Friday, September 26, 2008

Login Window shortcut for OSX Fast User Switching

There is, at time of writing, no shortcut for OSX with Fast User Switching enabled to take you to the Login Window.

As is you have to use the icon in the menu bar.

I found many references to this and the simplest, for me was this:

The code is simple to actually take us to the Login Window (without closing our applications as SHIFT COMMAND Q does


Here's the code we want to run:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

You could create a work flow to run that command, put that in your dock or make a hotkey for it.

As I use Quicksilver rather than the Dock, it comes with the ability to install triggers.

So now when I hit Control-Option-Command L I go straight to the Login Window.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Lost iTunes Library, Found iPod

Finder doesn't 'find' enough.
Other options are there and here's a simple example of such for OS X users
clipped from rixstep.com

Countless megabytes of information on iPods and iTunes and the woes caused by the inability to copy songs out of the iPod - and yet it's only:

cp -R /Volumes/<name>/iPod_Control ~

Michael saw an article recently in a hardcopy Mac magazine. Someone had written in telling how a purchase of Cocktail had enabled all files to be visible in Finder.

The mag's own editor calmly pointed out that no purchase, no additional software, was ever necessary. All one had to do was:

ls -a
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Sunday, September 07, 2008

Wilderness Quotes

Love the bush, love the thinking.. at least of some.
clipped from wilderdom.com

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau


A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
- Greek Proverb


The frog does not drink up the pond in which it lives.
- Chinese Proverb

Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then you will find out that money cannot be eaten
- Cree Indian Prophecy

Earth provides enough to satisfy
every man's need, but not every man's greed.
- Mohandas Gandhi

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Chief Seattle's Thoughts

Indigenous people have a wisdom, a way, that would seem to be the very thing that white fellas are so often yearning for.
Keep It Simple Stupid!
clipped from www.kyphilom.com

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to
walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it
is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of
us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great
eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the
meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same
family.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man
would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to
the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a
thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot
them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the
smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill
only to stay alive.

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Important Groups of Wildlife Habitat Plants - Australia

The goal being to plant plants which provide food, shelter and nest sites for a range of nectar, fruit, seed, leaf and insect (and other prey) eating animals, eg. birds, mammals, lizards, frogs and insects.

Top habitat plant groups which provide many resources are:
Eucalyptus, Angophora, Melaleuca, Acacia, Banksia, Leptospermum and Kunzea.

Shelter plants -
many Acacia (wattles), Leptospermum (tea-trees), Melaleuca (paperbarks), Bursaria (blackthorn), Hakea, Ceratopetalum (Christmas bush), Kunzea, Clematis, Pandorea (wonga-wonga vine), Rubus (native raspberry) and any dense and/or spikey planting.

Insect-pollinated plants -
Acacia (wattles), native peas (eg. Dillwynia, Hardenbergia, Kennedia), Leptospermum (tea-trees), native daisies (eg. Olearia) as well as Hibbertia, Clematis, Pomaderris.

Nectar plants -
Banksia, Grevillea, Hakea, Correa, Lambertia (mountain devil), Callistemon (bottlebrush), Eucalyptus, Angophora, Melaleuca, Xanthorrhoea (grasstrees) and others with big showy flowerheads, Epacris.

Seed plants -
Eucalyptus, Angophora, Acacia (wattles), Casuarina and Allocasuarina (she-oaks), Glochidion (cheese tree), Lomandra, native grasses (eg. Themeda, Danthonia), rushes (Juncus) and sedges (Gahnia).

Fruit plants -
Acmena, Syzygium (lillypillies), Ficus (figs), Alphitonia, Trema, Cissus (native grape), Persoonia (geebugs), Dianella (native lily), Breynia, Stephania, saltbushes and many rainforest or wet forest species.

Native bee plants -
Persoonia (geebungs), native peas (eg. Hovea, Pultenaea), native daisies (eg. Helichrysum), heath plants (eg. Epacris, Leucopogon), Goodenia, Tristaniopsis (water gum), Leptospermum.

Native butterfly plants -
native peas, native daisies, native grasses (eg. Poa), sedges and rushes (eg. Carex, Juncus), Lomandra, Dianella, Bursaria (blackthorn), Macrozamia (burrawang), Dodonaea, Zieria, Correa, Indigofera, Cupaniopsis (tuckeroo), Melaleuca and mistletoes.

Hope I spelt them all correctly, let me know if any of the links are dead!