#2 Disk Utility

Disk Utility is a powerful piece of software if you fully understand it's potential.  This guide will show you some of the basics to get you started.

Imagine if all of your cd's were on a hard drive, all of your programs and all of your data.  What if you could even make a bootable backup of your computer.  Disk Utility can do all of this.  It comes standard with any mac install under the utilities folder under applications.  

To make a copy or a backup of anything including any disk in your optical drive or even your hard drive simply open disk utilities and create a new image at the top of the window.  Enter the name you want to give your image and choose where to save it.  If the image is a backup of something it is usually a good idea to use an external hard drive or some other external location.  If it is a copy of your favorite game then your system hard drive is just fine.  Choose the size of the disk image keeping in mind that the disk image must be large enough to store all of the data you want to back up and the disk image takes up all of the space on your hard drive that you allot for it.  as far as the partitions are concerned it is best to use CD/DVD for backing up disks and Hard Disk for backing up hard drives and to use no map for a backup of data.  click create and Disk Utility will create your disk image

Once you have created the disk image use the restore button to back up your data to the disk image.  when it comes to retrieving your data you can either just open the image to see the files.  Or you can use restore again on the drive that needs restoring to restore your lost data

That is it for now, if you have any suggestions for upcoming Tips, Tricks and Hacks just leave them in a comment after this post.

CoffieGuy

#1 .plist files

.plist files are amazing. Let me start with what they are. The .plist files are files that contain a list of all properties associated with a particular application. Every application has a corresponding .plist file. These files are located in ~/Library/Preferences/. It is hard to describe how much power the plist file has. It has full control of how any application behaves. For example, if you open an application and then select the name of the application from the tool bar you will find a drop down list of actions that can be performed. All of those options that are there are controlled directly by the plist file. You can take away and add to the list just by editing the corresponding file.

If you are willing to start editing plist files then there are a few things that you must do. First of all you must have a program to edit the plist file. If you are running the default build of OSX then developer tools is not installed. You do not need the entire suite but you will probably have to install all. What you are looking for is to install Property List Editor the program. This will allow you to modify, add and delete properties freely and easily. The developer tools package distributed on your OSX disk or alternatively can be downloaded from apple.com under the developer section. The other thing to keep in mind is that any time you are about to modify a system file is to back up the file. This can easily be accomplished by copying the file to the desktop. Also remember that after you make a modification to a plist file, you must log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

Plist files are one of those things that you must just spend some time muching around in before you fully understand what they can do, so don't get discouraged if you don't get it at first.

Just a side note as this is my first tip, I would like a lot of feedback on this post regarding the information; weather it is useful and if it has been conveyed in an understandable and meaningful way.

Thanks

CoffieGuy

The Beginning

I have several ideas for all Mac users out there that could be very useful. Mac is a wonderful operating system and has wonderful hardware to back it up, but at times it can be a little cumbersome for the power user who wants the OS to bend to his or her wishes. That is where this blog will help out.
I happen to know several tips, tricks and hacks that will make your computing life much simpler and more interesting. I plan to give a new idea at a regular interval probably every week. I hope this helps with work, school, and everyday life.

CoffieGuy