Mac OS X setup tips & tricks

This post is kind of a reminder for myself when re-setting up my MacBook on which tools and applications I found to be useful for daily business. Feel free to comment, make suggestions or even send in pull-requests if you have different recommendations. :)

Applications

System

• Little Snitch
• Personal Firewall which enables you to see and disallow whenever anything tries to connect to the internet
• MUST-HAVE, do not want to go without it anymore
• iTerm2
• Homebrew from http://brew.sh or install via ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go/install)"
  • Homebrew Cask - homebrew-style CLI workflow for the administration of Mac applications distributed as binaries
• Install “oh-my-zsh” via curl -L https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh | sh
• install the “agnoster” theme with the specific fonts and Solarized Dark iTerm2 colorscheme
• CodeWeavers’ CrossOver to run Windows Applications - worth every cent!!!
• iStatMenus http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/ - (Nice2have) configurable system monitor app for the status bar
• AppCleaner to completely remove apps with all related files e.g. settings, cache and “~/Library/Application Support”
• Apple Mastered for iTunes - Audio Mastering Tools
• drag-and-drop tool to create iTunes Plus audio files

Preference Panes/ Settings

• Secrets.prefPane http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-secrets/
• Visual interface to display and edit all preferences which are only changeable via command-line
• TinkerTool http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html
• RCDefaultApp http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/
• Manage default application associations for specific file-types
• Relink Java preference pane
• /Library/PreferencePanes/JavaControlPanel.prefPane
• Add Quicklook plugins
• a collection for developers https://github.com/sindresorhus/quick-look-plugins
• ZIP, rar, jar -> http://macitbetter.com/BetterZip-Quick-Look-Generator/
• CSV -> http://code.google.com/p/quicklook-csv/
• Further more -> http://www.quicklookplugins.com/
• Quicktime Codecs
• Flip4Mac http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac/overview.htm
• XVid http://www.xvid.org/Software.83.0.html
• MPEG2 -> Apple-QuickTimeMPEG2-Codec (unsupported since OS X Lion)

General

• Firefox
• MacPass OpenSource OS X implementation of the *KeePass password manager
• LibreOffice
• Burn http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/
• free DVD authoring software
• Cyberduck - Great visual SCP, FTP, SFTP client
• Zipeg
• view and extract contents of Archives like ZIP, RAR, JAR, WAR, tar.gz and others
• in contrast to most other tools, Zipeg lets you look into an archive before uncompressing it to some folder
• -TotalFinder http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/ - 18$ and worth every Cent!-
• Transmission http://www.transmissionbt.com/ - Torrent client
• Adium messaging client for XMPP, Jabber, ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more
• yEd Graph Editor - Best for quick diagramms; Java-based, also available for Linux + Win
• Audacity - multi format audio file editor
• Glims Safari-Extension
• Pixelmator - the best graphics editor around (App Store)
• Sublime Text (and the companying ‘subl’ command line util) - great text editor
• Pocket (App Store) - formerly known as “ReadItLater”
• Outbank (App Store) - online banking
• Keynote - for presentations (App Store)
• Caffeine (App Store) - to block the screen dimming down
• Display Menu (App Store) - to easily change to the screen resolution a beamer supports
• Skim (App Store) - PDF viewer
• Skitch (App Store) - Screenshot tool with support for annotations
• ECamm’s PhoneView for local backup of my iDevices
• Android File Transfer

Development

• IntelliJ IDEA (Early Access Preview)
• XCode (App Store)
• Portecle - Utility for convenient management of Java keystores
• Database Clients
  • MongoDB 2.4 -> RoboMongo
  • MySQL -> Sequel Pro
  • SQLite -> SQLite Database Browser
  • Oracle DB -> Oracle SQL Developer
• SourceTree - Version Control client for Git and Mercurial
• Screeny - Screen recording utility (App Store)
• Vagrant
• rbenv for managing your ruby versions

Don’t forget to pimp your ~/.profile

export MAVEN_HOME=$HOME/dev/tools/apache-maven-3.1.0
export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m"
export JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="-Dfile.encoding=UTF8"
export PATH=$HOME/.rbenv/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

  if [ -f /opt/local/etc/bash_completion ]; then
      . /opt/local/etc/bash_completion
  fi

grepcode() {
        find ~/dev/repos -type d -name .git | parallel "cd {.} && git grep --color -I --full-name -i '$@' | sed 's@^\(.*\):@{.}\1: @'";
}

source ~/.aliases
source ~/.travis/travis.sh
source ~/.bash_dont_think.sh

eval "$(rbenv init -)"

Also checkout the awesome dotfiles (including useful aliases) by Mathias Bynens https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles

Glitches of the Finder

• Desktop folder behaves*different
• files in the Desktop folder will always be previewed in their icon
• movie files on the desktop do always consume CPU time for preview
• hides system files
• overwrites folders of the same name
• use TotalFinder from http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/
• Spotlight vs. Alfred
• Pro Spotlight
• built in
• Pro Alfred http://alfredapp.com/
• builds on Spotlight index but add’s specific configuration
• on the fly calculations
• directed searches
• easily customizable
• it’s free

Setup your (TimeMachine) Backup

At least backup your home directory, especially your ~/Library (yes, it’s a hidden folder)

If you liked this post, you might also be interested in “Enhancements for Mac OS X Finder” I posted some time ago.