Mac OS X Questions

When I was new to the exciting world of Mac OS X, I created this page of questions that I had about Mac OS X. Since then I've found some of the answers and people have been kind enough to send me some answers. So, even though I'm no longer new to OS X, I figure I should leave this page here with those answers as a community service.

Unfortunately, I still finding the Mac OS X experience to be very frustrating despite my familiarity with UNIX™ and Linux and my early exposure to the Xerox Star and Apple Lisa and now, more than a year of constant use of Mac OS X. The following is a list of questions, peeves and misunderstandings that I've run into and a few answers. If you're an expert, feel free to pass on the asnwer to any of the unanswered questions or any refinement on answered ones and I'll post it under the question. I've tried to be as accurate as possible here, but if some of my bold statements are wrong then please forgive my ignroance and let me know so I can correct the page.

Questions that I have been lucky enough to find the answer for are gray'ed out and the solutions should be indicated by a happy face icon

How do I...

General

1. start up a second copy of an already running application, but as root?
   • For example, as a regular user, I already have jEdit running, but don't have permission to edit a particular file. In Linux land, I'd just su to root and start a second jEdit job, from which I could edit the file that the other jEdit job couldn't. However I can't seem to be able to do the same trick in OS X land. Using sudo open -a /Applications/jEdit/jEdit.app merely brings the existing jEdit window to the front rather than creating a new job with root privileges
   • sudo /Applications/jEdit/jEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub works in the case of jEdit. Most other apps work in a similar fashion. For example: sudo /AppPath/SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SomeApp works for SomeApp in general. jEdit is a little different because it is a Java Application
2. add to the effective host table?
   • In regular UNIX, just adding hosts to the /etc/hosts file will do the trick, but Mac OS X wants us to use an amazingly complex system of settings in NetInfo to accomplish what should be a trivial task.
   • This has been fixed in 10.2 (A.K.A. Jaguar -- you know, the one with the Leopard spots). Even though the hosts file still claims to only work in single user mode, it does, now, work in standard multiuser mode.
   • An even better solution, however, is to use the niload command to import host entries directly into the NetInfo database.
3. execute a .app?
   • For example jEdit installs a jEdit.app directory that you can click on to start jEdit, but if you need to run a second copy as the root user, there's no shell script to execute. How can I type something at the command line to run the resource bundle?
   • Oops, this was obvious... use the open command.
4. record Text-To-Speech as a .wav file?
   • Since the release of OS X 10.2, this has been possible, but not widely known. It can be done simply using AppleScript, but there are also other tools available. Solutions include:
     • WireTap ­ a free utility to record systen audio.
     • iSpeak It ­ commercial text to speach app. Haven't tried it myself.
     • text2Audio ­ free Apple scripts to render speech from text as .aiff files.
5. set the monitor power/sleep button to put just the display to sleep and not my machine?
   • Lifeng Tian pointed out that in 10.3.4 Apple has added this as an option in System Preference - Energy Saver - Options - Allow power button to sleep computer.
6. Set the monitor and CPU power button lights to not be so bright that they cast shadows at night? It would be really nice if I couldn't see the pulsing of the computer under the desk in my dining room from my bedroom, even when the door is shut!
7. get OmniOutliner to recognize .scriptSuite files?
8. get the pointer back when it's been "lost"?
   • Sometimes the mouse pointer disappears (typically on restart). Solaris has a utility to restore the pointer if lost. Mac OS X needs one too.
   • It would also be helpful if it was easier to exit/restart/shutdown using the keyboard only, especially from the login window.
     • From the login screen cmd-eject will pop-up the restart/shutdown window. Then hitting the 'R' key will restart the machine. Just setting it up so that the tab key also cycled throught the buttons instead of just the text fields would have been a much better solution.
9. add root to the login window?
   • Apple doesn't want you to be able to login to a GUI session as root, so this isn't really doable. Using sudo or su is the only reasonable way to work as root in a GUI session. To kick off GUI programs, you need to go into the Contents/MacOS directory to find the actual executable
10. set an image's icon to a thumbnail of the image?
    • Open image, copy contents, bring up "Get Info" window in the Finder, select icon, paste
11. set all folders except the actual desktop to show hidden files?
    • defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES works fine to set hidden files visible in all finder windows, but it also makes them visible in the desktop.
    • Can this setting be reversed for JUST the desktop?
12. stop a finder network search? (eg: did a finder - lookup server - nfs://192.168.0.2/eCSProgs/, and the finder spinning colour icon appeared and stayed for an inordinate amout of time.)
    • Duh! Use kill to kill the mount command.
13. remove a Quicktime icon that I don't want any more (eg: techTV)?
    • Not required anymore because QuickTime player has been changed.
14. get more of those auto releasing cable ties that came with the monitor cable?
15. wake on LAN?
    • See http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/wakeonlan/

