Settings

Theme

Show HN: Mac Hacks Wiki – A central repo for your ‘default writes’

machacks.whiskykilo.com

27 points by whiskykilo · 21 comments

Reader

9 threads
danudey

This seems like a better-documented, less-complete, and less user-friendly version of Secrets[1].

[1] http://secrets.blacktree.com

  • whiskykiloOP

    I've actually never run into Secrets! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I will certainly be adding more to it over time. Do you have any specific suggestions?

jjangsangy

Cool stuff, lots of really good automation tricks that I haven't seen. I have a similar routine of doing a clean wipe every once in a while and wrote a bunch of scripts to make the process less painful.

One of the more useful ones is a small shell wrapper around homebrew cask that batches installation packages based on category, and one that automates symbolically linking dotfiles using a configuration file.

https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/c226a9d199fdd9ecba1f

https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/2951a63fe45d2010bd8d

  • moepstar

    Ok, but doing a clean wipe to just reload a backup from TimeMachine won't do any good since it'll restore all the cruft back, right?

    Which leads me to my second point: How would you go finding all those still relevant dotfiles and folders for settings of programs you still want to use and, with wiping, removing all obsolete ones?

Scarbutt

I use Karabiner to customize just two keys, does anyone know how can I make the enter key act as a control key when pressed simultaneously with another key and act as enter key when pressed alone? was thinking of a script that is called at startup.

fit2rule

A better way to handle these (in my opinion) is to use the Secrets.prefPane .. and the related website:

http://secrets.blacktree.com/

A much more comprehensive collection of tweaks and tips for OSX administration.. though I did learn a few things from WhiskyKilo which were quite interesting - I have wondered how to do this from the command line for years and am glad to have finally learned: "sudo softwareupdate -i -a" .. fantastic!

  • McUsr

    I advise everybody to not mess with any secrets setting that is listed with a red font.

cweiss

Without delving much past the first page, it seems like Boxen would cover a lot of this territory? Boxen [1] is a puppet-based OS-X provisioning tool used by (among others) GitHub to set up new Macs in a hurry. It does take a little while to get configured and dialed in, but once it's set up, (re)provisioning a new Mac is almost fun.

[1] https://boxen.github.com/

jimmcslim

"This will download and install all updates available for your Mac: sudo softwareupdate -i -a"

I'm assuming that it won't install App Store software that is in your account but not installed on the current machine? Which if so is a shame that Apple haven't exposed this via the command line (preferably specifying the name of the application to install).

coherentpony

Where's the repository? I don't see it.

Edit: I'm an idiot. I thought the title referred to a VCS repository.

whiskykiloOP

So far there's been a pull request and a few additional hacks merged in tonight! Thanks everybody!

Scarbutt

"Seriously, iTunes, does anyone still use you?"

What do you use instead of itunes?

Keyboard Shortcuts

j
Next item
k
Previous item
o / Enter
Open selected item
?
Show this help
Esc
Close modal / clear selection