Author Archives: kiwinerd

Making iPhone ringtones

Posted on 2012/04/26 by kiwinerd

It’s easy to make a ringtone. Open iTunes. Add the sound file you want to use to your Library if you haven’t already done so. It should be 30 seconds or shorter. Open up iTunes Preferences, then click General, then … Continue reading →

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Making your Gmail hacker proof

Posted on 2012/04/22 by kiwinerd

Adapted from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hacker-proof.html :- Before you begin, you will need to be logged in to your Google account and have your cellphone ready. Log in to Google, eg at the URL you usually use for your Gmail. Then go to … Continue reading →

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Get Dock out of the way on OS X Lion

Posted on 2012/04/16 by kiwinerd

Modified from http://techblog.willshouse.com/2012/03/26/remove-dock-on-mac-os-x-lion/ :- I am very keyboard-centric, use Quicksilver all the time, and really hate that the OS X Dock just serves to get in my way. The following commands make the Dock TEENY WEENY and stick it bottom … Continue reading →

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Killing Mac startup sound in Lion

Posted on 2012/04/09 by kiwinerd

One of the most annoying commercial aspects of owning a Mac is how it announces itself to the entire world when you boot it. There were solutions that worked in Snow Leopard which Apple broke deliberately for Lion. Never fear! … Continue reading →

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Using GeekTool to put iCal events on the desktop

Posted on 2012/04/01 by kiwinerd

Do you like GeekTool? I do. It enables putting stuff like to-do lists and weather graphics on your desktop, behind all the app windows. For instance: you can choose an Image geeklet and feed it the following URL: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/common/maps/satrad/gta/is_satrad_na_ca_gta_all_en.jpg to … Continue reading →

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Safai bookmark sync problem in Lion

Posted on 2012/03/17 by kiwinerd

Some time after I converted my machines to Lion, Safari bookmarks wouldn’t sync on most of the computers. Very odd. Messing with iCloud preferences did absolutely nothing. According to this page, the root of the problem is probably a permissions … Continue reading →

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How to turn off Dashboard permanently

Posted on 2012/03/14 by kiwinerd

How do you kill the annoying RAM-chugging Dashboard? There are two steps. The second one is necessary because Dashboard is actually owned by Dock. In Terminal.app, type the following:- defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES killall Dock [This can be … Continue reading →

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Where your iOS crash logs are

Posted on 2012/03/14 by kiwinerd

Via http://aplus.rs/apple/how-to-find-crash-logs-for-iphone-applications-on-mac-vista-and-xp/ :- Application crash logs are transfered to your computer each time you do a sync with the iOS device, in iTunes. So, do a sync. Logs are kept at ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<DEVICE_NAME> . There are .crash and .plist files – … Continue reading →

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Turning off AppleSpell permanently

Posted on 2012/03/13 by kiwinerd

I’ve been having trouble with Apple re-installing the stupid f*&^#%@!ing spell checker whenever a major system update comes down the intertubes. So I’m trying again with a new strategy to see if it works in Lion. According to this, renaming … Continue reading →

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Lion and apps like Preview reopening files

Posted on 2012/02/15 by kiwinerd

Are you sick of Preview reopening previously-closed windows from the previous time you fired up the app? You can turn this behaviour off – although only for all apps at once. It’s in the System Preferences –> General pane, near … Continue reading →

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