Mac OS X

Tricks

Disable sudden motion sensor

The motion sensor is great to save the hard drive if the machine is ever to fall a fair height or be struck, but it also can make the heads park more often than necessary.

To disable the sensor:

1. Open the Utilities folder, find Terminal
2. Enter sudo pmset -g to see the current system settings, sms indicates Sudden Motion Sensor and is normally 1
3. To disable the sensor use sudo pmset -a sms 0, where 0 is disable and 1 enable
4. The change is permanent until the pram and maybe the SMC is reset

Make current folder default search

For some reason the default search source folder is "This Mac" when CMD+F is issued. I would argue that you're more interested in the content of the current folder where you issued the command than the entire hard drive.

1. Open a Finder window, select "Finder" and "Preferences"
2. Go to "Advanced" and under "When performing a search", pick "Search the Current folder"

Now it's quicker to search a folder for specific files.

Show file extensions

Default behavior is to not show file extensions, for better file management disable hidden filename extensions in Finder.

1. Open a Finder window, select "Finder" and "Preferences"
2. Go to "Advanced" and check "Show all filename extensions"

Require password after sleep or screen saver

To avoid friends messing around with the machine, require the account password when waking-up from sleep or deactivating the screen saver.

1. Open System Preferences, open Security
2. Check "Require password [immediately] after sleep or screen saver begins"

Enable 64-bit kernel in Snow Leopard

By default the 32-bit kernel will be loaded when booting Snow Leopard, holding two keys during the boot will switch to the 64-bit kernel (until the next reboot).

1. (Re-)start the machine
2. Hold the letter keys "6" and "4", as in 64-bit
3. On the firt boot, the mouse and keyboard might not respond (at least on my 2008-unibody Macbook Pro)
4. Open Sytem Profiler, under Software, check if "64-bit kernel and extensions" is enabled

Reference:

• 64-bit Snow Leopard defaults to 32-bit kernel

References

• Apple Portables: Advanced tips for Sudden Motion Sensor