Install Windows or Linux on Mac by rEFIt Graphical Boot Menu.

Do you want to install another operating system on your Mac (other than Windows )? Or do you want to try out a Live CD without pressing any special key bindings?
You might think there is Boot Camp which can help you to make two partitions of your Mac disk and Install Windows. But the problem with it is that it cannot make a Third partition or Install a Linux or Solaris dirstibution into ur Mac.You need BIOS emulation compatibility. This is where rEFIt comes in. rEFIt is a Graphical Boot Menu for your Mac.

The rEFIt Project
rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.
It is a new and, used in place of the pre-installed BIOS used on Macs.It enables you to select your OS of choice on boot. It even recognizes Live CDs so you can select them instead of having to push the C key when you want to check out a bootable CD. It also provides a neat options to shutdown, reboot and other terminal.

rEFIt automatically detects which operating systems are installed on the internal disk as well as CDs and external media, and displays an icon for each one.

It is a great software to replace your BootCamp, and it can really change your Mac experience.

Download
The current release is 0.11. It is available in various forms. Both disk image distributions include the Installer package and can be burned as a bootable CD as well. All binary distributions can be used to install rEFIt on a USB memory stick or other disk drives.

• rEFIt 0.11 (6.5M Mac disk image)
• rEFIt 0.11 (6.5M ISO disk image)
• rEFIt 0.11 (3.2M .tar.gz)

More Info: http://refit.sourceforge.net


Written by Avipar\\
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Visor -A Drop Down Terminal Add-on For Mac OS X (Recommended)

Here is an plug-in for your Terminal which allows you to Drop-Down a Terminal window from the top menu bar. Sounds interesting ! Visor is a small add-on for the Terminal from the creators of Quicksilver that lets you get a Quake style window. It is activated with a command(keyboard shortcut) which is easily customized.

If you are a frequent Terminal user it is just the right thing .When the terminal is running , you'll see the Visor icon in your menubar where you can access the preferences.
Visor can perform any task that a normal terminal does, but its main feature is the drag and drop. So if you happen to come across a terminal code, just hit a keystroke to activate Visor and type your code right there. But you need to keep your Terminal running for Visor to be triggered. So, you can set Teminal to "Open at Login" if you like.

Installing VisorTerminal.

1) First,Install SIMBL 0.8.2 compatible with Leopard developer builds.
Download SIMBL-0.8.2.tbz
2)This package install to /Library/InputManagers (in the main Mac volume). So copy SIMBL.bundle file from /Library/InputManagers/SIMBL
3) Paste the SIMBL.Bundle file in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins.
4) Now, Install Visor 1.5 is compatible with 10.5 only. Download Visor.1.5a1.zip
5) Unzip Visor and place the Visor.bundle in the folder as in above /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins.
6) So now you have both the SIMBL and Visor bundles in the Plugins folder.
7) Launch or Relaunch Terminal.app- You will now see the Visor menu item.
8) You can now trigger Visor with your hotkey for a instant terminal session.

For more info visit:
http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-visor/
http://www.culater.net/software/SIMBL/SIMBL.php

written by Avipar\\

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Mac OS X Terminal Commands Tweaks You Can't Resisit To Use.

You must be familiar with the Terminal in Mac OS X Leopard , the command line world. Here are some terminal commands which you can use to customize your Mac. I have tried many, but these are few which are most useful and amazing. You can reverse the commands by replacing YES with NO.

If you have already used them then just have a look at the list. I recommend you to copy the whole commands and paste them in the terminal.

[1] Add An Exposè Button To The Desktop
This hack adds a big blue button onto the desktop to enable you to use exposè. Clicking on it shows all the windows from one application (F10 default), option clicking it shows all windows (F9 default).

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool YES
killall Dock

[2] Set The Screen Saver As The Wallpaper
This is one of the coolest tweak. This command sets the currently selected screen saver as the desktop background. Use command + . to stop while in Terminal.

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

[3] Changing the Format Of Screen Shots
If you use the screenshot function, you may want to change the format of the images. Where jpg is in the code you can change this to the format your want, png bmp gif etc. You need to log out and back in again, or restart for the changes to take effect.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

[4] Enable The Path View In Finder
One of may favourite hacks as it lets you see the current path of the Finder window you are in. It makes life easier as the path is easily visible on the top of the finder window.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

[5] Recent Applications, Documents, Servers Stack
This command creates a new stack in your dock so you can view the recently used Applications. I have kept it permanently in my dock.

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

[6] Skip Disk Image Verification
If you want to save some time you can skip the disk image verification for a disk image. Potentially risky as a whole load of things could go wrong without you knowing.

com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE

[7] Disable Crash Dialog Prompt
Disables the unexpectedly quit dialog that normally appears when an application crashes. Replace "none" with "prompt" to enable again.

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

[8] Drag A Widget Onto The Desktop
Another cool tweak, this command enables widgets to be placed onto the desktop. Drag a widget around and press F12 to drag it onto the desktop. Repeat the process again to drag a widget back onto the dashboard. This may need you to log off or restart for it to take effect.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

[9] Change The Login Picture
If you get a bored of the space picture used on the login screen, you can change it with this little bit of code. Change the file location in the second half of the string to the exact file location of your chosen picture.

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture "/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/xxxxx.png"

[10]Gradient Behind A Stack Item
It enables you to put a small gradient behind an icon. It makes your stack look cool with the gradient following your mouse.

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES
killall Dock


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Drag A Dashboard Widgets onto Mac OS X Desktop

Well this is one of the customization that I like the most! It's pretty easy and fun. If you already know it then avoid it.

Open up the Terminal (Applications-->Utilities--> Terminal) and type the following code exactly the same;

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES



This command enables widgets to be placed onto the desktop. Now, Log out of your account and Log in again (this is inorder to restart the DASHBOARD) .

Press f12 to bring Dashboard , and then drag one of the widgets around. While you are still holding your mouse click press f12 again.

your Dashboard dissapears!,but the widget still remains on your desktop screen. You can place your widget where ever you want it will be fully functional. It will be placed above everything else on your screen.

To move the widget back into the Dashboard just do the reverse. First drag the widget and then while still clicking press the f12 button ,and then leave the mouse click!

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Give Terminal a New Makeover

A quick and painless way to make your dull Terminal turn into a cool Terminal! Go to Preferences, Settings Tab, then choose a premade theme or create a new one by clicking the “+” button. I have here my own personal concoction which I call, Barney the Dinosaur.

Not only is it possible to change the color of your prompt, you can change the font as well. The Text tab deals with font color/style; Window adjusts the background colors, etc; and the other ones adjust things that I won’t pretend to know about.

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Custom Your Login Screen

Make your mac stand out from the rest by customizing your log in screen!

Grab your favorite background image, save it as ‘background.jpg’ and execute the following from Terminal:

sudo cp background.jpg /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg

you need to be in the same directory as the background.jpg for the copy to work. Eg if it’s on your desktop then “cd ~/Desktop” to change to that directory first.

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Command Line Text To Speech

Open up the terminal (Applications -- Utilities -- Terminal) and type:

say hello World!


As you can see this is an extremely easy way to convert text to speech. You can also have the computer say something after completing a command to notify you when the command has been completed.

For example:

ls *.jpg; say finished listing jpeg images

You can also speak the contents of a file by using the -f switch:

say -f text_file

You can also specify different voices by using the -v switch:

say -v Rahlph Hi, my name is Donald


There’s a whole list of available voices in the Text to Speech preferences (System Preferences -- Speech -- Text to Speech -- System Voice).

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Desktop Screenshots With Your Keyboard

You find yourself needing to take a screenshot of your desktop? Did you know it was as easy as pressing .

The easiest way to take screenshots is to remember keyboard shortcuts for the different types of pictures you are after. Depending on which version of OS X you are using will result in different files being saved. OS X Jaguar will save in the jpg format, OS X Panther will save in PDF, and OS X Tiger as well as Leopard will save as a PNG file. Using the following commands will save a copy of your selected screenshots to your desktop:

The screenshot will be saved on your desktop as a PNG file.

The command key on most Apple keyboards is next to the space bar. The following screenshot points out where you can find the command key on your keyboard:

Command-Shift-3 - Will take a screenshot of what is on your current screen.

Command-Shift-4 - Will bring up a target icon. Select the area you want to take a screenshot of and it will save that selection to your desktop.

Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window - Will take a screenshot of the selected window.

The following commands will do the same thing as above but will save your picture to the clipboard for use wherever you want to paste it to:

Command-Control-Shift-3 - Will take a screenshot what is on the screen and save it to your clipboard

Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area - Will take a screenshot of the selected area and be saved to the clipboard.

Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window - Will take a screenshot of the window you select and save it to the clipboard.

There is a screen capture command in Terminal and can be handy for more advanced screenshot needs.

screencapture -iW ~/Desktop/screen.jpg - Will take a screen capture of a window

screencapture -S ~/Desktop/screen.jpg - Will take a screenshot of the entire screen

screencapture -ic - Will take a screenshot of a selection of the screen

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