Hidden Files on Your Mac

As the Mac OS has its heritage in BSD, many of the features work the same way.  For example, if you name a file starting with a ".", it behaves as if it is hidden.  When we use Finder, by default it does not show any of these files.  Unless you are really geeky, you have no real reason to want to see all these files.

Let's take a closer look:

1)  Here is a snapshot of a directory

2)  Open a Terminal session and enter the commands below

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true
killall Finder

3)  Finder will close and re-opens.  The directory now looks like this

4)  You can see both hidden directories and files.

5)  To restore back, enter the commands below in a Terminal session

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles false

killall Finder

6)  That's it!  Now all you need to do if figure out how to use this to your advantage.

Resize Photos using Automator

To quickly resize pictures for my Culinary Aspiration blog, I have to resize photos all the time.  To be more productive, I use Automator to help me.

To set up the Automator workflow to resize photos:

1)  Start Automator

2)  Select Workflow template.

3)  From the left column, select Files & Folders.

4)  Drag Ask for Finder Items over to the right pane.

5)  Update the Prompt to "Choose the Images to Resize", and select the checkbox for Allow Multiple Selection.

6)  From the left column, select Photos, and then drag Scale Images over to the right pane.

7)  Click Add to confirm that image files will be passed into this step.

8)  Change the pixel size as appropriate.

9)  Click File > Save As.  Type in Resize photos to 480 pixels for the name and click Save.

10)  All you need to do is open Automator with this workflow.  Click Run and follow the prompts!

Converting From DOC to PDF on a Mac

Recently I opened up a Microsoft Word document in OpenOffice on my Mac.  Possibly due to the formatting, it took over a minute to open up.  As this was a document I wanted re-open in the future, I was not going wait each time.  Within OpenOffice, there is an option to allow you to any file as a PDF.  After doing this, the PDF opens almost instantly.

Troubleshooting Client Network Connection Problems

How to resolve client network connection problem:

1)  Take a quick look at the physical connection to ensure the cat 5 cable is properly connected.  On some laptops, you will see a flashing light indicating some level of connectivity.

2)  Using a command window, type in ipconfig /all.  The results should look something like this.



3)  The physical connection for the ethernet adapter is the last one called Realtek.  The other ones are for VMware server that I am also running.  Note that in this instance this workstation is not using DHCP.  The ip address being used is 192.168.1.91 and the gateway is 192.168.1.1.   This means I am using a static ip rather than one being dynamically issued by a DHCP server.  If I was using a DHCP server, the only difference you might is that DHCP is enabled with all the rest being the same.  You may want to confirm if this is the correct DHCP server.  For example if you are using a wireless connection, it is possible for you to connect to a router other than the one you are expecting.

4)  Assuming there is no issue with the DHCP server and what IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS servers being issued there are a few other checks to be made.

a)  Ping 127.0.0.1  This is the localhost address and will work if TCP/IP stack is OK.  If this fails, you should re-install TCP/IP.

b)  Ping the local address.  In my example, this would be ping 192.168.1.91.  This will confirm the IP address for the client has successfully been bound to the physical card.  If this fails, either the drivers for the network card is problematic or the network card itself is failing or has failed.  I would first try to re-install the drivers.

c)  Ping default gateway.  In my example, this would be ping 192.168.1.1.  This will help confirm the connectivity to another device in your network.  If this fails, check the physical connections including the cable itself from the client to the default gateway device.

d)  If there are other intermediate devices such as a switch, you will need to investigate.  Commands such as tracert could be useful.

e)  Ping remote IP address.  If you are debugging a problem at home, the next IP address I would ping is the cable modem.  For me, I know the IP address is 192.168.100.1.  If you can get to that, I could try the ISP gateway.  In my example the IP address is 64.71.255.198.  From here, you could try other ones you know.

Viewing PPT Files on Your Mac

You have started using your Mac a lot more, and now you are trying to open a .ppt file created using Microsoft Powerpoint. You don't have Microsoft Office Suite installed on your Mac. What do you do? Little did I know that I already had one ready to go. The solution turned out to be OpenOffice. There may be better solutions out there as I did not research, but this is satisfactory for now as I only need to view this one file.

Lego Mindstorms on Snow Leopard

It has been a few months since the kids have used the Lego Mindstorms. Today, we gave it a try, but I needed to re-install the Lego Mindstorms application. However this time I needed to install on Snow Leopard. It appeared to complete the install OK, but there was no app in the Applications folder. After doing a quick search, I found a workaround on the NXT STEP - LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Blog that worked!

Here are the steps copied from the blog:
1) Copy the contents of the installation CD onto the Desktop
2) Open the copied folder and look under "Parts". Under Parts, location the "MindstormsUnivEdu.pkg" (if you are trying to install the Educational version) or "MindstormsUnivRet.pkg" (if you are working from the Retail install CD).
3) Control-click (or right-click, if you have a two-button mouse) on the package, and choose "Show Package Contents" from the pop-up menu. This allows you to poke about in the normally "sealed" installation package.
4) Go into the revealed Contents/Resources directory and delete the "preflight" file (toss it in the trash)
5) Close this package and then run it like a normal install from this modified version on your desktop. Mindstorms NXT should install properly.

Have fun!

Paste and Match Style

When you copy a clip from a website or another document into a document you are working on, you often get a mixture of styles.  To get around this, in most applications you can go to Edit > Paste and Match Style.  The shortcut is Command+Option+Shift+v.

Using a Windows Keyboard With a Mac

For a novice user, using a Windows keyboard with a Mac can be quite confusing.  Back when I first started using a Mac, I recall there were 3 keys that caused the most problems when trying to follow instructions.  Here is the keyboard mapping for those 3 keys.

Mac Key	Windows Key
Control	Ctrl
Option	Alt
Command (looks like a four leaf clover)	Windows

Put Your Display to Sleep on a Mac

To put your display to sleep on a Mac, press Control+Shift+Eject button.  This is similar to putting your Mac to sleep.  Moving your mouse or pressing any key will wake the display up.  If you are using a non-Apple keyboard, they may not work.

An alternative is to use Exposé with one of the active corners set to Put Display to Sleep.  This will put the display to sleep whenever your move the mouse to that corner.

Put Your Mac to Sleep

The quickest way to put your Mac to sleep is to press Command+Option and then hold the Eject button for about 2 seconds.

Exposé Tip

Quite often, I trigger the All Windows option using Exposé to select the next window I want to work in.  Some of the windows at the bottom can be quite small and the description is not enough.  If you hover over the window you want to examine and hit the spacebar, the window will appear much larger.  If that is not the window you are interested in, you can hit the spacebar again for it to shrink.