Application Specific

1. Spaces
   1. Open multiple windows of an application in different views?
      • for example, if you have multiple Mozilla windows open in one view, then switch to another view and try to open just one of those Mozilla windows, then you will get them all. There doesn't seem to be a way to get it to open just one window in a particular view.
2. Adobe Acrobat Reader
   1. keep it from opening up the window (as opposed to the document view) maximized?
   2. Get it to work right with the cinema HD format monitor.

Peeves, Problems and Suggesions for Improvement

General

1. Shouldn't have to pay for Jaguar!!!
   • Peer-to-peer networking doesn't work in Darwin despite the claims by Apple that Mac OS X works with windows networks, so the networking fixes in Jaguar are BUG FIXES, not new features. This is stuff that is currently broken! I should be demanding my money back, not paying for an upgrade! This is outrageous.
   • Even if Apple argues that there are new features, they should, at the very least make, Rendezvous free.
   • Tiger has enough improvments that it makes sense to actually lay down cold, hard cash for an upgrade.
2. Java
   • Why is jEdit mind numbingly slow?!? Even on a dual 1GHz PPC system, it's easy to type a few characters, whatch the CPU meter(s) go up to 100% and have to wait several seconds for the third character to render. This is abismal Java performance.
3. Inadequate back-up software
   • Back-ups are a fundamental feature that is REQUIRED for any serious computer work
   • Apple wants people to pay extra for something that aught to be fundamental. It's like asking extra for a steering wheel in your car. Actually, it's even worse because they want it to be a subscription service!
   • There's a DVD recordable in my machine
     • Why can't I just do a massive tar, piped through gzip to the drive?
     • Why doesn't it appear on my desktop as something I can drag and drop to?
4. Can't size windows bigger than the screen limits.
   • For example, some aps have an image in them that I want to see as large as possible, but there is all sorts of junk like window borders, buttons and so on around it. Resizing the window to be taller than the screen will allow the image to be displayed at its absolute maximum size, but Mac OS X won't allow this.
5. Wake-up with brightness button breaks sleep!
   • Using the power button to make the display (computer?) sleep works just fine. If you hit the brightness button on the display, it will wake up. However, once awakened that way, you can no longer use the power button or even the Finder sleep menu item to put the display (computer?) to sleep!
   • Solved in OS X 10.2. However, now, the brightness button does not wake up the machine at all. You need to use the power button or the keyboard.
6. Help really needs some more work.
   • Massively improved in Jaguar!
7. Pop-up dialogs are attached to the title bar of the app and can obscure information that is required
8. Middle Mouse button scroll is great, but doesn't work everywhere that it should.
   • For example, the help window doesn't allow scrolling
9. Where's the tutorial?
10. Where's the "Missing Manual"?
11. The help key doesn't do anything. It should.

Application Specific

1. Sherlock
   1. Doesn't find files I KNOW are there! (eg: tcsh.defaults -- in /usr/share/init/tcsh, though Sherlock won't say so.)
2. Qicktime Player
   1. TechTV is no longer available, but I can't figure out how to delete it from the list of icons on the main page.
   2. Dragging a playing window that is streaming a live broadcast such as the npr stream, is enough to lock up the streaming.
3. Eskape's MyTV (Version 0.1b)
   1. Audio is right channel only!
   2. Suffers from timing difference between video and audio when using iMic, but not as bad as with the 0.3a version
   3. Needs a mechanism to prevent sleep and screen locking.
   4. Doesn't survive system sleep
      • Version 0.1b causes a kernel trap!!! This locks up the system.
      • EskapeTV cannot find the MyTV device again after that. Have to disconnect and re-connect MyTV device before it will work again.
   5. Full-screen mode doesn't show image as large as possible on 1900x1290 display.
   6. Needs to be able to show letterbox programs even larger so that they will work well with the Apple Cinema HD Displays.
   7. Needs more extensive keyboard commands to make it easier to integrate with the Keyspan Digital Media Remote
   8. Minimized view should show TV screen -- active
   9. About EskapeTV menu item doesn't work
      • Makes it hard to be sure I've got the right version installed
4. tinkertool
   • Doesn't work on Jaguar (OS X 10.2)