Tag Archive - mac os x

Revised OS X application list

December 17, 2010 in Other software with 0 Comments

I’d like to make some changes to my list with 12 great applications for Mac OS X.

Reeder
Google reader client
Reeder is the de facto Google Reader client for iOS devices, and now there’s a beta available for OS X as well. And it’s great.

Sorry Gruml, you’re out.

Free (beta) at reederapp.com

Sparrow
Gmail client
Sparrow is a minimalistic and good looking Gmail client (IMAP support for other providers is in the making). Sparrow is great for me and my (very limited) mail flow, for more extensive Gmail use I’d still recommend Mailplane.

Free (beta) at sparrowapp.com

Also, I’ve heard that Homebrew is a great alternative to MacPorts, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

Great applications for Mac OS X

September 13, 2010 in Other software with 4 Comments

Here’s 12 Mac OS X applications I use, like and recommend. All of them is making my life easier, in one way or another. Some are more costly then others, always look around for alternatives and test the trial versions before spending a lot of money.

1Password
Password manager
1Password is a complete solution for managing (and generating) passwords on Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone and iPad. 1Password hooks into your web browser for full integration, and the iPhone and iPad app can sync passwords with your computer either via Wifi or Dropbox.

$39.95 at agilewebsolutions.com ($9.99 for iPhone/iPad app)

Aperture
Photo editing and management
If you’re like me, you take a lot of pictures, and managing them without a proper tool can be a hassle. Aperture does import, organizing and editing/retouching in one application. Amongst other things, Aperture has support for face recognition and organizing by GPS location (if your photos are tagged). Aperture can import (and convert) your iPhoto database.

$199 at apple.com

Backblaze
Automated online backup
Doing regular backups is very important, especially if you’re storing important data on your computer (family photos & videos for example). While it’s possible to manage your own backups manually, it’s usually a good idea to invest in a real backup service. With a Backblaze account you can backup unlimited amounts of data and it’s done automatically in the background for you. And the data is stored “off site”, i.e., if your house burns down, your data is still safe.

$5/month at backblaze.com

Coda
One-window web development
Coda is a minimalistic application intended (mainly) for web development. It features syntax highlighting, svn, css, terminal support and much more. I used to be a hardcore vim developer, but after switching to a “real GUI application” I’ve never looked back.

$99 at panic.com

GlimmerBlocker
Ad blocker
GlimmerBlocker is a ad blocker for your web browser, but instead of hooking into the browser itself, it functions as a HTTP proxy. This way the stability of your browser isn’t affected and it works with any browser. GlimmerBlocker comes with a set of default filters that block most ads.

Free at glimmerblocker.com

Google Chrome
Web browser
Google Chrome is a browser optimized for searching. Strings entered into the address bar is passed to the search engine (Google by default :)). It uses WebKit for rendering, same as Safari, so there’s no problems with compatibility. Also, it’s very fast.

Free at google.com

Gruml
Google reader client
I’m a big Google Reader user, but using the web site feels a bit ungainly. A desktop application has the advantage of notifying you when there’s something new to read, never miss a story.

Free at grumlapp.com

HandBrake
Video transcoder
Ever wanted to convert something from a not-so-mac-friendly format to something a bit more manageable, to use with your iPhone or iPod for example? HandBrake does this, and it’s done fast and well. Presets exists for most gadgets, so there’s no confusion on what settings to use.

Free at handbrake.fr

MacPorts
Package management system
MacPorts is a community driven easy to use system for compiling, installing and maintaining open source software. It is very useful for installing various CLI utilities. Xcode is required.

Free at macports.org

Mailplane
Gmail client
Gmail is great, the web interface is easy and fast to work with, and the spamfilter is in a class of its own. Mailplane combines the Gmail web interface with a regular desktop application, allowing you to be notified when new email arrives.

$24.95 at mailplaneapp.com

Plex
Media center
Plex is a visually appealing media center with many features; Good codec support, RAR support (removed in Plex 9), movie/tv posters, etc. It also supports streaming to your iPhone or iPad, which is very nice. Plex is based on XMBC.

Free at plexapp.com ($4.99 for iPhone/iPad app)

Viscosity
OpenVPN client
OpenVPN client with nice and minimalistic GUI. Support for multiple servers, statistics, scripting and more. Well worth the money if you’re a OpenVPN user.

$9 at thesparklabs.com

Optimizing Mac OS X for SSD drives

August 27, 2010 in Other software, Scripting with 72 Comments

Updated for Lion 2011-07-21

SSD drives are very good speed wise. If you have the money, upgrading from a regular hard drives makes a world of difference. There are however some drawbacks compared to spinning hard drives, mainly the limit on how many writes you can do before things get ugly. For most users, this isn’t a problem. But it doesn’t hurt to take some steps to minimize the disk writes.

These tweaks are for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion) and mainly for laptop users.

1. Sleeping mode
By default, when closing the lid on a MacBook, the content of the ram is saved to disk for safety. The ram is still powered on however, and is used when starting up again. The content saved on disk is only used in case of a power loss. This behavior can be changed, at the cost of some safety, so that memory content is not saved to disk. On the bright side, you also save some disk space (equal to the amount of your RAM).

We can start by checking the current setting, fire up Terminal.app and type the following.

$ sudo pmset -g | grep hibernatemode
hibernatemode	3

3 is the default mode, we want to change this to 0 to disable disk writes.

$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

Now we can remove the old sleepimage.

$ sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

macworld.com has more information on this.

2. Hard drive sleep
Putting SSD hard drives to sleep has no benefit, and some SSD drives has a history of freezing up when put to sleep. This can be disabled under System Preferences -> Energy Saver. Remember to disable it for both Battery and Power Adapter mode.

3. Sudden motion sensor
Having the Sudden motion sensor enabled for a SSD drive makes no sense, this can be disabled with the following command.

$ sudo pmset -a sms 0

4. Enable noatime for SSD filesystems
Every time a file is accessed its access time is modified to reflect it. This can be disabled to save additional writes. To do this for the local filesystem create the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.noatime.root.plist with the following content.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.noatime.root</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>mount</string>
            <string>-uwo</string>
            <string>noatime</string>
            <string>/</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

This will execute mount -uwo noatime / upon system startup, remounting the root filesystem with the noatime option. This can be verified after a reboot with the following command.

$ mount |grep noatime
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled, noatime)

Note on FileVault: The instructions below are for legacy FileVault only. FileVault 2 users (Lion) doesn’t have to do anything special except the instructions above. Please see Apple article HT4790 on how to upgrade from legacy FileVault to FileVault 2.

For FileVault users as myself it seems to be a little bit trickier. The FileVault filesystem can’t be remounted at startup, since it’s not mounted until the user logs in. We can however create a script and a login hook to be run at login.

Lets start by creating a script called /usr/local/bin/remount_noatime with the following content.

#!/bin/bash
/sbin/mount -uwo noatime /Users/$1

$1 will contain the username when the script is run. Make it executable and create the login hook.

$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/remount_noatime
$ sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /usr/local/bin/remount_noatime

The script is now run with root privileges when a user logs in.

5. Disable Spotlight
If you’re not using Spotlight you should consider disabling it by running this command.

$ sudo mdutil -a -i off

I’ve been using the above settings (except #5) for about 6 months now without any issues.