Unhurriedly

This is a non-exhaustive of list some of my favorite Mac Developers and their apps:

Panic
Makers of the best FTP program for the Mac, Transmit and the only American distributor of Katamari Damacy t-shirts. The rest of their apps are equally great. If it wasn’t for my existing habits, I would be using Coda as well.

Macromates
TextMate combined with Transmit are my secret sauce for daily coding. A strong flexible text editor that remains light. I use it every day.

Blacktree
Quicksilver has become so engrained into my computing life that I am confused when I sit down in front of a computer without it. While it acts as an App Launcher, it is so much more.

I have an iPhone, and a have found it to be nearly perfect. I had held out as long as I could, but it is the perfect storm of handheld consumer electronics. Sure, there are others out there with better features, faster connections and better service providers but no other device pulls it all together like the iPhone. IMAP for my Gmail (I don’t have all of my personal accounts on the iPhone as it chews up too much bandwidth. Yes, I have that many.) and for my work email (Exchange IMAP works just fine, people!). The latest updates make the Map.app even more useful with GPS-like wifi trilateration. Hahlo for my Twitter and NewsGator’s mobile site to sync with NetNewsWire (All of NewsGator’s personal products including NetNewsWire and their service are now free! I was willing to pay for it, and did, but this is even better! Get it!) to get my RSS. As a Mac user, no other device will even sync properly without the use of third party software like missing sync! I even get my iPhoto pics on my iPhone, smartly scaled down for its screen to take up less space.

With the most recent Mac Virus thats not a virus [slashdot.org] and my own dealing with pulling files, infected by PC viruses, off of unsuspecting Mac users hard drives, I have had to look for something to scan and remove files on the Mac. Currently there are several “Paid For” services available for the mac that are reasonably respectable, but with the current state of Mac viruses and my own one shot needs, I usually cannot recommend these solutions. Plus, they suck. In a corporate environment, they are a must, but for everyone else there had to be something else.

With Apple’s now not so recent move to OS X and the BSD sub-system the world of OSS has brought us a plethora of useful tools and once again, we’ll delve in and get a simple, free tool based on the popular OSS virus scanner clamav.

ClamXav is an Aqua interface for clamav. This gives it a pretty front end to its powerful backend along with a automatic graphical installer.

I was going to write a detailed report on ClamXav, but due to unforseen circumstances I was unable to complete the review. I still love ClamXav and whole heartedly endorse it.

Macs have staying power. In an world where PC manufacturers want you to think that your PC is old in six months, Macs have a tendency to stay in use much longer. I still work on Graphite G4s that are being used for production.

Older Macs get passed down the food chain as the top users get new machines or get repurposed as RIP servers, scanning stations and file servers. They get new jobs and new users. Sometimes they even outlast the users.

No matter how old the computer, a faster one is always better and any user in his right mind would be remiss in turning one down. When they get that “new” Mac, they have a couple of options, somewhat based on time and available technical skill.

First, the new Mac can be wiped clean, with a fresh system and applications installed. This is great as it gives the user a fresh start, free of their old crufty data and OS quirks.

Next, the users previous Mac can be cloned to the “new” one, OS, applications, data and all. This is also great, as it give the user little or nothing to get used to with the new computer. In a later post, I’ll talk more about cloning along with its plusses and minuses.

Finally, and more to the point of this post, the user just takes over where the previous one left off. This happens a lot in situations where there is little time and experience available. Many times they do not even create a new user, especially where one person is taking over for another.

If the user is lucky (or if they manage to do it themselves), the long, descriptive user name will be changed to their name, giving them more of a feeling of ownership over their new workstation. However, Mac OS X will not allow you to change the short name for the user in the Users Preference Pane. There are many instances where this can become more than just a minor irritation.

Luckily, Dan Frakes comes to the rescue with a offshoot from his book Mac OS X Power Tools, Second Edition. ChangeShortName is a tool that allows you to update the short name for a user comprehensively and relatively safely.

There are some caveats, but for the most part it works very well, as long as you pay attention and think ahead. It is important to read the PDF that comes with it, however.

To run it:

First, download  ChangeShortName.

ChangeShortName can be run directly from the mounted image.

I am usually partial to the Terminal, but in this case they have packaged a nice GUI interface, called ChangeShortName Helper, that does everything I need. If you are interested in using it from the Terminal, reference the PDF. Just launch ChangeShortName Helper, choose the username that you want to change and fill out the requested fields.

Change Short User Name script (v1.1.3)
Written by James Bucanek
Based on a procedure developed by Dan Frakes

Ready to rename account ‘stamm’ (stamm) to ‘stammbt’ (Stamm Business Technologies).
Proceed? (yes/no):

Type yes and hit enter.

You will now need to provide the password for account ‘glenn’.
This account must have administrative access to proceed.
 Password:

Enter your password and hit enter. You will not see your password or even the familiar bullets, so you have to trust your fingers.

