Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal, 3rd Edition
Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal, 3rd Edition

Author: Joe Kissell

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2024-02-12

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 1990783031

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Learn how to unleash your inner Unix geek! Version 3.3, updated February 12, 2024 This book introduces you to the Mac’s command line environment, teaching you how to use the Terminal utility to accomplish useful, interesting tasks that are either difficult or impossible to do in the graphical interface.n If you've ever thought you should learn to use the Unix command line that underlies macOS, or felt at sea when typing commands into Terminal, Joe Kissell is here to help! With this book, you'll become comfortable working on the Mac's command line, starting with the fundamentals and adding more advanced topics as your knowledge increases. Now includes complete coverage of Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, and zsh! Joe includes 67 real-life "recipes" for tasks that are best done from the command line, as well as directions for working with permissions, carrying out grep-based searches, creating shell scripts, and installing Unix software. The book begins by teaching you these core concepts: • The differences among Unix, a command line, a shell, and Terminal • Exactly how commands, arguments, and flags work • The basics of Terminal's interface and how to customize it Next, it's on to the command line, where you'll learn: • How to navigate your Mac's directory structure • Basic file management: creating, copying, moving, renaming, opening, viewing, and deleting files • Creating symbolic links • The types of command-line programs • How to start and stop a command-line program • How to edit a text file in nano • How to customize your prompt and other shell defaults • The importance of your PATH and how to change it, if you need to • How to get help (Joe goes way beyond telling you to read the man pages) You'll extend your skills as you discover how to: • Create basic shell scripts to automate repetitive tasks. • Make shell scripts that have variables, user input, conditional statements, loops, and math. • See which programs are running and what system resources they're consuming. • Quit programs that refuse to quit normally. • Enable the command line to interact with the Finder. • Control another Mac via its command line with ssh. • Understand and change an item's permissions, owner, and group. • Run commands as the root user using sudo. • Handle output with pipe (|) or redirect (> or <). • Use grep to search for text patterns in files and filter output. • Install new command-line software from scratch or with a package manager. • Use handy shortcuts in the Terminal app itself and in zsh. Questions answered include: • What changed on the command line in recent versions of macOS? • What are the differences between the zsh shell and the bash shell? • Which shell am I using, and how can I change my default shell? • How do I quickly figure out the path to an item on my Mac? • How can I customize my Terminal window so I can see man pages behind it? • How can I make a shortcut to avoid retyping the same long command? • Is there a trick for entering a long path quickly? • What should I say when someone asks if I know how to use vi? • How do I change my prompt to suit my mood or needs? • What is Command Line Tools for Xcode? • When it comes to package managers, which one should I use? Finally, to help you put it all together, the book showcases 67 real-world "recipes" that combine commands to perform useful tasks, such as listing users who've logged in recently, manipulating graphics, using a separate FileVault password, creating and editing user accounts, figuring out why a disk won't eject, copying the source code of a webpage, determining which apps have open connections to the internet, flushing the DNS cache, finding out why a Mac won't sleep, sending an SMS message, and deleting stubborn items from the Trash.

Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, 5th Edition
Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, 5th Edition

