Computer^News^FAQ: encrypted disk images

How to - No HDMI Sound Under OS X Lion Using A Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt Adapter?

11:37:00 PM

5 really good Lion tweaks

11:28:00 PM

Lion. We love the OS. We hate a few tiny details. Here are five extremely handy Lion tweaks that can improve your day-to-day use. Enable each by typing the supplied commands into Terminal.

1. Turn off those #^$*%(ing zooming windows Launch Safari or TextEdit and then hit Command-N a few times. Do you see how the new windows fly or "zoom" into place? You can disable that with this elegant tweak from TUAW reader Ryan Hauk. First, open Terminal and type the following:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool NO

Finally, quit and restart whatever app you're looking to de-zoomify. You do not have to set the defaults more than once, but the apps won't pick up the new setting until their next launch.

2. Enable key autorepeat. You won't be able to use those cool iOS-inspired, press-hold-and-select-an-accented-character feature, but you'll get back thissssssssssssssssss. Courtesy of belchak.com.

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Interestingly, you can set this preference on a per-application basis. So you can enable key-repeat for, say, TextEdit but not for Safari by using e.g. com.apple.TextEdit instead of the global domain.

3. Make your ~/Library folder visible. This removes its hidden flag, so you don't have to keep using the option-key from the Finder's Go menu.

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

4. Disable spelling correction. When you want to be able to refer to "nethack" or "Megs" without it being autocorrected to "netback" and "Mess," you can turn this off from the command line -- or, if you prefer, get somewhat more granular control in the Text section of the Language & Text system preference pane (uncheck 'Correct spelling automatically').

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool NO

5. Mandate scrollbars. Let scrollbars become a permanent part of your windowing experience.

defaults write -g AppleShowScrollBars -string Always

And 6. Add back the Finder's size information. (Via TUAW reader 1TallTXn) Open a Finder Window and use Command-/. Presto

And 7. Disable mail animations. Chris Pirillo sent me link to his how-to write-up, which uses this command (discovered by "Adrian") to simplify visuals when replying in Mail.

defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool YES

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Mac OS Lion: Signature for PDFs made easy.

11:16:00 PM

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How to create an OS X flash drive installer

11:00:00 PM

Instead of using the system installer disc that came with your Mac, create a system installer flash drive, like the one that comes with the MacBook Air. It's smaller than an optical disc, more reliable, and runs faster.

Faster with flash storage

If you’ve ever had to reinstall OS X, chances are you’ve used the Apple-provided system installer disc that came with the Mac. But what do you do if you misplace the DVD, or it becomes unreadable, or worse—your SuperDrive isn’t working? Having a backup of your system installer disc could save your bacon.

Instead of simply copying the system installer to another disc, you can create a USB flash drive installer similar to the one provided with the latest MacBook Air. You’ll get an installer that won’t scratch, is easier to transport, and considerably faster than an optical disc. We found the install time decreased by 33 percent when using the flash drive method.

The process of creating a flash drive system installer is simple. You’ll need the original installation disc, a working DVD drive, and a flash drive with a minimum of 8GB of storage capacity for Snow Leopard (or 9GB if using Leopard, since it calculates file sizes differently). Any data you have on the flash drive will be erased during the process, so back up anything on there that’s important to you

Step 1: Disk Utility

Plug in the flash drive and, once it has mounted, open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities). In Disk Utility, highlight the flash drive (not the partition on the flash drive listed beneath it), and select the Partition tab on the right..

Step 2: Partition

Under Volume Scheme, choose 1 Partition as your partition scheme, or if you have a flash drive with enough space, you can create multiple partitions—just be sure that you create one partition that is at least 8GB in size

Step 3: GUID Partition Table

Once you’ve defined your partitions, highlight the 8GB partition and click on Options underneath it. Select GUID Partition Table and click OK. This lets the computer boot from the drive, so make sure that’s what you pick..

Step 4: Apply settings

Back in the Partition window, under Volume Information, give your flash drive partition a new name. We went with OS X Installer, since that’s basically what it will be, and next to Format, pick Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). Click Apply, select Partition from a drop down window, and wait for the formatting process to finish.

Step 5: Disk Utility Restore

Pop in your OS X install DVD and wait for it to mount. Once it appears on the left hand side in Disk Utility, click on the Restore tab. Highlight and drag the install DVD into the Source file path on the right.

Now, highlight the flash drive partition, underneath the name of the actual flash drive, and drag that to the Destination file path. When you’re ready, click Restore, and wait until Disk Utility copies the installation files from the DVD to the flash drive.

