icon of a transmission signal.Click the icon, and a pop-out dialog box will appear, inviting you to type the email address of the individual(s) you’d like to share the list with. Hit Tab after each email address you type.

Once you click the Done button, the individual(s) will be sent an email link so they can subscribe to your reminder list. Once they subscribe, you’ll be notified by a notification pop-up. Additionally, the reminder entry in the list will always display the sharing icon mentioned earlier. To see who the list is shared with, just click the icon. A tick alongside the email address means they have subscribed. A question mark alongside their email address means they’ve yet to respond to the invitation.

Sharing a Calendar

To share a calendar, open the Calendar app and click the Calendars button at the top left so you can see a list of all your calendars in the left side pane. Right-click the calendar you’d like to share (note: you can always create a new calendar specifically for sharing), and then select the Sharing Settings entry on the menu that appears. Following this, the steps are the same as with sharing a reminder list, although you can check the box to make the calendar read-only, in which case people will be able to view the calendar but not create, remove, or edit entries.

Unlike with sharing a reminder list, there’s no obvious sign the calendar is shared unless you right-click the calendar’s entry in the list and again select Sharing Settings to view the pop-out dialog box.

Sharing via iCloud.com 

By visiting the iCloud website and logging in with your Apple ID, you can share your reminder lists and calendars in a virtually identical way to that described earlier—select either the Reminders or Calendar icon on the iCloud home screen, and then select whichever reminder list or calendar you’d like to share. Finally, click the share icon.

Sharing a calendar is slightly different when using iCloud.com because in the pop-out dialog box that appears you’ll be asked if you want to share the calendar privately—that is, with people whose emails you type into the dialog —or share it as a public calendar, in which case absolutely anybody using Calendar on their Mac can view the calendar in read-only mode if they sub- scribe to it using the URL provided, which you’ll need to manually send to people via email/instant messaging.

Rescinding Sharing

To deactivate sharing for one or more people or to remove the offer of sharing if they’ve yet to respond, follow the previous steps to open the sharing pop- out alongside the entry in the list in either the Reminders or Calendar app (or within iCloud). Then simply select the email address in the list and hit the Delete key, or click the email address and select Remove Person. In the case of public calendars shared via iCloud, uncheck the Public Calendar box.

The changes should take effect immediately—access to the list or calendar for the individuals will be rescinded completely, and they will be notified by email and also via a pop-up notification on their computer.

Switch Time Machine Disks

Once upon a time, Time Machine worked with just one destination—be that a removable disk drive you attached to your computer or a Time Capsule. However, with Mountain Lion and newer versions of OS X, you can seamlessly back up to multiple destinations. Each will contain a full Time Machine backup, with the most recently attached disk containing the most recent backup. If you have two or more backup devices attached at the same time, Time Machine will back up to each device in sequence (that is, if you have two backup disks attached, Time Machine will hypothetically back up to disk 1 at 1 p.m., disk 2 at 2 p.m., disk 1 at 3 p.m., disk 2 at 4 p.m., and so on, although the hourly time of backup will depend on when the disks are attached).

To set up additional backup destinations, attach the disk (or get within Wi- Fi range of the Time Capsule), open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences), and select the Time Machine option. Click the Select Disk button,and then select the new hardware from the list in the dialog box that appears. Remember that it can take hours if not days before the first backup has completed on a new backup device.
There are a number of advantages of having more than one backup destination, as follows:

• If you have a portable Mac, you can set up a Time Machine backup device at home and one at work. Your Mac will seamlessly back up to whichever one it’s attached to without any need for you to select it. You could use a removable disk drive at work, for example, and a Time Capsule at home.

• You can “rotate” disks by setting up two or more removable storage devices for use within Time Machine and then attaching each daily (that is, disk 1 on Monday, disk 2 on Tuesday, and so on). This helps avoid wear on any particular disk, reducing the risk of failure, but also lets you store the currently out-of-sequence backup disks in a different physical location to avoid all the backups being destroyed by a disaster such as a fire.

Master Notification Center

In a default installation of OS X, Notification Center can be activated in two ways, as follows:

• Swiping from right to left with two fingers on a trackpad, if your computer has one; start the swipe gesture from the very right edge of the trackpad. This can take some practice to get right!

• Clicking the Notification Center icon at the top right of the screen.

However, you can add two quicker and substantially more intuitive ways to activate Notification Center, as follows.

Using Hot Corners to Activate Notification Center

OS X lets you configure hot corners to activate certain desktop functions, which is to say you can push the mouse cursor into any of the four corners of the screen to activate things like Mission Control or Notification Center. Because the Notification Center icon is at the top right, it makes significant sense to configure the top-right Hot Corner to activate it. 

To do so, open System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences), click the Mission Control icon, and then click the Hot Corners button at the bottom left of the program window. In the drop-down dialog box that appears, click the drop-down list at the top right—the one relating to the top right of the screen preview—and select Notification Center. Then click OK and close System Preferences.

The changes take effect immediately, so give it a try—push the mouse cursor into the top-right corner, and the Notification Center will appear. Click any- where outside of Notification Center to dismiss it.

To turn off the Hot Corner, repeat the previous steps, but in the drop-down list for the choice of what function to activate for the top-right Hot Corner, select the hyphen at the bottom of the list.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to Open Notification Center

You can also (or alternatively) assign a keyboard shortcut to open and close Notification Center. For some reason Apple doesn’t include this in a default install.

