Steve

3-minute read

R

Every so often – usually around the time of a major new macOS release – I perform a clean install of the OS on my Macs. Along with restoring user data I tend to restore the configuration data of certain applications including the Microsoft Office applications. While this is a great timesaver, it can also cause some unexpected results. For example, the Recent file lists in Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Let’s use Word as an example.

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Automator Action to Toggle the Display of Desktop Icons in macOS

Steve

Mac

3-minute read

A

It’s no secret that Desktop icons can be hidden in macOS, but unlike many user-configurable options neither System Preferences nor the Finder‘s preferences provide a way to toggle their display. It’s true that the Desktop display of drive icons and some device icons can be controlled through the Finder, but in this context Desktop icons refer to all icons shown on the Desktop including those that represent folders, files or symbolic links.

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Setting the Desktop Image in macOS Mojave From the Command Line

Steve

Mac

14-minute read

S

Prior to OS X Mavericks 10.9 a user’s Desktop image was stored in com.apple.desktop.plist located in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder and changed from the command line using:

defaults write com.apple.desktop Background '{default = {ImageFilePath = "/path/to/desktop/image.jpg";};}'

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Setting the Date and Time Format for the macOS Menu Bar Clock Using Terminal

Steve

Mac

4-minute read

S

In the Clock tab of the Date & Time pane of System Preferences you can choose between displaying a digital or analog clock in the menu bar. For a digital clock there are five options that determine how the date and time are displayed:

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Using Terminal to Find Your Mac’s Network Name

Steve

Networking

8-minute read

U

Your Mac’s network name forms part of its network address. If you want to share your Mac’s files and folders with other computers on your network you’ll need to know its network address so that those other computers can connect to it. This information is readily available in System Preferences, but this article looks at how to get your Mac’s network name using the command line.

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Add a Recent or Favorites Folder to Your Dock Using the macOS Terminal

Steve

Mac

4-minute read

A

Type the query add recents dock terminal into any Internet search engine and most – if not all – relevant entries on the first results page will give the following code or a slight variation of it:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{"tile-data" = {"list-type" = 1;}; "tile-type" = "recents-tile";}'; killall Dock

Most of these articles are from 2015 or earlier and the Mac OS has changed a lot since, but the code still appears to do exactly as advertised.

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Where to Place Local Web Site Content When Using XAMPP on a Mac

Steve

Local Server

9-minute read

W

A web site located on a local computer is accessed in a browser through the URL localhost and normally served by a local Apache server. There are two parts to this process. The first is the resolution of the name localhost to the IPv4 loopback address 127.0.0.1 which is configured in the local computer’s hosts file.

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Using the Cloudflare API to Manage DNS Records

Steve

Web Development

31-minute read

U

I’m probably doing Cloudflare a disservice by categorising it as a CDN provider, but that’s certainly one of the many services they offer and perhaps how most individuals using their free offering see them. Like me, I’m certain the vast majority of that group use the Cloudflare dashboard to configure their domains, but Cloudflare provides an API that allows you to programmatically manage those DNS records through a command-line interface of a *nix shell such as Bash.

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Python Conditional (if) Statement Throwing Error in Command Mode One-Liner

Steve

Mac

7-minute read

P

I had a situation where I needed to pass code to Python in the form of a single command instead of a script file. While this is easily done by invoking Python in command mode, the code contained a conditional statement that caused Python to throw an error.

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Secure Erasing a Mac Fusion Drive

Steve

Mac

9-minute read

S

Before selling my late 2015 27″ iMac Retina 5K I wanted to secure erase its 1TB Fusion Drive consisting of a 24GB SSD and 1TB HDD. Secure erasing an HDD is simple enough using the Security Options in Disk Utility, but for Fusion Drives and SSDs this option is not available. To secure erase the iMac’s HDD I first needed to break the Fusion Drive into its constituent parts using Terminal.

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Removing Entries from the Microsoft Office Apps Recent Files Lists in macOS

Automator Action to Toggle the Display of Desktop Icons in macOS

Setting the Desktop Image in macOS Mojave From the Command Line

Setting the Date and Time Format for the macOS Menu Bar Clock Using Terminal

Using Terminal to Find Your Mac’s Network Name

Add a Recent or Favorites Folder to Your Dock Using the macOS Terminal

Where to Place Local Web Site Content When Using XAMPP on a Mac

Using the Cloudflare API to Manage DNS Records

Python Conditional (if) Statement Throwing Error in Command Mode One-Liner

Secure Erasing a Mac Fusion Drive

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