RCDefaultApp is a Mac OS X 10.2 or higher preference pane that allows a user to set the default application used for various URL schemes, file extensions, file types, MIME types, and Uniform Type Identifiers (or UTIs; MacOS 10.4 only). MacOS X uses the extension and file type settings to choose the application when opening a file in Finder, while Safari and other applications use the URL and MIME type settings at other times for content not related to a file (such as an unknown URL protocol, or a media stream).

The practical application for this app, as I see it is: use it to assign every possible video format to VLC! (there will be a Mac Essentials post about VLC coming soon). Of course you can use it to assign any other filetype to any other app as well.

Download Now

I actually just found JDownloader the other day, but I already think it's good enough make a post about. What makes JDownloader good is that it's open source (it's free) and platform independent. What makes it great is that it's capable of downloading files from all sorts of popular uploader sites such as rapidshare and megaupload with or without a premium account. Updates work well, I haven't had any errors, it's downloading everything just fine. Definitely worth checking out.

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So assuming that most of the people who get a hold of your computer arn't going to know what a dotfile is, using them is a great way to hide things.  Here's how to do it.

1. Open the Terminal
2. Navigate to a folder you want to store files in (Use cd and ls)
3. Type mkdir .foldername to create a new hidden folder
4. Open Finder and hit Command + Shift + G
5. Type the full path to the folder you want to open

There you go, you can save all your secret files in this folder and your significant other or kid won't be able to find it! (maybe)

Web Browser - Firefox

What seperates Firefox from the rest? And why should you use it rather than just use Safari? Firefox has a lot going for it, speed, ease of use, but to me it's all about the Add-ons. Here are some of my favorites:

Stumbleupon - Like a channel changer for the internet. Press the stumble button and you'll be sent to a random web page (you can set up what kinds of content you want to be shown) I've found more interesting stuff on stumble than on digg and youtube combined. Plus you can give sites you like a thumbs up and sites you dislike a thumbs down, which over time refines what sites you see.

AutoPager - Automatically loads additional content on pages with page numbers such as google and many forums. This means for a lot of pages, you'll never need to click "Next", just scroll down!

Download Statusbar - Shows your downloads at the bottom of the web browser, no need for a download window.

Fission - Safari did spoil me in some ways, Fission duplicates the Safari style where a progress bar loads in the address bar as the web page load.

FireFTP - A free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

Better Gmail 2 - Add useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, macros, file attachment icons, and more.

Here's the thing, Firefox is great and all, but I'm sure you've seen the speed comparison tests showing how Firefox 3 ranks up against the competitors. Well, what ever you heard, the truth is that (as of the most recent builds) "Firefox, Chrome virtually tied for JavaScript speed". However, if you want firefox to be that fast, you have to go for the beta builds. Firefox 3.1b2 has some amazing new features and it's faster! If you already have Firefox, try out the beta. If you don't have Firefox, what rock have you been living under?

Download Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 or Download Firefox 3.0 Stable

It is possible.
Don't do it.
The end.

I tried it, and successfully booted Ubuntu 8.10 on my MacBook Pro. I'm sure if you look around you could find the same guide I used, but here's the verdict: It just didn't work very well. Drivers were buggy and mouse control was awful. I just didn't see any reason to keep it around, especially since OS X is such a close relative of Linux anyways. Unfortunately when I tried to remove it, the swap partition simply wouldn't budge. Trust me, I tried every possible method for reformatting that partition, but no dice. Long story short, I ended up reformatting the whole hard drive just to get everything back together. Many hours sunk, no progress made, NOT WORTH IT! You'll be better off putting it on your old windows box or just using virtualization.

If you tried it yourself, why don't you comment here on how it went.

First, here's the point: Using windows file sharing (Samba/SMB) is a good way to access your files across your home network, but don't even think about trying it over the internet. In order to access SMB shares across the internet you're going to need to get creative. A method which works reasonably well is using a zero-configuration VPN program such as Hamachi, Remobo, Wippen, etc. to create a virtual lan connecion, thus fooling your computer into connecting like you were on the same lan. That works, but in my experience it isn't very reliable, it has limitations, it has overhead, and it means you have to have that ZCVPN client on both ends. So here's my solution, skip the program, jump straight to the solution. If you use an SSH tunnel to connect to your computer, you can access your SMB shares, you can use VNC to view your screen, or do just about anything that uses a port on your host computer. The best part about it is, once you have it up and running, it's really simple to use!

Note: This post will assume that your "server" machine is running windows and your "client" machine is running Mac OS X Leopard.

Here's how to do it:

1. Enable file sharing on your host computer (I'm going to assume this is running Windows). This will allow your files to be shared across your local network. If you don't know how to do that, there's a very good guide Here.

2. (Optional) Disable simple file sharing and edit the permissions on your shares so that the shares are password protected. You only need to do this if you don't want just anyone on your local network to be able to access your files. (Google it)

3. Install an SSH server on your host computer, I'd recommend freeSSHd. This will allow your to create a secure connection between your computers. I'd suggest freeSSHd because it's free and much easier to use than many of the alternatives (OpenSSH/Cygwin).

