mac help blog

I like the concept of Launchpad, it’s similar to how iOS launches programs on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. But if you upgraded from Snow Leopard and have added a few apps from the Mac App Store it’s really crowded and tedious to remove apps. Here’s a way to get a fresh-start with Launchpad and configure it to give you quick access to only that apps you want.

You could manually remove apps from Launchpad while it’s onscreen by holding down the Option key and clicking on the jiggling apps. But that won’t work on stock Apple apps, which are permanently affixed to Launchpad’s surface.

But there is a way to reset Launchpad completely—removing even Apple’s own apps. You do this by wiping out the contents of the database Mac OS X uses to maintain Launchpad. To reset the database, launch Terminal (which, as always, is in /Applications/Utilities) and paste in this sequence of commands at the command line:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps; DELETE from groups WHERE title<>''; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;"; Killall Dock

Now, open Launchpad again it will be blank and as you purchase an app from the Mac App Store, its icon will show up in your newly pristine Launchpad.

Getting the apps you want back into Launchpad is simple: You can just drag the apps you’d like to add directly onto Launchpad’s Dock icon. (Merely dragging icons onto the Launchpad icon in the Finder won’t work; you must drag onto the Dock icon.)

If you want to auto populate Launchpad again you can do so by forcing Lion to rebuild your Launchpad database with this Terminal command:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db; killall Dock

Running Repair Permissions Automatically

Repairing permissions in Mac OS X is an important part of keeping a your Mac running smoothly. Doing this on a regular basis will help avoid problems and improve the stability of your Mac. The procedure below will work for all releases of Mac OS X, including the Lion (10.7).

What Repair Permissions Does: Repair Permissions is part of the Disk Utility application that is installed on every Mac and is in the Applications/Utilities folder. Mac OS X has an internal database that it uses to keep track of the proper permissions for the System files and folders. When you install or uninstall a program, the System permissions might be left in a state that is not correct. It might not cause problems immediately, but later on applications might have trouble saving preferences or updating or just have instability issues.
Now you can startup Disk Utility and select your main system disk and click on the button to run Repair Permissions but you have to remember to do that on a periodic basis. It’s a good idea to run it after you have installed or uninstalled a lot of applications. It also a good idea to run it before and after a Mac OS X Update (i.e. updating from 10.6.7 to 10.6.8)

Built-in Periodic Tasks:
Leopard already runs periodic tasks, daily, weekly, and monthly. The are normally run in the middle of the night, if you leave your Mac running overnight. If you turn off your Mac at night, the tasks still get run, they are just run the first few minutes after you turn your Mac back on.
We are going to take advantage of this built-in feature to run Repair Permissions on a weekly basis. If you don’t install or uninstall applications on a regular basis, you could easily change the procedure below to run Repair Permissions on a monthly basis instead.
We are going to create a one line script that will run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions, The script will also have a special name that will allow Leopard to recognize it automatically. Leopard runs multiple tasks on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and has these scripts predefined. We DON”T want to change these scripts to include our command line because the predefined script might be over written by a Mac OS X update in the furture and our modifications would be lost.

The Local Boys:
Apple has enabled a way to allow custom tasks to be done right after the predefined tasks are completed. This allows you to create any script and run the commands in that script on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, just by naming the script appropriately and putting it in the correct folder. To enable the script to run on a daily basis, just make sure the name is daily.local, on a weekly basis, weekly.local and on a monthly basis, monthly.local. The .local extension tells Mac OS X that this is a custom file for this installation of Mac OS X.
The file needs to be placed in the /etc directory of the system disk and set with the appropriate permissions to execute.

The Gory or Geeky Details:

This is going to require the use of the Terminal application, so be warned, if you’ve never used Terminal before it’s probably not a good idea to do this yourself.

1. To do this procedure you need to have administration rights on your Mac.
2. Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder.
3. Enter the following commands:
   • sudo pico /etc/weekly.local
   • enter your login password to allow you to create this file
   • In the pico editor enter the following single line of text.
     diskutil repairpermissions /
   • Press control-x and then the y key to save the file
   • You should now be out of the pico editor and back to your command line prompt. Enter this command.
   • sudo chmod 755 /etc/weekly.local
   • You might have to enter your password again. This command sets the execute permissions for the script.
   • Note: Name the script file monthly.local if you want Repair Permissions done monthly.
4. Quit the Terminal program
5. You are done!