Author: Joe Kissell

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2024-02-19

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1990783481

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Set up a rock-solid backup strategy so that you can restore quickly and completely, no matter what catastrophe arises. Version 5.0.1, updated February 19, 2024 Joe Kissell provides the advice you need to create a Mac backup strategy that protects your data and enables quick recovery. He compares backup software, services, and media to help you make the best choices. You’ll learn to set up, test, and maintain backups, plus how to restore files after a calamity!n Creating and maintaining a solid backup plan is essential to anyone who uses a Mac, in order to prevent the loss of important data if disaster strikes—whether through hardware or software failure, theft, human error, or other mishap. In Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, Fifth Edition, tech expert Joe Kissell explains how to design a sensible backup strategy, choose and configure the best backup hardware and software for your needs, and understand how to make your backups as painless as possible. His advice is equally useful to those who have never had a backup system and those whose backup systems are in need of an update. The book delves into the challenges presented by recent versions of macOS, M-series Macs, and the ever-changing landscape of Mac backup hardware, software, and cloud services. It explains what you need to know about bootable (and non-bootable) duplicates, backup media, and disk formats, as well as recent changes in Time Machine and the weird world of APFS snapshots. It also shows you how to include in your backups files and folders that are stored in the cloud, even if there's no local copy of them. Using this book, you’ll learn how to: • Design (or update) the ideal backup system: If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll find all the information necessary to assemble a reliable and easy-to-use backup system. If you’re updating an existing system, you’ll learn about what’s new in hardware, software, and online services that might affect the way you back up your Mac in the future. • Choose backup software: Apple’s Time Machine is both free and easy to use, but it’s not the best choice for everyone, and even if you do use Time Machine, you’ll certainly want to supplement it with other tools. You’ll learn about key features to look for in a backup app and find tips on using several popular tools. You’ll also discover the pros and cons of cloud backup services, and get help choosing the right one. (An online appendix covers dozens of apps and services.) • Shop for hardware: Depending on your needs and goals, you may need one or more external SSDs or hard drives, but the range of options (sizes, interfaces, speeds, and more) can be bewildering. Joe helps you find the best backup hardware, whether it’s individual SSDs or hard drives, RAIDs, NAS devices, or other options. • Make and maintain backups: Once you’ve selected hardware and software, you’ll need to know how to make your first backup, set up your backups to run unattended, and test them regularly to make sure they’re working as they should. This includes both versioned backups (which contain old file versions and deleted files) and—for some users—bootable or non-bootable (data-only) clones. And, you’ll learn about strategies for keeping extra backups offsite. • Operate Time Machine: If you choose Time Machine for versioned backups, you’ll learn how to back up and restore individual files, app-specific data (such as contacts), and even an entire disk. You’ll also discover why and how to encrypt Time Machine backups, how APFS snapshots work (inside and outside Time Machine), and what to do if Time Machine misbehaves. • Deal with unusual backup needs: If you deal with exceptionally large files (such as audio and video files), spend a lot of time on the road away from your usual backup hardware, run Windows on your Mac, or rely on cloud services to store essential data, you’ll want to take extra (or different) steps to make sure everything is safely backed up. You’ll also learn various approaches to backing up and restoring data from Apple’s Notes app. • Manage your media: What happens when a backup drive fills up, or becomes so old that you worry about its future reliability? What if you want to archive older files for posterity, but not necessarily maintain them as part of your daily backups? Joe explains how to deal with media management tasks such as these. • Recover lost data: Backing up data can be easy, but restoring it is often more challenging. When you discover that data is missing—whether due to a disk error, theft, or a simple mistake—you need to know the exact steps needed to recover it and get back to work as soon as possible.

Take Control of Find My and AirTags, 3rd Edition
Take Control of Find My and AirTags, 3rd Edition

Author: Glenn Fleishman

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2024-09-20

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1990783570

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Track your stuff, find your friends, and safely share your location Version 3.0, updated September 20, 2024 Take Control of Find My and AirTags takes you inside Apple’s Find My ecosystem, a robust, privacy-protecting way to track your things, share your location (and see others’ with their permission), and aid in recovery lost and stolen devices. Find My lets you and someone else arrange to meet and see your live, updated ETA; figure out where you left your iPad (was it on a flight?!), and know that your bicycle remains firmly in place where you locked it.n Find My lost the “iPhone” moniker long ago, as the app and system of location tracking hardware, software, and infrastructure became “Find My Everything.” The current ecosystem encompasses people, Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch), Apple and Beats audio hardware, and low-power, long-life trackers. Apps can be used in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, and on iCloud.com. Take Control of Find My and AirTags takes you through the many parts of Find My so you can configure and refine how you and your stuff is tracked and shared. The book looks at three different kinds of tracking: • People: Learn how to share your location safely, follow others who let you, and send and receive notifications about arrivals and departures. (Also, prevent being tracked when you don’t want to be.) • Devices: See the whereabouts of your and Family Sharing group members’ devices and audio hardware. Get to know the ins and outs of enabling Find My and taking remote actions, from playing a sound to wiping your data from a device. • Items: Find out how AirTags make use of the crowdsourced network of other people’s Apple devices to help you find a lost or forgotten purse, backpack, or even car, and about third-party devices licensing the technology from Apple. Learn how to share your items with up to five other people. Also get to know the dangers of people using Find My tech for stalking. The book explains how to identify the risk, deter unwanted tracking from happening, block it if you find it—and report it to law enforcement or get other help. This edition includes detailed information about the Apple and Google industry initiative for Android, iOS, and iPadOS that lets Android, iPhone, and iPad users get notified about unknown trackers on either Apple or Google’s tracking systems that are traveling with them. The book also digs into how Family Sharing interacts with personal and device location sharing and finding, and how to help other people find their lost stuff if they don’t have one of their own Apple devices handy. The book focuses on the latest Apple operating systems: iOS 18/iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and watchOS 11. However, it looks back as far as iOS 16/iPadOS 16 and macOS 14 Monterey for nearly every feature—and sometimes back even years before those releases—so you can best use your mix of Apple devices of all vintages. Here’s more of what you can find in this book: • Start sharing AirTags and other items with up to five other people. • Find out the difference between device-based Find My tracking and the Find My network. • Figure out if your Apple or Beats audio hardware can be tracked just over Bluetooth nearby or via the Find My Network. • Lost a single earbud? Apple may have you covered by playing a sound out of it or providing nearly pinpoint tracking. • Experience the joy of playing a sound over the internet or nearby to help find a missing device or item. • See the place in Apple’s ecosystem for third-party Find My tracking from nearly a dozen companies that make bike, bag, and general stuff trackers, some with extra alarms. • Spot Google and Apple trackers following you that aren’t yours and aren’t shared Apple Find My items. • Control and monitor the way you let others track your whereabouts. • Get to know presence, the way you define which of your devices indicates where you are to other people. • Learn about the capability to track an iPhone or iPad even after it’s been erased! • See how Messages simplifies and improves location sharing and maps. • Dig into Apple’s efforts to prevent Find My from being used for stalking and unwanted tracking, including audio alerts and other behavior. • Discover buried controls for configuring exactly how Find My updates your device’s location, including when power runs low. • Develop an understanding of your Apple Watch’s three distinct Find My to use them effectively on the go. • Understand Activation Lock, which protects devices from being reused even if someone has erased them, and Find My Lock, which keeps Find My items from being reset and taken over. • Help family members find lost and stolen gear through Find My’s Family Sharing support.

