Back in March I did a tip listing 15 Terminal Commands for Hidden Mac OS X Settings. Since Leopard has been released, there are a whole load of new ones so I thought I'd do another list.

In general, these will only work with Leopard. I have slipped in a few that will work with Tiger, but you should check out the old list for commands that will definitely work.

If you don't already know, here are some quick instructions of how to use them: You'll find Terminal in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. To carry out any of the following commands you will need to copy/paste or type in the line of text then hit enter. Most of the commands change settings that can't be done through the application or system preferences.

For the most part, applications will need restarting before changes take place. For the Dock and the Finder, it isn't obvious how to do this. The easiest way is to type a second command into the Terminal afterwards. Type "killall Dock" followed by return for all the Spaces, Stacks and Dock commands. "killall Finder" followed by return for all the Finder related ones.

Spaces
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.5
Changes the delay when dragging windows off the edge of the screen to other spaces. Default value is 0.75.

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-wrap-arrows -boolean NO
Disables the wrap-around when using Control-Arrow keys to changes Spaces. To enable again, repeat with YES at the end.


Stacks
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'
Creates a Recent Applications stack in your Dock, that you can change to display other recent items. To remove it, use the command defaults delete com.apple.dock persistent-others but be warned, this will remove all your stacks.



defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES
Adds a Mouse Over gradient to items in your stacks. To disable, repeat with NO at the end.

Dock
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
Change to 2D Dock. To change back to 3D, prepeat with NO at the end.

defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 256
Allows you to increase the size of the Dock past the maximum allowed by the slider in System Preferences. Don't go larger than 256. Use the slider in System Preferences to shrink the Dock down again.

defaults write com.apple.dock largesize -int 512
Allows you to increase the Dock magnification past the maximum allowed by the slider in System Preferences. Don't go larger than 512. Use the slider in System Preferences to shrink the Dock down again.

defaults write com.apple.dock enable-spring-load-actions-on-all-items -boolean YES
Makes all items in the Dock spring loaded. For example, hold a file over an application and it will open or come to the front so you can drop the file onto a specific window. Repeat with NO to reverse.

Finder
defaults write com.apple.finder FXListViewStripes -bool FALSE
Removes the stripes in list view. Repeat the command with TRUE to reverse.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Resets the "Open With" menu, clearing duplicates. The command is different from the one in Tiger.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
Changes the title of a window to its full path. Repeat with NO to reverse.

Spotlight
sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
Disables the Spotlight icon. Type "killall Spotlight" for changes to take effect. To re-enable it, type 755 instead of 0.

Time Machine
sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 7200
Changes Time Machine's backup interval. Requires an administrator password. Default value is 3600 (seconds).

iCal
defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu YES
Enables the Debug menu in iCal, just like the Safari one. Repeat with NO at the end to disable.

Safari
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugConfirmTossingUnsubmittedFormText NO
Disables the warning given when closing a window with text entered into a form that you haven't submitted. To bring back the warning, repeat the command with YES.

Check out this article for more Safari 3 tips.

Menubar
Changing the menubar will require an administrator password and you will need to restart the Mac for changes to take effect.

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 1
Remove translucency in menubar, turns it white.

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 0
Removes translucency in menubar, turns it grey.

sudo defaults delete /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables'
Reverts back to default translucent menubar.

All Applications
defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE
Applications use the expanded Print dialog by default. Similar to the expanded Save dialog in earlier OS versions. Repeat with FALSE to reverse.

When you double-click a file it will open in the default application, which is fine for most situations. Often, each file format corresponds to a single application. Word documents open in Microsoft Word, MP3s open in iTunes and movies open in Quicktime Player. But there are times when you might want a file to open in a different application. For example, you might want a image to open in Photoshop rather than Preview, or a Word document in TextEdit instead of Microsoft Word. In this situation, you have a few options.

