Sundry Tips and Tricks Courtesy of Acme Technologies

Save and Restore Safari Tabs

I often find I need to quit Apple's Safari Browser because it starts running too slow (this is typically after days of non-stop usage with 20 or so tabs opened in various windows...), so I wrote a couple AppleScripts to save and restore the opened tabs. The scripts are cobbled together from examples at Apple Computer's AppleScript Web site, and requires you to turn on UIScripting support in the Accessiblity Control Panel. The scripts will automatically check for this and open System Preferences for you if it is not turned on.

About the Scripts: There's one script to save the Safari tabs, and another to restore them [one of these days I'll combine the two...]. I keep mine in the Utilities directory, but you can save them anywhere you want, or put them in a Scripts menu. The URLs are saved in a text file located at: "~/Library/Preferences/Saved Safari URLs" Download: Save Safari Locations

Speeding up Safari

Awhile back I started getting so frustrated by how slow Safari became over extended usage, I spent some time looking for tips to counter this behavior. There were several suggestions but the two which helped me the most were the following:

1. Open up Safari Preferences, select "AutoFill" and uncheck "Other Forms".

2. Clear out the web site icon cache periodically (favicon.ico files Safari caches for sites you visit). This is accomplished by quitting Safari, then in the Finder, navigating to the ~/Library/Safari directory in your Home folder and throwing the "Icons" folder into the trash. Panther's Blue Exposé Blob

Mac OS X-Panther Floating Blue Blob

Wow!! It's one of those hidden features in Panther (yes, requires System 10.3 or later). Located inside the Dock.app preferences and there's a key named wvous-floater and setting it to true exposes this other-wordly floating orb. But what's it for you ask... It comes to life when the mouse moves inside it, and clicking on it activates the Exposé "Application Windows" feature. Use option-click to activate Exposé's all windows.

To turn on the Blob, open up Terminal.app (In your Utilities folder) and type the line below, the restart the Dock:


	defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true

That is a single line, NOT two lines (even though it's probably split into two lines in your browser). To turn it off again, change "true" to "false". Easy way to restart the Dock is (in Terminal.app) type "killall Dock".

[My source for this tip can be found here: MacNN Forums with more info here.]

Controlling iTunes from Terminal.app

Get More
Mac OS X Tips
here...
Mac OS X:
The Missing Manual,
Panther Edition

Do you every find yourself saying, "Gee, I wish I could control iTunes from Terminal.app..."? Well, maybe you haven't, but I tend to use my G4 desktop as a Jukebox, and usually it's sitting on the other side of the room from where I'm working on the laptop. I got to thinking how I might control iTunes remotely; a half-hour of Googling and two hours of tinkering yielded the perfect solution for my work environment.

Since I'm always logged into my other computer via ssh, and use Terminal for various tasks throughout the day, a command-line solution seemed ideal. Along the way though, I discovered yet another excellent application from ShirtPocket Software called NetTunes (I knew them previously for their SuperDuper product which among other features, will make bootable images of your OS X volumes). NetTunes was more than I needed, but nonetheless a very cool application, so check it out if you use iTunes on multiple computers within your network.

I opted for a unix shell script which uses Mac OS X's "osascript" utility [in Terminal.app type: 'man osascript' for more info] and now I can type simple commands like: "itunes play", "itunes vol up", "itunes mute" in my remote login session. Typing "itunes" alone, or "itunes help" produces the display below.

$ itunes ----------------------------- iTunes Command Line Interface ----------------------------- Usage: itunes <option> Options: status = Shows iTunes' status, current artist and track. play = Start playing iTunes. pause = Pause iTunes. next = Go to the next track. prev = Go to the previous track. mute = Mute iTunes' volume. unmute = Unmute iTunes' volume. vol up = Increase iTunes' volume by 10% vol down = Increase iTunes' volume by 10% vol # = Set iTunes' volume to # [0-100] stop = Stop iTunes. quit = Quit iTunes. playlist @ = Play iTunes' playlist named @ list = list playlists.
You'll want to save the script somewhere in your $path, then 'chmod 755 filename' to make it executable. The original script was written by David Schlosnagle.
Download: iTunes Command Line Control v1.1

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