Take Control of Your Digital Photos, 3rd Edition
Take Control of Your Digital Photos, 3rd Edition

Author: Jeff Carlson

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2023-08-28

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 199078335X

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Build a stress-free workflow to import, rate, tag, and organize your digital photos! Version 3.0, updated August 28, 2023 This book gives you the information you need to build and maintain a digital photo workflow that makes it easy to import, rate, tag, and store photos to find them quickly and easily later. It helps you spend more time on the enjoyable aspects of photography—capturing and viewing your photos—and less on the mundane but essential task of managing all your photos. It also puts you in the best position to quickly find and edit your most promising photos. Are you drowning in a sea of digital photos? Unable to find the shots you’re looking for, or to stay on top of managing all the photos you’re taking? Digital photography expert Jeff Carlson gives you a plan for tackling this problem, starting with preparing your camera ahead of time, then choosing the right app to manage your photos, judging and organizing your photos, and backing up your photos for safekeeping. In this book, Jeff offers advice to cover both macOS and Windows (along with limited coverage of mobile platforms), and to address a broad range of photo management apps, including Apple Photos, Capture One, Lightroom Classic, Lightroom desktop, Excire Foto, Exposure X7, Mylio Photos, ON1 Photo Keyword AI, and ON1 Photo RAW. With this book, you’ll learn how to: • Get started with the minimum amount of work: Take advantage of software intelligence to do some of the categorizing work for you, and find out how you can accomplish some tasks even if you have little time. • Prep your camera: Learn four actions you can take before you head out the door that will make things easier after you return with new pictures. • Manage your workflow: Choose the software and approach that best meets your needs for organizing your photos. • Import the right way: Learn how to assign valuable metadata to all images that come in during the import stage, saving lots of time and effort. • Pick winners and losers: Assign ratings to your photos, and remove or hide unwanted photos. • Remove duplicates: Use Lightroom Classic, Photos for macOS, or Gemini Photos for iOS/iPadOS to find and delete duplicate images. • Use AI/Machine Learning: Learn about AI/ML terminology, and use software tools like ON1 Photo Keyword AI and Excire Foto to apply keywords automatically. • Apply keywords and metadata: If needed, manually apply keywords to individual shots, learn how to apply geotags using location data from external devices (like an iPhone), and use facial recognition to collect shots of specific friends and family members. • Search with smart albums: Build smart albums whose contents change depending on criteria you’ve specified, allowing you to find photos more easily, even in images you add in the future. • Manage multiple libraries: Use Photos for macOS, Lightroom Classic, or Peakto to manage multiple photo libraries. • Go mobile: Find the right online service for making your photos available on mobile devices, based on your needs and which desktop photo management app you use. • Protect your photos: Learn how to implement a backup strategy that will preserve all your data, not just your photos, and how to archive photos for the future.