NetInfo database ‘local.nidb’ backed up to ‘local-ChangeShortNameBackup-2006Jan31-154213.nidump’
Values in NetInfo record ‘/users/stammbt’ updated.
Group ‘stamm’ renamed to ‘stammbt’.
Home directory renamed from /Users/stamm to /Users/stammbt
Reconfigured Personal Web Sharing.
ChangeShortName is now finished.
You may now close this Terminal window.

All Done!

If you changed the short name of the logged in user, log out and log back in to make the changes apparent and to keep the OS from getting too confused. Should ShortNameChange cause problems or become interupdted in the middle of the proccess, there is a repair function in both the command and the ShortNameChange Helper.

Developer’s Page
Download:  ChangeShortName

Back in the Mac OS 9 days, one of the most overused troubleshooting tricks was rebuilding the Desktop Database. Users could be trained to hold down the option + command keys after a reboot (or for us impatient techs, after force quitting the Finder). You could have users run that to their hearts content. They get to feel like they can have control over their computers and an imagined boost in speed afterwards. Unfortunately it only had limited real technical value.

Much like rebuilding the Desktop Database, AppleJack is easy enough for most users to use after a little training. However, AppleJack is quite a bit more useful. In one sitting it can check the boot partition, repair permissions, clear cache file, replace bad preference files and remove swap files which can actually fix a long list of real problems.

After downloading and installing the package from the SourceForge project page, restart your computer and hold down the command + s keys to enter into single user mode. Once in single user mode you will see a helpful little message, as such:

For troubleshooting assistance, just type ‘applejack’ at the prompt

Its just as simple as that! I usually have users run the following:

# applejack AUTO restart

Everything runs automagically, and reboots after it finishes. Users love it because they have to remember very little to run it. Alternately, advanced users and technicians can just run:

# applejack

Which will give you a menu to manually run individual commands:

Enter the associated number or letter to select the next task.
It is strongly recommended you do them in the order listed!

[a] auto pilot. Script will do all tasks in sequence.

[1] repair disks
[2] repair permissions
[3] cleanup cache files
[4] validate preferences files
[5] remove swap files

Your choice (Just hit return to quit):

Most usefully when working in this mode are options [3] and [4] which give you the ability to not only clean and check the System but will also allow you to check on individual users on the system.

After going through all of the options, follow the prompts and reboot the computer, letting it boot up normally. You may notice that it takes a bit longer to go through the startup process as it recreates any cache files that may have been removed that the system uses. Overall, though, you should see an improvement in speed and stability.

Occasionally I will come across a Mac that has been upgraded to Tiger which is stuck on a desktop with no icons or menu bar, but the Spotlight icon is in the upper right corner. If left like that, it will just sit there indefinitely. AppleJack will fix this issue, though you may have to clear out the individual user’s cache files. But what do you do if you haven’t already loaded AppleJack?

My first thought was to boot into Target Disk Mode by holding down the T key during a reboot, but the AppleJack installer must be run from a working system. So I used to copy my laptop’s AppleJack installation (at least partially) to the TDM’d computer as such:

# sudo ditto -V /private/var/root/Library/Scripts
# sudo ditto -V /private/var/root/.profile

This is fine, but… I’m usually in too much of a hurry to copy the man pages, which users may want later. Plus, there is no receipt in the /System/Reciepts folder so Repair Permissions will not fix issues if there are any.

My next trick was to boot into Single User Mode and mount a USB pen drive. On another computer, copy the AppleJack.pkg file from the AppleJack-1.4.x.dmg onto a pen drive. Then run the following:

# /sbin/fsck -y
# mount -uw /
# mkdir /Volumes/pendrive
# mount -t hfs /dev/disk[x]s[x] /Volumes/pendrive

In the above, replace disk[x]s[x] with the device label of your pen drive. (ex. disk1s1) You may have to ls the /dev directory before and after you insert the pen drive to find the label.

Once the pen drive is mounted run the following:

# /usr/sbin/installer -target / -pkg /Volumes/pendrive/AppleJack.pkg

Now, Applejack should be fully installed. Reboot the system and enter back into Single User Mode to run AppleJack.

Users often ask me how often they should run AppleJack on their systems. I try to be a little vague, telling them that they should run it whenever they feel like the system is dragging or it just seems to have a general malaise. Once a month should be plenty. If you are running it too often, it may indicate a problem.

Lately, I have been installing it every Mac I sit down in front of. It has gained high rankings in my personal set of software tools and I encourage you to try it out.

Developer Page: AppleJack Project Page
Download: SourceForge

On occasion, I’ll get a OS X or other *NIX system that is acting downright funky. I go through all of the usual troubleshooting steps, but still, I have strange traffic or processes that are not acting right. Sometimes, I’m downright paranoid!

Here is a handy (and very pretty) script that will check out your system for signs of some of the most common rootkits. Sure, a clever hacker won’t leave enough traces, but its the dumb ones that seem to do the most damage.

Its a simple install (as long as you have sudo access), an easy run and quite pleasing to look at. I love seeing all of those [ OK ] text icons!

Developer Site: Rootkit Hunter
Download: Root Kit Hunter 1.2.7 [ developer ]