Alex Meub

My Mac OSX Setup

Application Installs

Homebrew is a ridiculously good package management system for OSX. It’s a huge step above MacPorts and Fink when it comes to installing and managing open source software.

Spectacle is a free window resizing utility that gives you keyboard shortcuts to resize windows with.

TotalTerminal makes the built-in terminal accessible via a system-wide hotkey. After installing, run this command to fix duplicate terminal windows on startup:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal TotalTerminalCloseWindowsOnStart -bool YES

Seil is a utility for changing the function of the caps lock key. After installing, use Seil to change the capslock Key to map to F9 (101). Then in TotalTerminal make the shortcut key F9. This turns capslock into a key that’s actually useful, and makes the terminal accessible from anywhere. It also will disable the capslock light on your keyboard.

Dropbox, the popular file syncing service, can be installed under your root folder by temporarily changing permissions:

sudo chmod 777 /
# install Dropbox and set its location to root
sudo chmod 755 /

The Unarchiver is a great alternative to Archive Utility. You can delete Archive Utility to make Unarchiver the default

sudo rm -rf /System/Library/CoreServices/Archive\ Utility.app/

Sublime Text is a fantastic, cross browser text editor. After installation, apply these User Settings:

{
    "auto_complete": false,
    "auto_complete_commit_on_tab": true,
    "auto_match_enable": false,
    "bold_folder_labels": true,
    "color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Default/Monokai.tmTheme",
    "drag_text": false,
    "fade_fold_buttons": false,
    "highlight_modified_tabs": true,
    "match_selection": false,
    "shift_tab_unindent": true,
    "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true,
    "use_simple_full_screen": true
}

Also, create an alias in your .bash_profile to allow you to launch from Terminal:

alias sublime="open -a 'Sublime Text 2'"

OSX System Setup

The following commands change settings make OSX faster and easier to use (many things taken from here ).

# Set computer name (as done via System Preferences → Sharing)
sudo scutil --set ComputerName "MyComputerName"
sudo scutil --set HostName "MyComputerName"
sudo scutil --set LocalHostName "MyComputerName"
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server NetBIOSName -string "MyComputerName"

# Disable the sound effects on boot
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=" "

# Increase window resize speed for Cocoa applications
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001

# Disable Mouse acceleration permanently (must reboot):
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1    

# Save to disk (not to iCloud) by default
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

# Disable press-and-hold for keys in favor of key repeat
defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

# Set a blazingly fast keyboard repeat rate
defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0

# Disable local Time Machine snapshots
sudo tmutil disablelocal

# Disable hibernation (speeds up entering sleep mode)
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

# Finder: allow quitting via ⌘ + Q; doing so will also hide desktop icons
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true

# Finder: show all filename extensions
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowAllExtensions -bool true

# Finder: disable the warning when changing a file extension
defaults write com.apple.finder FXEnableExtensionChangeWarning -bool false

# Finder: use list view in all Finder windows by default
defaults write com.apple.finder FXPreferredViewStyle -string "Nlsv"

# Finder: Avoid creating .DS_Store files on network volumes
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

# Disable Dashboard and hide it from Spaces
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -bool true
defaults write com.apple.dock dashboard-in-overlay -bool true

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