Backup & Recovery
Backup & Recovery

Author: W. Curtis Preston

Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

Published: 2007-01-03

Total Pages: 760

ISBN-13: 0596102461

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Packed with practical, affordable backup and recovery solutions for UNIX, Linux, Windows, and the Mac OS X system--as well as various databases--this new guide is a complete overhaul of the author's strong-selling "UNIX Backup & Recovery," now revised and expanded with over 40 percent new material.

Take Control of Scrivener 3
Take Control of Scrivener 3

Author: Kirk McElhearn

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2021-06-04

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1947282026

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Create and organize writing projects with ease using Scrivener 3! Version 1.1.1, updated June 4, 2021 Compose a masterpiece with Literature & Latte's Scrivener. Whether you're writing science fiction, a historical novel, or a zombie travelogue, learn how Scrivener's powerful tools can take your work to the next level. Kirk McElhearn shows you how to collect notes, organize your work, arrange and rearrange sections, and more. Covers Mac, Windows, and iOS/iPadOS versions! Scrivener is a powerful tool for managing long-form writing projects—like novels and screenplays—and Take Control of Scrivener 3 gives you all the details you need to know to harness its potential. In this book, best-selling author Kirk McElhearn walks you through setting up, organizing, writing, formatting, revising, and compiling a Scrivener project, whether you’re working on a Mac, a Windows PC, or in iOS/iPadOS. Using this extensive guide, you’ll be able to: • Meet Scrivener: Learn about the Scrivener philosophy and its basic layout • Start your project: Pick a template and add existing materials to your project • Brainstorm and organize: Discover three different ways to work with your material using the Binder, Corkboard, and Outliner. • Set up your writing environment and avoid distractions: Choose default fonts and colors, opt for Script Mode if you’re writing a script or screenplay, and simplify your workspace by hiding interface elements or by using Composition Mode or Full Screen Mode. • Make the most of key features: Learn how to work with styles; use annotations and comments; add footnotes and endnotes; view more than one file at once; use collections to view selected items from the Binder; store bookmarks and project notes; and share and synchronize your project with others. • Go further with Scrivener: Get the details on special features like Scrivenings View (write in sections, but view as a single document) and Snapshots (allows you to make and view periodic backups of your text). • Revise and edit your work: Learn how to find and replace text, and work with revisions. • Use Scrivener in iOS and iPadOS: Sync your projects to iOS/iPadOS and work on an iPhone or iPad. • Print and export: Understand the process of preparing your project to be printed, and what’s involved in compiling it so that it can be exported in a different format. Kirk also highlights the many changes to Scrivener since the last version (see the What's New section below), including updates to the interface, styles, outlining and metadata capabilities, and improved searching and writing features. In addition, he explains brand-new features in Scrivener 3, including Bookmarks (lets you store references to other sections of your project), Linguistic Focus (Mac only—highlights specific elements such as dialog, adverbs, or adjectives), Section types (such as Chapter Text and Scene), and Copyholders (allows you to view three or four documents at once).