To do so, open System Preferences and click the Keyboard icon. Then click the Keyboard Shortcut tab, and in the list on the left select Mission Control. On the right of the window, check Show Notification Center. You’ll immediately be prompted to type the keyboard shortcut you want to use. The choice is up to you, but I find that Option+Commmand+ Tab works well and isn’t already assigned to a function in OS X. I hold down Option+Commmand with my left thumb while tapping Tab with a finger.

To remove the keyboard shortcut, repeat the previous steps, but this time remove the check alongside Show Notification Center in the list.

Share Google Links

Safari in OS X Mountain Lion lets you query Google by typing a search term into the address bar. This works very well but raises an issue: what if you want to send somebody the link to a search you’ve done? You can’t copy and paste the address from the address bar because you never get to see the search address—the search query takes its place.

The solution is simple: click and drag the small magnifying glass symbol at the very left of the address bar to where you want to insert the link within your document or email. This will insert the URL for the search straight into your document.

Duplicate a File with One Click

To quickly create a duplicate of a file within the same folder (or on the desktop), click and drag the file to a new blank spot and hold down Option before releasing the mouse button. This is the equivalent of right-clicking the file and selecting Duplicate from the menu that appears.

Modify Messages’ Look and Feel

By right-clicking the message bubbles within Messages (ensuring you don’t right-click any text) or selecting View→Messages, you can select a different look and feel for conversations. You can select to have “boxy” messages, for example, or “compact” and can also select to show people’s names in addition to (or in place of) their picture. Experiment to see which works best for you!

Fonts and colors can be changed on the Messages tab of the Preferences dialog box (click the application menu→Preferences, or hit Command+ , [comma]).

Turn Your Mac Into a Surveillance Camera

FaceTime can automatically answer incoming calls from contacts you specify. Another use for this trick is to dial into a Mac at any time, anywhere, from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, thus creating a simple surveillance camera setup. Because FaceTime will automatically start upon receiving a call and then auto-answer the call, you’ll instantly see what’s happening in front of your Mac.

Setting Up a Mac as a Surveillance Camera

Here are the steps required. Some of them are concise because it’s assumed you already know the basic procedures referenced, such as how to create a new user account.

1. Create a new account using the Users & Groups element of System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences). It doesn’t matter what you call the new account, but for safety reasons you might want to make it a Standard account type (i.e., limited). This will stop anybody who might physically access the computer in your absence doing any damage. 

2. Then create a new Apple ID at the following site: https://appleid.apple.com. You’ll need a spare email address to assign the account to, which will be used to confirm it as well.

3. Switch to the new user account on the Mac acting as the surveillance camera. As soon as you access the account, you’ll be prompted to enter your new Apple ID details as part of the setup procedure, so do so.

4. When you get to the desktop, open FaceTime and log in using the new Apple ID you created.

5. Now to enable Auto-answer on FaceTime follow  the steps:

Here are the steps required to enable automatic answering of calls on Face- Time:

a. Start by opening FaceTime if it isn’t already open, and log in. Then look for the contact details of the individual(s) you’d like to enable auto- answering for. This will be listed in your Contacts or Favorites list and will probably be an email address. Write the details down, and then quit FaceTime.

b. Open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double-click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following line:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvites -bool TRUE

c. Then type the following line, and at the end type the FaceBook ID of the individual or device you want to auto-answer when they call. For example, if the contact FaceTime ID is keir@example.com, you’d type the following: 

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add keir@keirthomas.com

If the FaceTime ID is a cell phone number, you need to type it after the command without any spaces. For example, if the FaceTime ID was the cell phone number +15551231234, you’d type the following: 

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add +15551231234

Restart FaceTime, and you should find calls from the FaceTime IDs you added are automatically answered!

You can repeat step 3 and add more FaceTime IDs to the list.

Finally, test your new setup by dialing in from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or other Mac and ensuring that the Mac auto-answers and then displays what will essentially be surveillance camera footage of what’s in front of it. Bear in mind you’ll need to alter the power saving settings of your Mac so that it doesn’t enter sleep mode, although it’s OK for the screen to be turned off. Also, remember that FaceTime doesn’t need to be running all the time and will automatically start itself whenever you call into the Apple ID you entered during setup.

Deactivating the Security Camera

To permanently deactivate the security camera, simply delete the account you created for it within the Users & Groups element of System Preferences.

Jump to the Top of Your Emails

By clicking the gray bar at the top of the list of emails in Mail, you’ll instantly scroll to the top of the list (the bar headed Sort By Date, although be careful not to click that part of it). 

Save Safari Tabs When Quitting

Each time Safari starts, it shows the home page (or whatever option you selected under the General tab within Preferences).

However, there’s another start-up mode, and I find it very useful indeed. It will automatically open the tabs (or web page if no tabs are in use) that were active the last time Safari quit. You can do this manually without changing any settings by clicking History→Reopen All Windows From Last Session, and Safari automatically does this should it restart after crashing, but changing the following secret setting makes this an automatic choice upon every start-up of Safari.

Enabling Tab Memory Across Sessions

Quit Safari, open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double-click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following:

 defaults write com.apple.safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool TRU

Restart Safari, then quit it, and then restart it. From this point on, all tabs will be remembered across restarts.

 Deactivating Tab Memory

 To deactivate this feature later, again quit Safari, open a Terminal window, and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.safari NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool FALSE

As earlier, you’ll probably need to start Safari and then quit it before starting it again for the changes to take effect.