4. On the SSH tab in the freeSSHd settings, change the port to whatever port you want, I'll be using 12345 in my examples. I'd recommend something in between 10000 and 50000 so that a network scanner is less likely to pick up the port.

5. On the Users tab in freeSSHd, add a user with the username and password of your choice, set your password as "Password stored as SH1 hash".

6. On the Tunneling tab in freeSSHd, enable local and remote port forwarding.

7. Test your SSH server to make sure you can connect to it using a computer on the same network as the SSH server. You will need the local IP of the SSH server for this step you can find it using This guide.

To test it from your mac machine:

1. Open the Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
2. Use the command ssh -p port username@hostip (Example: ssh -p 12345 lococobra@192.168.0.2)

8. Enable port-forwarding on your router to your SSH server at the port you used - Follow one of the guides for your router Here but use the port for SSH (12345)

9. (Optional) Set up an automatic DNS server for your host computer, you can set that up Here for free. I'd really suggest you do this, its very useful! Once you have that set up, install the No-IP Dynamic Update Client so that your DNS always matches your dynamic IP.

10. Test your SSH connection via the port forward. This is almost exactly the same as before, except instead of using the IP you got from ipconfig, use your global IP (or the DNS you set up in step 9). You can find your global IP Here. Example: ssh -p 12345 lococobra@myDNS.hopto.org

Now that we have all that set up, we're almost done. What we're going to do is connect via SSH and forward the SMB ports from our host computer to our client. This will allow you to access your shares remotely. It works because your ssh/smb server will think that it's directly connected with your client computer, when in fact the connection is all handled through SSH. The tricky part is, OS X Leopard will not allow you to do this. If you forward the SMB ports from the server to client computer, then the client will think that it's connecting to itself, and so Leopard will deny the connect. In order to defeat this we're going to have to work some magic.

11. Set up an alias for your loopback connection (localhost/127.0.0.1) on your Mac. This will fool your computer into thinking it's connecting to an external IP. This command needs admin privileges, so you have to use sudo. The command is:

sudo ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.2 alias up

This will create a temporary alias for your loopback connection which will stay active until the computer is restarted.

12. Edit the all users configuration file for your SSH settings so that you can connect quickly without setting it up each time.

1. Open the Terminal and run sudo pico /etc/ssh_config
2. Enter the following text above the line that says " #Host *", change the user and port to the ones you have used in your SSH configuration.

Host AliasForHost
HostName hostip
Port 12345
User YourUserName
ServerAliveInterval 200
ServerAliveCountMax 3
LocalForward 127.0.0.2:139 127.0.0.1:139
LocalForward 127.0.0.2:445 127.0.0.1:445

Keep in mind that you can add any number of ports to this list. For example, if you want to connect to VNC, add 5900 to that list. Then to use VNC, connect to 127.0.0.2:5900.

Hit control + x, Y, and enter to save the file. Since we're saving it as a dotfile (there's a dot at the beginning) you won't be able to see it. If you need to edit it again, you can do it through pico the same way.

13. Initiate the SSH connection with your host computer using the host alias we set up before.

sudo ssh AliasForHost

14. Connect to the Samba share. Open a Finder window and hit command+ k to open a Connect to Server windows. For the server address, use:

smb://127.0.0.2

Now click Connect, and if everything went well you should be prompted with a window to enter your Login credentials for the server machine!

Wow, that was complicated, but at this point it doesn't need to be. Here's a little AppleScript I came up with to automate the connection. (Don't worry about running the ifconfig over and over, it won't hurt anything)

set Command to "sudo ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.2 alias up; sudo ssh AliasForHost"

tell application "Terminal"
if (count of windows) is 0 then
do script Command
else
do script Command in window 1
end if
activate
end tell

You can save that script as an application using the AppleScript Script Editor and run it to automatically run those commands.

I know for most people that post was probably really confusing but I tried! If you need help please comment or something. I'll get back to you.

Edit: Take a look at Fredrik's script in the first comment for  an even more automated solution for connecting and mounting.

Edit2: I found a much more efficient way to actually initiate the connection using a host alias, take a look at the part about the ssh_config file

Why?

Well, I did have my reasons, I bought one of the new generation MacBook Pros, 2.4ghz 2gb ram, etc. It just seemed like I these MacBooks were so well built. I needed a laptop for school and I didn't want some thick piece of plastic that I would be disappointed with both in immediately and eventually. My OS X experience was limited to only what little time I had spent surfing the internet on my friend's mac. But I had an idea. I thought I could set up my old computer as a file-server or something. Of course ideas are to results as seconds are to days.

Enough back-story though, what's the point of this blog?

Well, I've learned a lot since then, I've been working hard to adjust, and I've been figuring out some pretty interesting stuff. Interesting enough that I thought it would be a shame for my work to go to waste. Instead I hope to post it here and pray that the right google search will lead some lucky guy to a shortcut in what could be hours of work.