terminal

If you regularly script tasks in the Terminal, you might find at times that handling windows can be a burden. While an unused Terminal window can quickly be closed by pressing Command-W or clicking the red button at the top of the window, if you run numerous scripts then you may be left with a number of windows to close.

One way you can better manage these windows is to change the default Terminal behavior for when a terminal shell exits. By default, the Terminal will keep the window open and display the text "[process completed]," leaving you … Read more

The number of options available in the Mac OS and its applications can be difficult to manage for all but expert users. With MacPilot for Mac, users can track and change settings in a number of areas from one program.

The free trial version of MacPilot for Mac comes with a 15-day usage limit, while the full program requires a payment of $19.95 to activate. The program's native installer set the program up quickly, but a lengthy user agreement must be accepted to use the program. Upon startup, the user is prompted to purchase the full version or … Read more

While the need to locate a specific line in a text file may not be a very useful feature in regular prose text, for managing structured code such as scripts and XML files that are common in OS X, being able to identify a specific line or two may be quite useful.

If you have attempted shell scripting in OS X, you may find that when your scripts run into errors you will be given a brief description of the problem that includes the line where the problem occurred. While the use of BBEdit, TextWrangler, and other powerful text editors … Read more

Two California men have been indicted for allegedly hacking point-of-sale terminals at Subway shops to steal at least $40,000.

Prosecutors accused Shahin Abdollahi, aka "Sean Holdt," and Jeffrey Thomas Wilkinson of hacking at least 13 point-of-sale (POS) terminals to install software that fraudulently loaded at least $40,000 onto Subway gift cards, according to an indictment unsealed in Boston on Friday (see below). The pair then allegedly used the cards to make purchases at Subway shops and sold them on eBay and Craigslist.

Abdollahi owned a Subway franchise in Southern California from 2005 to 2008 and later … Read more

Apple's Spotlight offers a quick way to find user files and resources like applications or system preferences. However, it does not locate items in the system folder or in hidden folders, though at times you might need to access them. This limitation may be especially cumbersome to deal with if you are troubleshooting a problem in OS X or helping someone do so, meaning you may need to ask them to locate a specific hidden file and remove it or modify its contents.

For some system resources you can simply navigate through the Finder; however, in its default view … Read more

The OS X Terminal is a very powerful tool for configuring and using a Mac, and can be used to script and program a number of aspects of the computer's operations; however, its text-based interface can be a bit of a cryptic environment to first-timers, especially when it comes to finding out what you can use it for.

There are thousands of Terminal commands available, but when you first launch it you might not have a clue where to look for them. Of course there are basic commands like "ls" for listing directory contents or "cd&… Read more

When one of the most famous buildings, let alone the busiest train terminal in the world, turns 100, a lot of people stand up and take notice.

So it should come as no surprise that on its 100th birthday today, the world celebrated the grandeur of Grand Central Terminal, New York's shining beacon to public transportation, still vital and busy after all these years.

In 2010, I had the privilege of visiting Grand Central and getting a behind-the-scenes look at some of its greatest secrets, and some of its most awe-inspiring views. Given the opportunity to look out over … Read more

If you need to adjust network settings on your Mac, the quickest route is to do so through the OS X system preferences and menu extras. However, you can also make these changes -- adding and removing ports, creating new locations, switching to DHCP from manual configurations, changing MTU sizes, and managing 802.1x profiles, among others -- via the command line.

The utility for doing this is the command "networksetup," which can be used to quickly apply a change to a specific network property. This tool covers every aspect of the Mac's network setup and you … Read more

While setting your Mac to automatically sleep after a period of inactivity has its energy-saving benefits, you may find that the system will go to sleep even when it is churning through data (e.g., applying a lengthy filter routine to groups of images).

This issue happens because Apple has implemented some changes to the latest versions of OS X that result in different requirements for the system to determine if it can go to sleep, and one of these is a new dependence on applications to invoke a "power assertion" to keep the system from going to … Read more