Firstly, if the application is in the Dock, you can simply drag the file onto its icon in the Dock. Alternatively you can open up the application first, and choose "Open" form the File Menu. A third method is to use the "Open With" menu. You will find this by right-clicking (Control-clicking) on the file and looking near the top of the contextual menu. Within the Open With submenu you will find every application that can open the file, as well as an "Other" option.



When you use the Open With menu, it is a "this time only" thing. Next time you double-click on the file, it will open with the default application again. To change the default application, bring up the menu as before, but hold down the Option key before choosing the application. The menu should change to "Always Open With".

When you use the Always Open With menu, it is a "this file only" thing. To apply a new default application to all files of that format, you can use the Get Info window located in the File Menu. In the Open With section, set the new application and click the "Change All" button.

To reset all of your files to open with the original default application, you need to delete a certain file. Go to your user folder, and navigate into the Library folder then into the Preferences folder. Find the com.apple.LaunchServices.plist file, and drag it to the Trash. Alternatively, drag it to the Desktop if you think you might change your mind and want to put it back later.

Over time, you may find that the Open With menu gets cluttered with duplicates, older versions or applications you thought you deleted long ago. To get rid of these, you need to use Terminal. Open up Terminal (from Applications/Utilities) and paste the following line:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Press return and your Open With menu should have been cleaned up to only include the most current applications.

There are many applications on your Mac that don't need a Dock icon. Having a Dock icon for applications that are accessed through a menu bar item or constantly run in the background would just waste space and clutter up your Dock. Many applications like this automatically hide their Dock icon (Google Notifier, Quicksilver) however some don't (Launchbar, HardwareGrowler).

Luckily, if it is a cocoa application, you can hide the Dock icon yourself. To see if it is possible, right-click (Control-click) on the application icon. If "Show Package Contents" is in the menu that appears, you can hide the icon in the Dock.

If this is the case, select "Show Package Contents" and look for the "Info.plist" file inside the Contents folder. Open this file using TextEdit by right-clicking on it and choosing "Open With - Other" from the menu.

In the file, paste the following two lines just after <dict> on the 6th line:

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Save the file and close it. For the changes to take effect, you need to move the application to the desktop and them back to its original location (OS X keeps a cache of the file, so you need to trick it into checking it again).

Now when you open the application, no icon will appear in the Dock. I wouldn't recommend doing this with your regular applications like iTunes and Safari as this also has the side-effect of disabling the menu bar. This means that you will have to quit the application using the keyboard shortcut Command-Q. If the application doesn't have any windows, you will have to quit it from Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities).

To bring back the Dock icon, simply open up the Info.plist file and remove the lines you added.

If you are too lazy to do this yourself, FoggyNoggin Software has created an application called Dock Dodger that automates the process.

The Safari 3 public beta has been out for a while now, and will be included with Leopard when it comes out. If you haven't tried it out yet, you can download it for free from the Apple site. The following tips include things that will be useful to the average user as well as some more interesting tricks for more experienced users.

Merge Windows
Safari 3 now allows you to drag and drop tabs. You can drag a tab off the bar to create a new window or drag it onto an existing window to add it. You can also use this to rearrange the order of your tabs. If you have lots of open windows each with different numbers of tabs, there is an easier way to get them all into one instead of dragging and dropping. In the Window menu you will find the "Merge All Windows" command. This will instantly combine all your open windows into one tabbed window.

Enable Web Inspector
The Web Inspector allows you to easily see how the source code creates the web page. You can inspect various elements of the web page and view their style, metrics and properties. If you select an element in the inspector window, it will briefly be outlined in red on the web page.

To enable the Web Inspector, open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), type the following line and press return:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

Now quit and re-open Safari. Open a web page and right-click (Control-click) anywhere. You should see a new "Inspect Element" item in the list.

Pie Chart Loader
Normally Safari indicates how far a page has loaded using the address bar as a progress bar. The box gradually fills with colour from left to right. If you want, you can easily change this to the pie chart type indicator that is used in Mail. Again, open up Terminal (in Applications/Utilities), type the following command and press return:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugUsePieProgressIndicator -bool true

To switch back to the old progress bar, simply repeat the above command with false instead of true.