Now Repair Permissions will run on a weekly (or monthly) basis. The output of the script will be saved in the weekly.log or monthly.log file. You can see this log file by running the Console application in the Utility folder. To see the log file make sure you can see the log list by clicking on Show Log List, and then open the LOG FILES list. In this list open the /var/log section. Scroll down and click on weekly.log or monthly.log depending on what you setup. You should be able to see the output of the Repair Permissions command. You will have to wait a week or a month to see the output depending on the date the last tasks were run.

Leave a comment if you find this helpful or have any questions.

Well, you either love or hate this feature of iOS, text completion. Personally I love it, it helps by correcting my spelling and and allows me to be accurate when touch typing on my iPhone and iPad screen. I’ve been testing Lion for a few weeks now and it’s been a real treasure hunt finding the 250+ new features that Apple is touting. Text completion is something I’ve been hoping Apple would implement in Mac OS X. And of course, if you don’t want it, you can disable it, just like in iOS.

OK, I’ve waited long enough. I’ve been waiting for the white iPhone 4. My iPhone 3G is a POS (piece of sh*@). Yes, iOS 4.1 was a modest improvement, but not enough for me. I’m getting the black iPhone 4 tomorrow because I’m fed up with the iPhone 3G. Waiting for basic functionality is really pissing me off. Yes, Steve, you win.

Moving on…. details to follow.

Sorry for the long absence. Working at Nike has been very time consuming and full of stories that reveal how large corporations work. More to follow.

Need to improve your speed and accuracy on the iPhone? Try this app out.

So You Think You Can Type Fast

At long last, the Welcome to MacIntosh documentary is now available to watch online, for free.

Welcome to MacIntosh includes guest appearances by pretty much every well-known Mac nerd you can think of (including our own cuddly Leander Kahney).

Official blurb: “Filmmakers Josh Rizzo and Rob Baca trace the evolution of Apple computers from the Apple-1 to the iPhone in this documentary. They combine criticism and history with an unapologetic celebration of the company that helped revolutionize home computing.”

Watch Welcome To Macintosh.

Great review by Dan Frakes over at Macworld.com. Finally a good use for a screen saver.

via Status Screen Saver and ScriptSaver Review | Utilities | Mac Gems | Macworld.

First, find your Facebook username by going to www.facebook.com/your_user/. Next, Open iChat, then select iChat » Preferences and click on the Accounts tab.

Click on the +  sign to add a new account, with these settings:

• Account Type is Jabber.
• Account name is your_user@chat.facebook.com, and enter your password.
• Click the drop-down arrow to reveal Server options. Enter chat.facebook.com as the server name.
• Enter 5222 as the port and click Done.
• Click Done again, start chatting it up with your FaceBook friends.

The Jawbone line has always been one of the more interesting brands out there. I bought one of the original models and have been using it daily. And yes, you can drive with the window rolled down going 50 mph and still be understood, amazing. Jawbone were the first guys to use bone conducting technology to minimize background noise, and they are still one of the few Bluetooth headset manufacturers out there that don’t make their customers look like douche bags or a “blue tool” when chatting hands-free.

Jawbone’s latest headset, the ICON, continues the company’s trend of attractive, full-featured, understated designs, but also adds some really impressive iPhone compatibility into the mix. The main addition is that when the ICON is paired with an iPhone, its battery meter will display in the status bar, just like Apple’s Blueooth headset did.

Additionally, the ICON allows users to set custom tones and change the voices of incoming call alerts, as well as featuring software called MyTALK that allows you to voice-control mini-apps and assign button.

I ordered one and will be getting it soon so I’ll have a review shortly. The new MyTalk features are in beta and we’ll see if they live up to the hype. And if you’re curious, I bought THE ACE.

Okay, Apple’s a couple of weeks in making its self-imposed deadline, but no matter: Apple has just released update 3.1 to their Boot Camp software, enabling official support for Windows 7. The update comes in two separate flavors — one for 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and one for 32-bit versions — and require official DVD…

via Cult of Mac.