Ask Different 
Posts Tagged ‘utilities’
Interesting new UNIX commands/binaries in OS X Mountain Lion
In addition to those on its well-known list of 200+ new features, OS X Mountain Lion also brings along a handful of new UNIX commands and binaries. Most are probably outside the scope of Ask Different (e.g. commands concerning Radius Authentication, Kerberos or Berkeley DB maintainance) but some of them may prove valuable to (aspiring) power users out there. As always, you will find more information in the corresponding man pages.
Administrator commands (/usr/sbin)
sharing – create share points for afp, ftp and smb services
This is a great addition to the UNIX shell level: a tool to create, modify and delete share points (aka shared directories). In its most basic form it can be used like this to add a share for a specific directory on afp, ftp and smb/Samba:
sudo sharing -a /Users/bob/bobs-toolbox
To turn off guest access to the newly-created share, use
sudo sharing -e /Users/bob/bobs-toolbox -g 000
Removing the share entirely is as easy as
sudo sharing -r /Users/bob/bobs-toolbox
In addition, sharing allows for individual names and access rights for all three sharing protocols and access to protocol-specific details.
The only drawback is that the command must always be run as root, but that’s probably only a minor issue for most users and uses.
Taking Screenshots is a Snap
Screenshots, pictures of a computer screen, are often used to illustrate software reviews and workflow tutorials. They’re particularly useful to the Ask Different community. It’s sometimes difficult to explain multiple settings in a preference pane or application dialog box. Many questions and answers can be improved by including images. Best of all, it’s free and easy. Mac OS X includes all of the tools you need to take great screenshots and the process is painless once you develop an efficient workflow.
The specifics of this tutorial are geared towards Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. The basic steps for taking a screenshot are the same for previous versions of Mac OS X going back as far as I can recall, but some details and the capabilities of Preview will vary according the version of the OS you’re using.
Desktop Shutterbug
Taking a picture of the entire desktop is simple. Press ⌘(command) + shift + 3 simultaneously on the keyboard and you’ll hear a shutter click (assuming your Macintosh audio isn’t muted). In a moment, an image file will appear on the desktop. If you want to copy the captured image directly into the clipboard without creating a file—to paste directly into another application—use ⌃(control) + ⌘(command) + shift + 3.
This is a screenshot of my desktop. That’s a screenshot file in the upper right corner.