Bookmark all tabs
This new feature obsoletes the tip I wrote last month about bookmarking all tabs in Safari 2. Doing this is now much simpler - you just need togo to the Bookmarks menu. Here you should find an item that says something like "Add bookmark for these 4 tabs...". The default settings creates a bookmark called "Saved Tabs" in the bookmarks bar. This is actually a folder of your tabs, but it has been set to automatically open all the pages in tabs when clicked.

Others
There are loads of other new features in Safari 3 that are well known or don't really require any explanation. For example, the find command now dims the page and highlights the words you searched for, web history now indexes the text content of the page for easier searching, you can reopen the last closed window or the windows from your last session and all text fields are resizable.

For all of these tips you will need know the password to an administrator account. You can check whether an account is an administrator in the Accounts section of System Preferences.

1. Add a message to the login window
You can add a string of text above the list of users in the login window. To do this, start by opening up Terminal. This is located in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder. Once it has loaded, paste in the following line and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText "Hello There"

Replace "Hello There" with your text. To remove the text, type the following line:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText ""

2. Hide accounts
If you find yourself with an overly long list of users in the login window or you just want to get rid of that annoying scroll bar down the side, you can stop accounts appearing in the login window.

Start by go to the Accounts pane in System Preferences, and find the "short name" of each user you want to hide. Once you have these, open up Terminal and enter the following:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add shortname1 shortname2 shortname3

Replace shortname1 2 and 3 with the short names of the user accounts you wish to hide. You can hide as many as you like, just separate each with a space.

To make a hidden name appear again, type the command with no names in it, therefore resetting the list of hidden users.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add

Notice that doing this adds an extra option to your login window - "Other..." When you select this, you will be presented with text boxes to enter a username and password.

If you aren't running OS X 10.4, this doesn't work. Another option is to replace the list of users with username and password text boxes. Go to the Accounts pane in System Preferences and click on Login Options. There you will find an option to display the login window as name and password fields. This isn't as pretty, but saves time if you have lots of users, and is also more secure.

3. Change the Apple logo
You can replace the large Apple logo that appears at the top of the login window with any tiff image that is 90x90 pixels. In the Finder, choose Go to Folder from the Go menu or press Command-Shift-G. In the dialog box that appears, type the following line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/Resources/

A folder called Resources should appear. Here you will find an image called applelogo.tif. You will need to create a copy of this file, just in case you ever want to revert back to it. The easiest way to do this is to hold the Option key and drag it to a safe place (like your Documents folder). Now, rename you new image "applelogo.tif" and drag it to the Resources folder to replace the old file. You will be asked to type in an administrator password.

To change back to the Apple Logo, just drag the copy that you made back to the Resources folder.

4. Get useful system stats
The name of you Mac is displayed in the login window below the words "Mac OS X". Since Mac OS X 10.4.3, you can click on the name of your Mac to show different statistics about your machine. Each time you click, it will cycle through different bits of information that are particularly useful when troubleshooting problems.

The order of the statistics are as follows:

One click: Your OS X version number (e.g. Version 10.4.9)
Two clicks: Your OS X build number (e.g. Build 7M271)
Three clicks: Your mac's serial number (e.g. WN1511LHKNW)
Four clicks: Your mac's IP address (e.g. 196.254.0.1)
Five clicks: The status of any networked account
Six clicks: The date and time (e.g. Saturday, January 20 2007 4:02:31 AM GMT)
Seven clicks: Back to where you started, the name of your computer.

So you click a few times and set the information line to your favourite thing, but next time you log in, it has changed back to the name of your mac. To change the bit of information that appears first, you need to do a bit of tinkering in the Terminal (Applications/Utilities). Open Terminal and type the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo HostName

Depending on which piece of information you want displayed, replace HostName with one of the following:

SystemVersion
SystemBuild
SerialNumber
IPAddress
DSStatus
Time

After doing this, hit return, and the next time you view your login window the information you chose will be displayed. To change it back to normal, simply repeat the command with HostName at the end.

