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

Show HN: Mac Hacks Wiki – A central repo for your ‘default writes’(machacks.whiskykilo.com)

27 points by whiskykilo 11 years ago | 21 comments

danudey 11 years ago |

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

whiskykilo 11 years ago | |

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?

McUsr 11 years ago | | |

I advise everybody to not mess with anything written in red.

jjangsangy 11 years ago |

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 11 years ago | |

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 11 years ago |

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 11 years ago |

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 11 years ago | |

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

cweiss 11 years ago |

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 11 years ago |

"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).

whiskykilo 11 years ago | |

I believe it does. I will spin up an OS X VM and test it later tonight, since my MBPr is fully up to date. I will of course update the site with what I find.

whiskykilo 11 years ago | |

You can actually specify the application as well, IIRC. I will verify all of that later this evening when I'm in a place to do it.

whiskykilo 11 years ago | | |

I've updated the site to include the details you were asking about. I was able to test it all on a OS X VM with great success. http://machacks.whiskykilo.com/hacks/app-store.html

coherentpony 11 years ago |

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

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

whiskykilo 11 years ago | |

Actually, the whole site is a repo hosted on Github Pages. If you'd like to contribute, feel free to do a pull request. https://github.com/whiskykilo/machacks.whiskykilo.com

whiskykilo 11 years ago |

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

Scarbutt 11 years ago |

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

What do you use instead of itunes?

chunkstuntman 11 years ago | |

http://coppertino.com/ http://banshee.fm/ http://ncmpcpp.rybczak.net/ https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40721/winamp

sigsergv 11 years ago | | |

http://cogx.org

whiskykilo 11 years ago | |

I do most of my listening on Spotify, that was the only reason for the jab. I've just given up on iTunes for my personal use.

fit2rule 11 years ago | | |

I've been trying to do it for years, but you've just tipped me over the edge .. off to buy a new hard drive to contain all my music, export from iTunes, delete ~/Music, and start again .. fresh .. as if it were 1999 all over again and all I have to do is organize my music folders manually again, just like I used to .. Pity there's no way to manage iOS apps outside of iTunes, though.