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.