You know all the different tasks Siri can help you accomplish with your recent iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. But perhaps you didn’t realize you can teach Siri to help you save even more time when use the assistant for certain tasks.

I frequently use Siri to place calls to, or send iMessages to, my wife. She’s one of two Lauren’s in my address book; specifying to my iPhone each time that I’d like it to “Call Lauren Friedman’s iPhone” would quickly grow tiresome.

Instead, I taught Siri who Lauren is: I triggered Siri, and then said, “Lauren Friedman is my wife.” Siri then asked me if if I wanted it to remember that fact; I unsurprisingly responded in the affirmative.

Because I’ve done that, I can now tell Siri “Call my wife” or “iMessage my wife that I’m on my way home.”

And you can use a lot more than spousal relationships. Siri knows that Jason Snell is my boss, Dan Miller is my editor, and Dan Moren is my mentor. You can use pret …

Source: Mac OSX Hints

If, like me, you wish that TextEdit did not show its ruler by default, this hint is for you.

TextEdit displays the ruler by default when creating or opening rich text documents. I find the ruler visually cluttering and distracting, and I rarely ever need it.
Unfortunately, TextEdit does not offer a way to turn off the ruler by default in its Preferences window. But it can be done using the following simple steps:
Quit TextEdit if it is running.
Enter the following command into a Terminal window: defaults write com.apple.TextEdit ShowRuler 0
Open TextEdit.
Enjoy increased visual and mental tranquility.

You can always show the ruler if you need it for something by pressing ⌘R or choosing Format > Text > Show Ruler from TextEdit’s menus.

To revert TextEdit to its default setting, repeat steps 1 to 3 above, but use this command in Terminal instead: defaults delete com.apple.TextEdit ShowRu …

Source: Mac OSX Hints

As first pointed out by OS X Daily, Mountain Lion’s built-in screen savers cycle through a couple dozen awesome photos, across several categories, with images of space, nature, and more. The images are huge—and thus make great desktop backgrounds.

To find the images, use the Go To Folder command in the Finder (from the Go menu) and navigate here:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.Framework/Versions/A/Resources/Default Collections/

There, you’ll find four folders full of high-resolution imagery. You can copy them elsewhere, or even access the images from right where they are. Simply fire up the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, click the Plus (+) icon at the left, and add the folders—or individual images—as desired.

Source: Mac OSX Hints

I’ve been doing some work on my website, Kirkville, changing to a new theme. In order to test the theme, I set up a staging server, and wanted to import my existing posts, comments, etc. so I could fiddle with the new theme.

I’m not SQL-savvy, so it seemed the best bet was to use WordPress’s export/import feature, through its wordpress-importer plugin. This requires exporting an XML file of the WordPress content from the current server, then importing it on the staging server. Unfortunately, I was hit by that problem where my hosting company has uploads limited to 8 MB, and my WordPress XML file was 10.9 MB.

When I went looking for solutions, I found a number of posts on the WordPress forum suggesting splitting the XML file. I wasn’t sure how to do this safely, but found a free Mac utility called WXR Splitter. Running this tool, I split the X …

Source: Mac OSX Hints

This script opens a new Safari window if none is open, maximizes the front window if minimized, and opens a new focused tab on the left with your bookmarks, with the text caret in the address bar.

I Googled for such a script to no avail so I made it myself. Bound it to ⌘T and scope Safari in Quıcĸsıɩⅴεʀ (of course you’re using Quıcĸsıɩⅴεʀ, what else?) or any other lesser hotkey application. You can still use New Tab menu item to open tabs on the right by changing the shortcut in the Keyboard Shortcuts section of System Preferences, say to ⇧⌘T.

If you open bookmarks:// you may notice a flicker when setting the focus on the first tab. It may be due to the applescript command used — if you find a better method put it in the comments.
Also, I used clicking “Open Location…” instead of setting the “AXFocused” attribute because the item hierarchy changes when in full screen mode.

…

Source: Mac OSX Hints

The OS X Dashboard doesn’t include a Clock widget specifically for GMT/UTC (Universal Coordinated Time). Even if you try choosing London, which is usually GMT, it doesn’t always match UTC—since London observes daylight savings time.

If you would like to have a clock that always shows the current UTC time, a good option is to use Freetown in Africa. They use UTC+00:00, and don’t ever change throughout the year.

Source: Mac OSX Hints

OS X stopped letting me install any software not coming from Apple. I wanted to update some software, and instead of seeing the “Quarantine Dialog” box telling that the software was just downloaded from Internet, I got a dialog box telling me that the software was corrupted.

In fact, it was not corrupted—I could use it on another Mac. The issue wasn’t affecting Apple software, only third-party apps. Only by setting the “Anywhere” setting in System Preferences -> Security for installing apps could I install software again. But I didn’t want to use that setting.

Looking in the Console, I saw error 99999 from CoreServiceUIagent when I tried to install software.

CoreServicesUIAgent[2105]: Error SecAssessmentCreate: L’opération n’a pas pu s’achever. (OSStatus erreur 99999).

After some research and help from Apple I found that a specific file’s corruption was the source of my woes.

A way to confirm that y …

Source: Mac OSX Hints

Few of us ever REALLY want Caps Lock turned on; when we do hit it, we do so accidentally. There are workarounds.

You can just disable the key entirely, of course. To do so, go to System Preferences, and choose Keyboard. Then click the Modifier Keys button at the lower right of the Keyboard tab. Finally, set Caps Lock to No Action (or, alternatively, have it pull side duty as a bonus Control, Option, or Command key).

That’s a great solution for those of us who only ever trigger Caps Lock unintentionally. But what about folks who genuinely want the option to quickly enter a mode for NONSTOP CAPITALIZATION, yet still want to avoid entertaining said mode accidentally? For those troubled typists, the solution is a free utility called CapSee. It displays an unmissable on-screen indicator when you’re in Caps Lock mode. ISN’T THAT GREAT?

Source: Mac OSX Hints