How To Download Just About Anything [OS X Tips]

If there’s something you’d like to grab from a web page for which a download link isn’t provided, such as a movie file, Safari offers a handful of ways to download it–with no add-ons required. Read on to learn how.

The first trick to try is using the Activity Window. This doesn’t always work but is certainly worth a try. While browsing the site using Safari, click Window -> Activity and, in the window that appears, expand the entry alongside the web page you’re viewing. Then look for the file name that matches what you’re looking for (some guesswork is often necessary—pay particular attention to the size column on the right; items like movie files are usually multiple megabytes or even gigabytes, and will be increasing rapidly as the movie is streamed).

Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, hold down Option and double-click its entry in the list. This will either open it in a separate tab of Safari, from where you can click and drag it to the desktop in the case of an image, or the file will begin downloading in the usual way, as if you’d just clicked a download link.

Downloading any file for which you have the full URL (that is, something like http://example.com/filename.jpg) is also easy using Safari. Highlight the link text and copy it to the clipboard (Command + C).

Then expand the pop-out Downloads window in Safari by clicking the button to the right of the Google search box. This will open the download progress window, and you can just hit Command + V to invisibly paste in the download address. The file will start downloading right away.

If you can’t see the download button, hit Option + Command + L and the download pop-up should appear. If it still doesn’t appear, hold Option and click any web link on the site you’re browsing. This will download the HTML file for the page, which you can instantly delete, but the download window will now be activated and ready for use as described earlier.

Access Your Mac On The Go With LogMeIn On Your iOS Device [iOS Tip]

Have you ever arrived at the office and realized that report you need for the meeting today is still on your Mac at home? I’m sure that at some point we have all needed access to our home computer while we’re away from home, and it’s actually a lot easier than you might think thanks to the free LogMeIn app for iOS.

With LogMeIn installed on your Mac and your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, all you need is a data connection to access your home computer and all its files. Here’s how to get started with LogMeIn.

First, prepare your Mac by signing up for a LogMeIn account (if you don’t already have one) and installing the LogMeIn client. You can do this by visiting secure.logmein.com, and then clicking “Create an account.”

Once you’re signed up and you’ve added your Mac to LogMeIn, you’ll be given the option to install the client on your Mac. You’ll need to do this before you can connect to it. During installation, you’ll be asked to give your Mac a name, and you’ll need to login to your LogMeIn account that you just set up.

Once installation is complete on your Mac, download the free LogMeIn iOS app from the App Store. Open it up and login to your LogMeIn account, you’ll then be presented with a list of computers you have signed up to the service.

To access one of these computers, simply tap on its name, and then the little icon featuring a cursor beneath it. At this point you’ll need to login using the username and password you use on your Mac — not the details you use for LogMeIn.

You should now be able to see your desktop, which you have complete control of with your device.

Get Rid Of The Mac Startup Chime [OS X Tips]

Macs are distinctive among the computing fraternity in the melodious chime they make while booting. While PCs that do nothing more than beep might look on enviously, the fact is that the chime isn’t always welcome—boot your MacBook in a library, for example, and several annoyed faces will willingly hand out censure.

Here’s how to turn off the chime. These instructions are created for OS X Lion but should work with older versions of OS X.

Here’s another tip from the new book Mac Kung Fu, which contains over 300 tips, tricks, hints and hacks for OS X. It’s available from Amazon as well as other bookstores, and also as an eBook for all eReaders. 

Because there’s no official way of deactivating the boot chime (via a hardware settings switch, for example), the solution below is a hack that works by muting your computer’s volume when you shut down and then unmuting it when you log in again upon rebooting. Unfortunately, if you’re using OS X Lion this only works if you don’t have FileVault turned on, because that uses a different login procedure.

Follow these instructions exactly. Don’t use a different text editor such as TextEdit! TextEdit outputs plain text files that–perhaps because of a bug–cannot be interpreted as boot-time scripts, which is a vital part of this procedure.

1. Open Terminal (Finder->Applications->Utilities->Terminal) and type nano, to open the nano command-line text editor. Then copy and paste the following two lines within nano:
   #!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'
2. When you’ve finished typing, hit Control + O, then copy and paste the following for the filename:~/Documents/mute.sh. Hit Return to save the file. See the screenshot for an example of how it should look.
3. Don’t close the Terminal window, but alter the second line within nano to read as follows (that is, changewith to read without):
   #!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'
4. When you’ve finished typing, hit Control + X, hit Y, then copy and paste the following for the filename:~/Documents/unmute.sh. Hit Return to save the file. nano will quit.
5. In the Terminal window copy and paste the following series of commands, typing your login password when prompted (copy and paste each line individually, hitting Return after each; note that the last two lines are actually one line but are broken in two because of website formatting issues–just copy both lines at once, then paste):
   sudo chmod u+x ~/Documents/mute.sh
sudo chmod u+x ~/Documents/unmute.sh
sudo mv ~/Documents/mute.sh /Library/Scripts/
sudo mv ~/Documents/unmute.sh /Library/Scripts/
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/mute.sh
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/unmute.sh

When you reboot, you should find the chime volume is now muted.

Paste the script, hit Ctrl + O, then type the filename, as highlighted

To restore the chime at a future date, open a Terminal window and copy and paste the following series of commands, hitting Return after each line, and again typing your login password when prompted:

sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook