This thread is for everything relevant to OS X.
I know we have a small group of Fazers who are mac users. Hopefully this thread may be of use to you and me.
I try and post OS X related info in the CHT but I think it gets lost amongst the problem posts from the windows crowd. I expect this thread to be slow moving but it seems like it would be helpful to have everything OS X in one thread.

I will start off with a few links to some applications I find useful.

Service Scrubber - Manage the services available and finally get rid of the stupid 'Chinese Text Converter'. (posted in CHT earlier today)

Xkeys - Xkeys allows you to open applications, files and folders just by pressing a function key.

Camino - Browser based on same engine as used in Firefox but written in Cocoa. Faster (IMO) than Safari and definitely faster than Firefox. It does have some limitations, namely extensions, so be advised it isn't a clone of Firefox. 

You already have one thread! Attention whore, GOSH! 

I have a question, I tried to listen to a streaming radio program on lime.com. I downloaded realplayer as they suggested and turned off my pop-up blocker. It still doesn't work. I get this blue lego looking cube with a question mark in it. Any suggestions? 

mamturkey: The page fails for me as well. I would suggest you contact them regarding this problem. 

There's something about a mac that's just so very hawt. 

And yes ladies and gentlemen, that was the geekiest thing I've ever typed.
/bow 

Font management in OSX. This is a great help showing where all the fonts are hidden in the OS. It's really for preparing the OS for the Extensis Suitcase application, but it does show where fonts are kept and shows how to prune them. The font book application supplied with the OS is not that great and (in my experience) leads to a lot of corrupt typefaces in your work/designs. 

I don't like mac - i guess i just don't get it.

Viva La Apple IIe :D 

so uh... classic on new computers that came with tiger? 

Witch - Window switcher that actually allows you to switch through all windows. Good replacement for the built in window switcher. 

Mac the Ripper great DVD ripper that is fast and does away with region codes 

okay, i get it
macs aren't computers, they are toys 

and many omas are trolls. 

For those who haven't seen it. 

this is pretty cool...
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ 

^ that's pretty cool. 

airfoil has an annoying 6 second delay on dvd playback though for the audio :( 

NetNewsWire, FFS! 

Ok - I admit it. I have a Mini Mac. I got tired of paying $100+ per month for dedicated hosting where I ran my cron jobs (backups of an external website), perl webscraping scripts, database stuff etc.

So - I bought the Mini Mac. Installed MySQL, the perl modules I needed, hooked it up to some bandwidth and went to town. To me it's just another Unix/Linux flavor. (At work I use Linux, AIX, and SCO [cough - when I have to])

Usually I don't even have the monitor on - I ssh in from my Windows box when I work on it. 

SpunOne said:

NetNewsWire, FFS!

Link, n00b? 

CoverFlow is cool

LinoType FontExplorerX beats the crap out of FontBook

Transmit is the best ftp client for osx 

oh and FetchArt is handy for getting album artwork into iTunes. 

The page fails for me as well. I would suggest you contact them regarding this problem.

Yeah, I tried that once and they never got back to me. It couldn't hurt to try again. Thanks for trying dirty. 

danflurry said:

For those who haven't seen it.

in order for me to understand why my mac sucks, i have to download windows media player?

thats a self fulfilling prophecy if i've ever seen one.. 

x 72dpi x : It's best to just ignore those types of posters. They generally scurry along to another thread once they figure out there's no attention to be had here. 

I love my mac.
I'll compile a list of must have apps later. 

/scurries along 

Where are SMB keychains stored? I am unable to find them in the keychains app. For some reason I am unable to access a windows file server. I get a 'bad logon/password' error though I'm never prompted to authenticate. I assume my password has been saved and is outdated. Any thoughts? 

hope this is some help  

Thx. 

hey DU, do you know any way of passwording individual folders in OSX? 

Chyren: I'd have to look up a way to actually set a password on a directory. I know you can modify the directory permissions which would work very much the same. You would be restricting access to a limited set of users however they wouldn't have to enter a password if they had rights to read the directory.

Is it mandatory that you have password prompts to access or would rights restrictions be sufficient? 

already do the rights restriction thing, but its a hastle to have to "apple + ," every time and change it when I want to open it... and its fairly easy for someone (the gf and housemates) to figure out getting round this if I accidentally leave the laptop on... so individual passwording would be preferred... 

Chyren: I'm still looking for a free solution but check this out. 

Could you use file vault for it? 

Could you use file vault for it?

never really messed about with file vault but cheers mate, i'll check it out...

and DU... im such a cheapskate not wanting to spend $7... :D 

I was under the impression that 'File Vault' only employed encryption on your HOME directory. I don't think it actually requires authenticatin outside of your initial logon. Once logged in File Vault simpy decrypts files upon access. 

I've never used it, but that's pretty much what I figured it did too.
Let me look......

You're right.
I wish they'd expand that feature.
Would pgpdesktop work? 

dunno... ill find it and have a look... i thought it was a feature of tinker-tool but unfortunately not... its a pretty useful little app though... (on a side note) 

Chyren: A janky work around would be to prefix all file/directory names with a "." as *nix hides files with that at the beginning. It is still accessable to all who have rights but you have to know the file name or how to find hidden files to see them. They won't show up in finder which for most 'users' is sufficient to deter them. 

thankyou, i'll have a play around 

If you want to test just make a copy of a directory you wanted to 'password' protect and then add a "." to the beginning of the directory name. Everything below it would be hidden from plain view. You wouldn't have to name everything below it with a "." just the top most directory in the tree you want to hide. 

I can't get windows media player to work on my iBook.
i did the shit they said on the website, and no dice.

Fuck fuck fuck. 

whiskeybent: Could you elaborate on the 'shit' you did already?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/Macintosh/osx/default.asp x

^ That is the version I have installed on my mini and it works just fine. 

OS X Version Tracker 

OS X Version Tracker

The first link posted doesn't work sorry. 

I downloaded the windowsmedia.sitx file from that site (same site I tried before, btw) you posted up there. I tried the Stuffit Expander thing on the .sitx file, and no dice. 

What happened? 

Oop--

think I got it.

I find that if I bitch about something, inevitably it will work just to spite me for bitching about it. 

word.