5. Change the background image
There are ways to change the background image by replacing the Aqua Blue image, but that is slightly crude. A better way to do it is using the Terminal. Type the following command and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /Users/Shared/mynewbackground.jpg

The last part, /Users/Shared/mynewbackground.jpg is the location of the image you want to use. You don't have to type it out. Just paste the command as far as DesktopPicture and put a space after it. Then find your image in the Finder, and drag it onto the Terminal window. The address to your image should just appear. As far as I can tell, you have to place the image in a place that all users have access to (the shared folder is a good place).

To change back to the normal Aqua Blue image, type the following command and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Aqua\ Blue.jpg

Amongst the widgets that come with Mac OS X is the Tile Game. You shift around the tiles to reveal an picture of a tiger. If you play the Tile Game often, you might find the tiger image a bit boring.

Luckily, changing the image is easy. Start by finding an image in iPhoto or the Finder to replace it. To avoid stretching, go for an image that is roughly square. Now click on the image and hold. While holding down the mouse button, press F12 to load up Dashboard. Now simply drag and drop your image onto the Tile Game.

Annoyingly, the image will change back to the tiger if you close the widget. Permanently changing the image is a bit more complicated. It essentially involves replacing an image file hidden within the widget file. If you are familiar with delving into package files, this is quite straightforward. The image you want to replace is called game.png. However, if you aren't used to doing things like this, the easiest way is using an AppleScript.

The great thing about AppleScript is that this can be achieved with a few lines of fairly legible code.

For the lazy people, you can just download a clickable application I made. When you open this, you will get a dialog asking you to choose a new image.

Alternatively, the more adventurous can download the AppleScript to see how it works. Paste the script into Script Editor (in Applications/AppleScript) and click Run. If you can think of any improvements or you notice any mistakes, let me know.

Both the Downloads and Activity windows are accessible from the Window menu in Safari. Most people are familiar with the Downloads window as it pops up whenever you click a link to download a file. On the other hand, the Activity window is not as well known even though it is just as useful. Both can be easily accessed using keyboard shortcuts: Command-Option-L for downloads and Command-Option-A for activity.

When you first open the Activity window, it will show a list containing the titles of every Safari window you have open. Clicking the disclosure triangle next to one of the names will expand it to list every item on the page. As well as the HTML files and scripts, this includes media such as images and movies that are on the page.

1. Investigate problems
One of the best uses of the Activity window is to check the cause of a problem. If you are browsing a page and it fails to load, or it is taking ages to open, try taking a look in the Activity window. Down the right hand side you will see the size of each item. If an item is still loading this will show you how much has loaded, and if there is a problem you will see "not found" or "timed out".



2. View movies in their own window
Some services (such as YouTube) provide a full screen button, but often you may find yourself having to watch a tiny video embedded in a web page. To get the movie in its own window, use the Activity window. Click the disclosure triangle on the left of the page with your embedded movie in to expand the list of every element in the page.

If you are watching a Quicktime movie, the item you want is probably the biggest one in the list. It may also continue loading after the rest of the page has finished. Look for a file extension of .mov or .mpg. Once you find it, simply double-click on it to open it up in its own window.

If you are watching a flash video that doesn't have a full screen button, you will need to find the .swf file. This is not necessarily the largest file.

3. Download embedded media
When a movie or music file is embedded in a page, it is not always easy to download it. If there was a link to the file, you could just hold the Option key and click it, but what do you do if there isn't?

For Quicktime movies and MP3 files, this is easy. Open up the Activity Window and locate the file. it should be a relatively large file with something like a .mov, .mpg or .mp3 file extension. Once you have found it, simply hold Option and double-click on it. Alternatively, pressing Option-Return will download whatever item is selected in the list.