Take Control of PDFpen, 3rd Edition
Take Control of PDFpen, 3rd Edition

Author: Michael E. Cohen

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2021-05-03

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1954546033

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Edit and enhance your PDFs easily with PDFpen 13! Version 3.0, updated May 3, 2021 This book tells you how create, edit, and enhance PDF documents on your Mac with PDFpen 13 and PDFpenPro 13, and on the go with PDFpen for iPad & iPhone.n These days, an ever-increasing amount of “paper”—contracts, tax forms, bills, reports, and more—comes into our lives as PDF files. We generate this virtual paper too, since it’s so much easier to save a document as a PDF and send it to a colleague via email than it is to print and send via fax or email. To read, edit, and manipulate all these PDFs, you need the appropriate tools and skills. Given the high price of Adobe Acrobat DC Pro, many Mac users have turned to Smile’s affordable PDFpen apps to help them sign PDF forms, handle scanned documents, make changes in existing PDFs, create new PDFs from a variety of sources, and to export PDFs to other file formats (including Word and Excel). With Take Control of PDFpen, you’ll learn how to do all these tasks and more on your Mac with PDFpen or PDFpenPro or on the go with PDFpen for iPad & iPhone. If you haven’t used PDFpen before, this free book is an excellent way to find out what it has to offer. TidBITS members can save 20% on all Smile products purchased through the Smile cart, including PDFpen 13 and PDFpenPro 13. To learn more, visit the Membership Benefits page. To access the coupon code, make sure you've logged in and click through from the Your Member Benefits page. Take Control of PDFpen begins with a guide to purchasing options: PDFpen versus PDFpenPro, from Smile versus the Mac App Store, and the advantages of the iOS/iPadOS version. Next, you’ll meet PDFpen with an overview of the PDF format and a tour of the interface. With the basics out of the way, highlights of what you’ll learn to do include: • Add and remove pages, and combine pages from multiple files into one PDF. • Mark up a PDF with highlights, comments, editing marks, and more. • Compare two different parts of a PDF with the Split View. • Edit a PDF by fixing typos, adding text, formatting text, and redacting confidential text. • Scan a document into a PDF, and make the text editable with OCR—with single or multiple documents. • Add photos or scans to a PDF quickly with Continuity Camera and an iOS/iPadOS device. • View and work with OCRed text in the OCR layer (PDFpenPro only) • Add clickable links, headers, footers, page numbers, and images. • Annotate a document with lines, shapes, text, and callouts. • Make a clickable table of contents (PDFpenPro only). • Add a watermark to each page of a PDF. • Password-protect a PDF. And (PDFpenPro only), prevent others from printing or editing a PDF. • Turn a PDF into a formatted Microsoft Word document, or (PDFpenPro only) export it in Excel or PowerPoint format. • Reduce the size of your PDFs. • Create blank PDFs with stationery. • Add a digital signature with DocuSign (PDFpenPro only). And, you’ll find directions for working with PDF forms: • Fill out forms with ease. • Add a handwritten signature. • Apply a digital signing certificate. • Print just form entries on a pre-printed form. • Create an interactive PDF form (PDFpenPro only) that can collect data and send it to you via email or the web. You can add an interactive signature field, which makes it easy for the form to be signed online. An appendix describes the useful AppleScripts that ship with PDFpen. This ebook was created in collaboration with Smile, with PDFpen's developers tech editing the book.

Take Control of Automating Your Mac, 5th Edition
Take Control of Automating Your Mac, 5th Edition

Author: Joe Kissell

Publisher: alt concepts

Published: 2024-01-29

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1990783473

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Work faster, increase your efficiency, and have more fun with automation! Version 5.0, updated January 29, 2024 Ever wondered if automation could make your life easier? In Take Control of Automating Your Mac, Fifth Edition, Mac expert Joe Kissell shows you how to save time and aggravation by using numerous built-in macOS tools, as well as helpful third-party apps, to automate routine tasks and procedures.n Looking for ways to work smarter and faster with your Mac? In this updated and expanded fifth edition of his popular guide to Mac automation, Joe Kissell shows how anyone, at any level of experience, can save time and effort, and avoid unnecessary errors, by using automation techniques that range from the simplest keyboard shortcut to the most complicated script. In this book, Joe teaches you how to automate routine tasks in a wide variety of ways. You can begin by making the most of productivity features such as Siri, Spotlight (for launching apps), and text replacement—and then move on to the more sophisticated automation tools built into macOS, such as Shortcuts, Automator, AppleScript, services, and shell scripts. In addition, Joe gives extensive information about third-party automation apps that can make a huge difference to your work efficiency, such as Keyboard Maestro, TextExpander, OmniGraffle, and many more. As an extra bonus, the book includes coupons for discounts on seven automation apps! Whether you’re new to automation, you just need a refresher, or you’re experienced with automation but want to go deeper, this book can teach you the skills you need to automate with ease. Take back your time, work more efficiently, and have more fun with your Mac, with Take Control of Automating Your Mac, Fifth Edition! With this book, you’ll learn how to: • Get started with the built-in macOS automation tools, including Shortcuts, Automator, AppleScript, and shell scripts • Take full advantage of input devices to save clicks and keystrokes • Customize toolbars and your Touch Bar to put hard-to-find controls at your fingertips • Use your voice to control your Mac with Siri and Voice Control/Dictation Commands • Automate text expansion for faster, more consistent typing • Control the Finder with a launcher and by organizing files with Hazel • Supercharge your clipboard to remember and reformat previous copies • Write macros in Microsoft Office and Nisus Writer Pro • Create rules to file email automatically in Apple Mail and Outlook • Log in to websites faster with a password manager • Automate cloud services with IFTTT and Zapier • Set up automatic backup and syncing • Run tasks automatically with Login Items, Calendar events, or launchd • Use Omni Automation for JavaScript-based automation tasks • Control nearly anything on your Mac with Keyboard Maestro