Mac OS X Quick Tips

Here is a collection of Mac Quick Tips, i use often. It will be supplemented, every time i find a new Tip.

hidden files in Finder on/off

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false; killall Finder

show content of the ~/Library folder

chflags nohidden ~/Library

special characters on us-international keyboard

Character	Key combination
°	Shift + Option + 8

special characters on german keyboard

Character	Key combination
\|	Option + 7
~	Option + n
{	Option + (
}	Option + )
\	Option + Shift + 7 (Option + /)
[	Option + 5
]	Option + 6

quit Application in Task Switch

press Q when the task is selected

create/burn ISO Image from cmdline

hdiutil create -format UDTO -srcdevice /dev/disk2s0 cd.cdr
mv cd.cdr cd.iso

hdutil burn cd.iso

boot time key functions

key	function
alt	boot different OS
N	boot from netboot disk
T	start in target disk mode
cmd-v	verbose mode

clipboard and comandline

With pbcopy and pbpaste the clipboard is accesible from the comandline. For example with

ls | pbcopy

you get an directory listing in the clipboard.

limit size of backup.sparsebundle on server

hdiutil resize -size 200g -shrinkonly machine.sparseimage

screen shots

key	function
cmd + shift + 3	entire screen
cmd + shift + 4	portion of screen
cmd + shift + 4 → space	entire window