Tag Archives: Mac OS X

Automator-Service to add Task to Wunderlist

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Wunderlist Logo
I started using the fantastic app “Wunderlist” for my personal Task Management on the Mac, of course with synchronisation to iPhone and the web.

Before I used to write all my To-dos simply into the Stickies.app – which worked, but was not too flexible. While migrating all pending Tasks from my notes, I realized that I’d love to be able to use the right-click-contextmenu to send the current text selection to Wunderlist. As I have done similiar things already for image manipulations, etc. using an Automator Service, I knew where to start for my new requirement :)

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OS X: Create ZIP archives without hidden System files

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ZIP from Mac to Windows

It’s a common problem between Mac and Windows users, when you create a ZIP archive under Mac OS X, that it will contain a bunch of unwanted files, which you don’t want to have included in the archive. In OS X’s Finder you won’t notice that, because the Finder is hiding them from you. But they will show up on the Windows side after unzipping the archive.

OS X Standard ZIP Archive with hidden Files

Fortunately there is quite a simple and straight-forward solution for Mac OS X to create so called “Clean Archives”, using a predesigned Automator action.

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OS X: Delete single objects from Time Machine backups

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OS X Time Machine IconI already posted a step-by-step guide on how to delete old backups from your Time Machine drive in order to free up space. What I did not mention in that article was how you can delete single files & folders from within backups, if you want to have even more free space available for future backups.

The steps to do so are slightly different – especially the fact that you do not navigate to your backup drive in Finder, but use the Time Machine application instead.

Here are the instructions, if you want to delete specific files & folders from existing Time Machine backups:
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OS X: Free space on your Time Machine backup drive

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OS X Time Machine IconRecently I discovered, that my external hard drive for Time Machine backups is slowly running out of space – only ~20 GB left on a 320GB drive.

Searching through the web I did not find any up-to-date help on how to properly remove old backups in order to have more space available. But when trying the most easy and obvious way, I figured out that’s how Apple intended to do it:
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OS X: 10.7 Post-Upgrade checklist

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OS X Lion LogoI just upgraded my OS X Snow Leopard install to the new Mac OS 10.7 Lion and I am stunned: never before the upgrade process was so easy and fast! Once again it’s amazing what job the Apple Developers achieved, considering it’s a full operating system upgrade.

There are enough posts and reviews about 10.7 Lion, so I am not going to write anything about it in general. But I provide a (happily) short post-upgrade checklist of the things I had to take care after upgrading.

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OS X: set Front Row to show preferably on secondary Screen

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Front RowThis is the best solution I found in the world wide web to overcome the missing feature, to use Front Row on a secondary d isplay screen:

  1. Download the tool displaysInfo
     
  2. Start Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app
     
  3. Drag-n-Drop the displaysInfo-file to the Terminal window & press Return
     
  4. Read the DisplayID of the display you want to send Front Row to
     
  5. Execute the following command in the open Terminal window (replacing “xxxxxxxx” with the DisplayID of your preferred screen): 
    

    defaults write com.apple.frontrow FrontRowUsePreferredDisplayID xxxxxxxx

 
Whenever you have now that display connected to your Mac, Front Row will use it to show up on that screen, no matter what your main display is set to. The nice “side effect” of this whole solution is, that you only defined a “preferred display” – so when it’s not available, Front Row just starts on the primary screen.

Similiar Utilities

hmscreens

References used

mac-forums.com
whirlpool.net.au – Mac Forums
beauchamp.me – Mac

OS X: Airport lässt sich nicht deaktivieren

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Heute hatte ich ein seltsames Problem mit AirPort auf meinem Mac. Und zwar konnte ich AirPort nicht mehr über das Menüelement deaktivieren. Es passierte einfach gar nichts, wenn der Befehl ausgewählt wurde.

AirPort Admin-Password Required 1

Nach kurzer Suche fand ich den Grund in den AirPort-Settings. Wobei dies nicht unbedingt die Ursache ist, aber zumindest das “gewünschte” Verhalten zurückbrachte.

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