For flash videos, you will want the .flv file. It's not always obvious which file this is. It should be the largest file on the page, and may still be loading. For YouTube videos, it is called get_video and doesn't have the .flv extension. Double-clicking this file will start it downloading. If the file doesn't have the .flv extension, you will have to add it on after the download has finished. To watch these movies you will need either the Perian Quicktime plugin or a player such as VLC.



4. Paste and drag into Downloads Window
A little known feature of the downloads window is that you can copy and paste an address into it. Say you want to download a movie that you have listed in the Activity window. Simply select it, choose copy (Command-C) and then click on the Downloads window. Now just choose paste (Command-V) and the movie will start downloading. This works with any kind of link or address. One of the best uses for this is if you have a long list of addresses. Simply select them all together and then copy and paste them into the Downloads window. All of the downloads will begin at the same time.

If copying and pasting isn't for you, you can either use the Option-click method, or you can simply drag things into the Downloads window. Drag links, selections, and even pictures onto the Downloads window to download them.

5. Bookmark all tabs
This is a nice trick to bookmark every page you have open at the same time. This is useful if you want to preserve all your open windows when you quit Safari so you can easily open them all up again next time you open Safari.

Start by opening up the Activity window. Collapse all the disclosure triangles so all you see is the titles of each page. Select all (Command-A) and copy the selection to the clipboard (Command-C). Now open up the Bookmarks window (Command-Option-B). Find where you want to keep these bookmarks and then paste (Command-V).

A good place to put them is in a folder on the Bookmarks Bar. Now, next time you open up Safari you can click on the folder in the bar and select "Open in Tabs" from the bottom of the menu. Alternatively, you can use the Auto-Tab method.

This trick is also great for reordering your tabs. Paste them into your bookmarks and them open them up again in the order that you want them.

When an email message is forwarded and replied to, email clients add quotes to make it easier to see exactly who wrote what. While this is normally quite useful, multiple quote levels can often make a message quite cluttered.

In many email clients (such as Gmail), quotes are shown as a symbol at the start of each line. If the text has been quoted twice, the symbol is repeated.



Now obviously you could click on each line and press delete, but this would take ages if there are multiple quote levels in a long message. The trick to getting rid of this type of quotes is to use the box selection method. To do this, hold Option (Alt) and drag a selection around the quote marks. This makes it so only the quote marks are selected, not the entire line. Annoyingly, this method doesn't work in some applications (such as Firefox). If you find it isn't working, try pasting your message into TextEdit before removing the quotes and then pasting it back into the email.

In the Mac OS X Mail program things are slightly different. Quotes are shown by vertical lines instead. While this may look nicer, it's not quite as obvious how to get rid of them. The answer lies in the Format menu, under Quote Level. From here you can increase or decrease the quote level of the selected text.



If you have multiple quote levels you want to remove it would be quicker to use the keyboard shortcut instead. To decrease the quote level simply select the text and press Command-Option-' (the apostrophe key). Every time you press this, one quote level will disappear, much faster than navigating the Format menu multiple times.

Most people see Preview as a fairly limited application, and only use it for quickly viewing images. However, it is capable of much more than that, and a couple of months ago I outlined some of Preview's lesser known features on this site.

One topic that came up in the comments of that tip was Preview's inability to scale and resize images. I explained a trick involving zooming and using the Mac OS X Screen shot tools, but this is far from ideal.

Interestingly, it turns out Preview can resize images, but you can only access this through Automator. In fact, there is a whole load of features that are only accessible this way.

If you have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you will find Automator in your Applications folder. It is an application designed to do repetitive and time consuming tasks for you. You simply create a workflow by dragging and dropping "action" blocks, and then you can set it going whenever you want to perform that action. It's great for doing batch tasks like renaming a long list of files or resizing a large group of images.

If you look in the left hand column, you will find a section titled Preview. Clicking this will bring up a list of Automator actions that you can use. Some are familiar and accessible from the menus in Preview, but some are new.