Step 6: Boot from the flash drive

When Disk Utility is finished, the flash drive should mount, and you should see the OS X install window appear.

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How to restore Snow Leopard's three-finger swipes in Lion

9:59:00 PM

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How to use encrypted disk images with Dropbox to Protect your sensitive files

9:44:00 PM

Has all the furor surrounding Dropbox lately made you wonder how you can better protect your private information? It’s always a good rule of thumb to assume that any file you store using a service that has any internet connection at all is by its very nature not protected. (For a variety of reasons, legal or otherwise.) However, there’s nothing to stop you from making your files as secure as possible, encrypting them before they ever hit Dropbox’s servers. We’ll show you how, after the break.

Part of Dropbox’s own security document outlines the use of encryption before uploading files, and there are a variety of ways to do this. If you’re on a Mac, one of the easiest is to simply use Disk Utility in the OS X Utilities folder to create a special mountable folder that you can lock up to your heart’s content. In a few quick steps, you can be sure that your sensitive docs are protected long before they leave your LAN.

Note: iOS can’t mount encrypted files so if you used this, you won’t be able to open them on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Security is always at war with convenience and this tip is for when you’ve got to let the security Wookie win.

Step 1: Create A New Disk Image

Open Disk Utility (HD/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) and choose New > Blank Disk Image from the drop down menu. Now you’ll need to choose a few parameters for your disk image.

Step 2: Choosing Features, Creating the Image

Here’s where it gets only slightly tricky. There’s a bunch of stuff you can pick here for your disk image, but it really depends on how much space you have in your Dropbox and how tight you want your security. First, give your new disk image a name (I usually use the same one for the “Save As” field and the “Name” field).

Now, you need to choose how much storage you want to use. Even if you aren’t going to fill it, Dropbox will see the new disk image as a single file, so if you only need 100 MB of storage, don’t choose the 500 MB disk image size, because it’ll be a lot of wasted space. Conversely, you can also choose a custom size if you need a lot more space.

Now, for the important part. If you’re doing this at all, there’s probably no reason for you to use anything less than 256-bit encryption, so go ahead and just pick that and make it easy on yourself.

Once you’re done, you can pretty much leave the other things as they are. Of course you can tweak as much as you like, but it’ll work fine with just those two settings. Click “Create” and Disk Utility will ask you for a password. Make it a good one and if you really want to be safe, you can uncheck the “Remember password in my keychain” box. This will force you to enter the password every time you need to access the image – so if you’re only concerned about storing it safely on Dropbox and you feel your machine is safe enough, it’s up to you how hardcore you want to get. If you leave it checked, your keychain should auto-unlock the image for you each time you open it. But remember, if you uncheck that box, and lose or forget the password, it’s really gone, along with anything in that disk image. So be careful.

Now that you’ve assigned a password, the image will be created. When it’s ready, it will auto-mount on the desktop and you can open it and begin adding files.

You can see available space in the bottom of your finder window.

When you’re done dropping your sensitive docs in, simply eject the disk image and it will begin uploading to Dropbox. That’s pretty much it! If you look in your Dropbox folder, you’ll see a disk image, and when you double-click to launch, it’ll prompt you for your password. Now you can rest a little easier, knowing that your documents are locked up long before they hit the web.

Computer^News^FAQ

How to - No HDMI Sound Under OS X Lion Using A Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt Adapter?

5 really good Lion tweaks

Mac OS Lion: Signature for PDFs made easy.

How to create an OS X flash drive installer

Step 1: Disk Utility

How to restore Snow Leopard's three-finger swipes in Lion

How to use encrypted disk images with Dropbox to Protect your sensitive files

Step 1: Create A New Disk Image

Step 2: Choosing Features, Creating the Image

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Computer^News^FAQ

How to - No HDMI Sound Under OS X Lion Using A Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt Adapter?

5 really good Lion tweaks

Mac OS Lion: Signature for PDFs made easy.

How to create an OS X flash drive installer

Step 1: Disk Utility

How to restore Snow Leopard's three-finger swipes in Lion

How to use encrypted disk images with Dropbox to Protect your sensitive files

Step 1: Create A New Disk Image

Step 2: Choosing Features, Creating the Image

About me

Follow Us

Press

recent posts

Text Widget

Subscribe To

Pages

PCWorld How-To's and Tips

PCWorld Latest Technology Reviews

Like us on Facebook

Flickr Images