mac-os-x

iMac monitor energy saving FAQ: How can I turn off my iMac monitor without turning off my iMac?

I've hooked up some nice speakers to my iMac and I often use it to play music in the house, and this morning I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I could turn off the iMac monitor while it's just playing music?" Hopefully that would help extend the life of the display, not to mention save some energy and be more "green".

AppleScript FAQ: How do I break a long line in AppleScript?

When you program in AppleScript, you can very easily start creating programs with very long lines, which are hard to read. And AppleScript doesn't like it when you use carriage returns to break your long lines, which is a bit of a bummer.

But, fear not, if you need to break a long line in AppleScript, you just need to know the magic keystroke character: Just type the [Option][Enter] or [Option][L] characters when you want to break a long line.

Mac OS X Folder FAQ: How do I determine the size of a Mac folder?

Answer: I started to write about how you could use the Unix "du" (disk usage) command on a Mac OS X system to determine the Mac folder size, but then I realized there's a little more obvious approach: Use the "info" command when you have a folder selected in the Mac Finder.

Mac folder size

Using your Mac "Desktop" folder as an example, here's how it works:

Mac Dropbox FAQ: What do you know about the dropbox.com online backup service for Mac users?

Dateline May 20, 2010: Cnet and many others are reporting that the Apple "Get a Mac" ads are finished, and Apple is now switching to a "Why You'll Love a Mac" campaign. Indeed, Apple's own "Get a Mac" web page now redirects to the new campaign page. I thought this was a really fun ad campaign, so John Hodgman (PC) and Justin Long (Mac), you will be missed.