Let's start with the simplest possible workflow. Say you want to resize an image (or lots of images) to half its size. To do this, drag the Scale Images action over to the right hand side. A dialog box will appear asking if you want the workflow to keep a copy of the original image or not. If you click Add, the workflow will make a copy of your image on the Desktop and resize that instead of the original. Otherwise, it will simply replace the image with its resized version.



The next step is to choose how you want to scale your image. You can set it to a certain width or a percentage of its original size. Once you have chosen, choose Save As from the File menu and give it a name like Resize Images. From the File Format pop-up menu choose Application. The Desktop is a good place to save it.



Now we can try it out. Find an image file and drag it onto the Resize Images icon. A copy of the image at half the size should appear on the Desktop - Preview doesn't even need to open. You can even drag a large selection of photos. If you find yourself using

This is only the beginning though. The other features that aren't accessible through Preview are "Create Thumbnail Images" and "Pad Images" which both work in much the same way as Scale Images. Although you can change the image type in Preview, the "Change Type of Images" is really useful as it is so much faster.

You can even extend your workflows to make them more like applications. For example, try adding "Ask for Finder Items" (from the Finder section) to the start of the work flow. Now, once you have saved the workflow as an application, when you double-click it to open, it will bring up a dialog, asking you to choose the images that you want to resize.

Also, take a look at the PDF actions that Automator has. Some of these are really useful if you often use PDF documents in Preview.

Over the past few weeks, lots of people have been contacting Mac OS X Tips asking how to reset a forgotten Mac OS X user account password. Depending on the circumstances, this task could take 5 minutes or could even be completely impossible. Here is a run through of the different ways you can reset an account password depending on the type of account, whether FileVault is enabled and whether you have the Mac OS X Install Disc.

If you still know the Administrator Password
If you still know the password to an administrator account, it is very simple to reset any standard or managed user's password. While logged in as the administrator, open up System Preferences and click on the Accounts section. All the accounts on the computer should be listed down the left hand side. Under each account name it should say Admin, Standard or Managed. If the lock at the bottom of the window appears locked, click on it to allow changes to the preferences.

The next step is to select the user whose password you want to change and click on the Reset Password button. Enter the new password and click Reset Password. If you have created multiple Administrator accounts, you can use this method to reset their passwords too, as long as you know the password for the original administrator account.


Resetting an Administrator Password
Obviously, if you don't have access to an administrator account, you can't carry out any of the above steps. If you have forgotten the Administrator password or you can't log into your Mac at all, you will need to use the Mac OS X Install Disc.

Enter the Mac OS X Install Disc that is the closest version to that running on the Mac. For example, if you are running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you should enter the Tiger install disk, not any earlier ones. Restart the computer, and hold the C key as it starts up. This might take longer than usual, and you can release the C key as soon as the Apple logo appears on the screen. When the window appears, choose your language and click the right arrow.

The next step depends on what version of Mac OS X you are using. For Tiger (10.4), choose Reset Password from the Utilities menu. For earlier versions, choose Reset Password from the Installer menu.

Choose your Hard Drive from the top and then choose the Account from the drop down menu. Be careful not to select System Administrator, as this is actually the root user, not the administrator account on your Mac. Now enter the new password, click Save, quit the Installer and restart the computer.

Note that there are a few issues with this method. Firstly, it does not reset your keychain password. You will have to do this separately. Secondly, do not attempt this if you have FileVault enabled. To reset an FileVault protected account, you need the master password.

Resetting a FIleVault Protected User's Password
If you have enabled FileVault to encrypt your Account, you need to know the master password that you set when you enabled it. This is the password that the administrator should know that allows you to reset any password on the computer. If you have forgotten the master password, unfortunately your data is lost forever.

If you know the master password, start by attempting to log into your account. When you get the password wrong three times, you will be able to click "Forgot Password". Now you will have to enter the master password and then a new login password for your account.

