Osx | Diogo Gomes Blog

Posts Tagged osx

I recently got a new Macbook Pro, which means I also moved to Snow Leopard (not that I couldn’t have stayed with Leopard).

I keep a Time Machine backup, and could have used it to move all my files to the new system. But since I had to many things installed which I don’t use anymore, I decided to move just my personal settings to the new system.

This constituted a great opportunity to list the applications I consider essential:

1 Password
Adium
Flip4Mac
git
Growl
Handbrake
KisMAC
Freemind
MacPorts
NetNewsWire
Office 2008
Papers
Perian
Seashore
Skype
Telephone
VLC
VMWare Fusion
Wireshark
XCode

And had to leave GPGMail out (no snow leopard version currently available)

The question now is: What am I missing ?

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Why I’m not upgrading to Snow Leopard

September 2, 2009 English

It’s that time of the year again, when everyone rushes to upgrade their OS to their latest version that just got release or is in the process of…

Upgrades are done because people techies just need to have the latest version of everything. Even when the new version will enable them to do exactly the same task they were doing before. And lets face it, if the new version wasn’t released yet, you would still be able to do your work.

“do your work”, now this is tricky… because most of the times an upgrade to the OS breaks a lot of applications (and I’m not even calling in Linux Upgrades that sometimes leave the System Inoperable…).

Reports fly all over the Internet about failed applications, some quite amusing, and there is even a wiki just to track the subject.

In the end it all comes down to a week or two of low productivity for anyone that just had to be the first to upgrade…

I don’t have the time to be less productive, especially considering that I’m preparing the final version of my thesis. To lose a single day upgrading would cost me dearest…

I’m not saying that I will not upgrade, I’m just saying that I will wait until all dust settles.

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Safari 4 Beta

March 7, 2009 English

So today I jumped over my head and went nutz by installing Safari 4 Beta.

I Hate it! Changing the tabs position is messing up with my productivity. Is gaining 1 extra line worth it ?

On the good side: It’s fast, and thats noticeable; coverflow is pretty but not something that again can add to my productivity.

I’ll give a thumbs up to the “Top Sites” feature, since it pretty much solves the issue of which page to use as homepage

For all that matters, I was better of with Safari 3.

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Bypassing a restrictive Firewall using SSH

February 20, 2009 English

If you are faced with a restrictive firewall implemented by your local admin. But luckily enough to have access to a SSH server! You can use the following tip:

A SOCKS proxy can easily be setup using SSH, in a terminal type:

ssh -D 8080 -Nf your.sshserver.com

Then just change your Browser/Application settings to point towards localhost port 8080

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Secure Screen Sharing

February 3, 2009 English

At home I keep a MacMini Media Center which from time to time I access it remotely. Usually I do this through the SSH Server in OS X. But eventually I might need to access it through a GUI. Here comes in hand Apple’s OS X nifty tool called “Screen Sharing” which is actually a VNC Server/Client.

You can setup “Screen Sharing” at the same place you setup the SSH Server in “System Preferences -> Sharing” by ticking “Screen Sharing” and “Remote Login” respectively.

Being that my MacMini lies behind my home firewall. I have setup a port forward mechanism for the SSH protocol. As for “Screen Sharing” the solution was to tunnel it through an ssh session in order to secure my connection.

This is very easily accomplished by these simple commands:

On your client run:

ssh username@home.ip.address -L 5900:localhost:5900

This will establish a SSH tunnel which tunnels all packets from your client 5900 port to your “MacMini” at the same port (5900 is the default port for VNC services). Please note that in this example I’m forwarding port 22 (ssh server) directly from my firewall to my macmini.

Next, it’s time to connect to it using OSX “Screen Sharing” utility. To do this open a terminal and type: