Deleting a user account is neat and clean with Mac OS X. This recipe describes the procedure and consequences of deleting a user.To delete a user, click System Preferences, then Accounts and select the user to delete. Click on the minus sign under the Login Options button, authenticating as the administrator if needed. When a user is deleted in this manner, the contents of the user's directories are stored in a disk image (/Users/Deleted Users/userid.dmg). This file can be deleted (by an administrator) or kept (just in case).... Read More

 The command line utility sudo is a wonderful way to provide fine-grained access control to different applications to different users. In this recipe, sudo will be used to easily gain full root/superuser access to a Mac running OS X.Under Mac OS X, the root or superuser account is not enabled following installation. While it is possible to enable the root account, it is safer and potentially easier to use the sudo command to gain root access to the system. From a terminal window, type sudo -s This will prompt you for a password which is the user's password, not the root password (which will not be set). The first time you run sudo, it will print a conscience-oriented message before prompting for the password. Subsequent uses of sudo for that user will not print out that text. The -s option launches a shell as the target user (root). When successfully executed, the shell's prompt should end with root#. When done with root privileges, it is a good idea to demote yourself and return to you... Read More

 Mac OS X is a UNIX-based operating system with all the cool bells and whistles. One of the big differences is that UNIX is a multiuser environment allowing multple users to be logged in at the same time. Mac OS X takes swapping between users to a funky new level with a feature called fast user switching. This feature is turned off by default.To turn on fast user switching, open the System Preferences and click on the Accounts icon under the System category. Click on Login Options near the lower left and click the Enable fast user switching checkbox. The menu bar at the top of the screen will change, inserting the current user name at the top right. When you click on this name, you'll see a menu listing all of the system's users and a Login Window... choice. Clicking on a user's name will switch to that user (possibly after requesting a password). Clicking on the Login Window... option will take you to the login screen. The fast user switch occurs with a dramatic rotation of the screen,... Read More

 Changing the default web browser in Mac OS X, especially 10.3, can be confusing. This recipe describes one simple method for changing the default browser.Start Safari (the standard browser). Select Preferences... from the Safari menu. In the General tab, find the Default web browser pulldown menu and make your selection from the list. Close the preferences window (red x) and you're done!... Read More

 The graphical booting process is pretty, but there are times we want to see what is happening to the system while it boots. This can be particularly beneficial when troubleshooting problems.To view the boot messages for the current boot only (and return to the graphical display on the next boot), press command-V while the system is booting. The command key is the key with the apple and looping squiggly symbols typically next to the spacebar. To make this change to the system permanent, you must make a simple firmware setting change. This is easily done using the nvram command and the sudo authentication system from a terminal window: sudo nvram boot-args="-v" To turn off this feature, use: sudo nvram boot-args= The nvram sets and queries the firmware settings. To display all of the settings and their current values, use: sudo nvram -p... Read More

 Compiling open source projects typically requires a C compiler and gcc is typically the compiler of choice. Mac OS X doesn't install the gcc compiler by default but it is freely available in the xcode suite of development tools.To install the gcc compiler, download the xcode package from http://connect.apple.com/. You'll need to register for an Apple Developer Connection account. Once you've registered, login and click Download Software and then Developer Tools. Find the Download link next to Xcode Tools (version) - CD Image and click it! Find the downloaded package, doubleclick it and follow the installation instructions to install gcc and a host of other development applications. gcc will be located at /usr/bin/gcc. Websites tend to change over time, so if you notice that the steps to download xcode have changed, please post a comment and I'll update the recipe.... Read More