If you have lost the Mac OS X install Disc
If you have lost the install disc, don't try and use one from an earlier version as this might permanently block you out of your account. You really have two options: Firstly, you could buy a new copy of Mac OS X (try eBay). Secondly, there is a way of resetting an administrator password without the disc if you are running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Note: Do NOT do this with a FileVault protected account, or your data will be lost forever.

First, note the short name of the account. This is the same as the name of its home folder, but not necessarily the name that appears in the login window. Restart your computer, and while it is starting up, hold Command-S. This will start up your Mac in Single User Mode. Once it has started up, you will need to enter three lines of code. Enter sh /etc/rc and press return. Then enter passwd yourusername and hit return. Now you will have to enter a new password twice. What you type won't appear on screen, but it is working. Once you have done this, type reboot and hit return.

This is the same as the Install Disc method in that it doesn't reset your Keychain password. You will have to do this separately.

Apologies for the break being slightly longer than expected. Everything is back to normal now, so you can expect a few tips per week from now on.

Google Notifier is a menu bar item that alerts you when new mail arrives in your Gmail inbox. Back in February I wrote a tip on Google Notifier's hidden features that showed you how to access two hidden settings. Recently, someone at Mac OS X Hints found a third hidden setting in addition to the ones I mentioned in my tip.



All of these settings can be accessed through Google Notifier. Bring down the notifier menu and hold Command and Option while clicking on Preferences. This brings up a hidden settings editor where you can easily edit the notifier preferences file. The three settings are as follows:

1. Change the number of unread messages displayed.
By default, the menu shows the last four unread messages received (or the last three received and an additional "View More" submenu). To change this, enter "MaxMessagesOnMainMenu" in the key field and enter the number of messages you want on the main menu in the value field.

2. Filter messages by label.
If you only want the notifier to fetch mail with a certain label, you can create a filter. To do this, enter "Label" in the key field and enter the name of the label you want to receive in the value field. To receive all mail, leave this field blank.

3. Use a secure connection.
This is the new tip, submitted by an anonymous poster to Mac OS X Hints. It seems that Google Notifier normally transfers your account details and email in the clear so that other people can potentially read it. If you want to use a secure connection instead, enter "SecureAlways" in the key field and "1" in the value field. To reverse this, repeat the process but enter "0" instead of "1" in the value field.

For all of these settings you will need to quit and reload Google Notifier for the changes to take effect.

I'm away for the next 2 weeks so no tips. If you can't wait, here's a few sites to check out that have some good tips:

MacTips
iUseApple.com
Mac OS X Hints
Murphy Mac

See you on the 29th of July!

Zachary writes:

Hey... Is there anyway to keep the URL address highlighted when I start Safari? It would be so much easier rather than having to always keep clicking the address bar when I want to switch sites as soon as I run Safari... Thank you so much!

When you start Safari or open a new Safari window, normally the address bar is highlighted. This means that you can start typing an address straight away. However, if you have Safari set to automatically display your home page when opening a new window, the address bar is not highlighted.

For example, if you have Google as your home page, when you load up Safari or open a new window the Google home page will load and the search box will be highlighted instead of the address bar. If you type an address and press enter, it will Google search the address rather than just going to it.

So how do you solve this? Well the obvious answer is to stop Safari loading up your home page in new windows. You can do this from the Preferences located in the Safari menu. Under the General tab, set the "New windows open with:" menu to Empty Page.



But what do you do if you want to keep the automatic loading of your home page, or if you want to quickly jump to the address bar when you are already viewing a web page? The answer lies with keyboard shortcuts. As you only use the keyboard when typing in a web address, you don't want to have to move your hands to the mouse and click on the address bar before typing. Instead of doing this, simply hit Command-L before typing the address. You will notice that the address bar automatically highlights, ready for you to type away. The command is actually located in the File menu, as "Open Location..." and conveniently the same keyboard shortcut works in Firefox.

If you don't have any Safari windows open, Command-L will open up an empty window and highlight the address bar. This is similar to the function of Command-N for a new window, but Command-L has the added benefit of opening an empty window, even if you have Safari set to automatically open your home page.

As a bonus tip, hit Command-Option-F to quickly jump to the Google search box in the top right.

GarageBand is everything you would expect of an iLife application. It's intuitive and easy to use for even the newest users, and produces great results. While it definitely isn't one of Apple's Pro Apps, it does use professional quality instrument loops and effects and these can take quite a toll on your Mac. If you are using an older Mac you may find GarageBand is very slow and might even crash when performing certain tasks. Here are a few tips for speeding up things up.

1. Turn Software Instrument Loops into Real Instrument Loops. If you didn't know, Software Instrument Loops are green and have dots on the track while Real Instrument Loops are blue and have audio waves on the track. The Software Instrument Loops are more customisable as you can change the instrument that plays them and the notes that they play. The Real Instrument Loops are harder to change as they are just recordings of an instrument playing.


Software Instrument Loops take a much higher toll on your CPU. If you are using a G3 or G4 you might find that GarageBand crashes when you try to play a song with lots of software instruments. Using Real Instruments instead of Software Instruments will help you avoid crashes and make you Mac run faster, especially during playback. To convert, hold the Option key when dragging Software Instrument Loops to the timeline. This will turn the loops into Real Instruments.

2. Optimise for Faster Response. In the Preferences (in the GarageBand menu) click on the MIDI/Audio tab and set the Optimisation to what you find more important. A large buffer size will allow you to have a large number of simultaneous tracks, while a small buffer will give a shorter loading time for playback. This doesn't always give great improvements, as results depend on individual system specifications.

3. Lock Tracks. You can lock tracks by clicking the padlock button. This means that you can't change effects, instruments and notes, but it does free up your CPU and RAM by transferring the burden to your Hard Drive. After you have locked a track, click the play button to render it to your Hard Drive. The locked tracks will sound exactly the same during playback as when they were unlocked. This tip doesn't work as well if you have a slower Hard Drive and has the greatest effect when there is too great a burden on your CPU and RAM.


4. Hide the Track Mixer during Playback. Your Mac will be more responsive and run faster with the Track mixer hidden. This is especially noticeable during playback. Do this from the Track menu or press Command-Y.

5. Reduce the number of Tracks. While you might not want to delete tracks from your song, you can combine them. Once you have a number of tracks the way you want them in the final song, choose Export to iTunes from the File menu. Delete the tracks in your GarageBand project (you might want to save before you do this). Locate the file you just exported and drag it onto the timeline. This will create a single new track to replace the ones you just deleted. This process also has the benefit of converting the Software Instrument Loops to a recording.

Recently I read on Murphy Mac about how to create your own Quicktime skin. This is basically a border to go around your movie to replace the normal Quicktime window.

The thing I found more interesting than the skins though is that you can use the same idea to create a borderless Quicktime movie. What's even better is that you can make borderless movies with the regular Quicktime that comes with your Mac, unlike skins that require the extra features Quicktime Pro ($30 from the Apple Store).

Murphy Mac has a great screencast about creating Quicktime skins, but luckily it is a lot easier to create a borderless movie. It involves creating an image file and a text file to go with your movie, and then combining all three files into one borderless movie.

The first step is to find the dimensions of your movie. Double-click it to open it in Quicktime and press Command-I or choose "Show Movie Info" from the Window menu. The Movie Info window will show you the "Normal Size" of the movie in pixels. Make a note of this size.

Next, you will need to create a solid back image that is the same size as your movie. There are lots of ways of doing this, but here's a method that should be available to everyone. Download this image to your hard drive by clicking one the link and then choosing Save As from the File menu. Basically its a really big black rectangle.

Now you will need to crop it down to the size of your movie. Double-click on it to open it up in Preview. Here you can make a selection by holding the Option key and dragging a rectangle. Notice that a small box appears, telling you the size of the se