
Show HN: Mac Hacks Wiki – A central repo for your ‘default writes’ - whiskykilo
http://machacks.whiskykilo.com
======
danudey
This seems like a better-documented, less-complete, and less user-friendly
version of Secrets[1].

[1] [http://secrets.blacktree.com](http://secrets.blacktree.com)

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whiskykilo
I've actually never run into Secrets! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I will certainly be adding more to it over time. Do you have any specific
suggestions?

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McUsr
I advise everybody to not mess with anything written in red.

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jjangsangy
Cool stuff, lots of really good automation tricks that I haven't seen. I have
a similar routine of doing a clean wipe every once in a while and wrote a
bunch of scripts to make the process less painful.

One of the more useful ones is a small shell wrapper around homebrew cask that
batches installation packages based on category, and one that automates
symbolically linking dotfiles using a configuration file.

[https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/c226a9d199fdd9ecba1f](https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/c226a9d199fdd9ecba1f)

[https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/2951a63fe45d2010bd8d](https://gist.github.com/jjangsangy/2951a63fe45d2010bd8d)

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moepstar
Ok, but doing a clean wipe to just reload a backup from TimeMachine won't do
any good since it'll restore all the cruft back, right?

Which leads me to my second point: How would you go finding all those still
relevant dotfiles and folders for settings of programs you still want to use
and, with wiping, removing all obsolete ones?

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Scarbutt
I use Karabiner to customize just two keys, does anyone know how can I make
the enter key act as a control key when pressed simultaneously with another
key and act as enter key when pressed alone? was thinking of a script that is
called at startup.

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fit2rule
A better way to handle these (in my opinion) is to use the Secrets.prefPane ..
and the related website:

[http://secrets.blacktree.com/](http://secrets.blacktree.com/)

A much more comprehensive collection of tweaks and tips for OSX
administration.. though I did learn a few things from WhiskyKilo which were
quite interesting - I have wondered how to do this from the command line for
years and am glad to have finally learned: "sudo softwareupdate -i -a" ..
fantastic!

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McUsr
I advise everybody to not mess with any secrets setting that is listed with a
red font.

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cweiss
Without delving much past the first page, it seems like Boxen would cover a
lot of this territory? Boxen [1] is a puppet-based OS-X provisioning tool used
by (among others) GitHub to set up new Macs in a hurry. It does take a little
while to get configured and dialed in, but once it's set up, (re)provisioning
a new Mac is almost fun.

[1] [https://boxen.github.com/](https://boxen.github.com/)

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jimmcslim
"This will download and install all updates available for your Mac: sudo
softwareupdate -i -a"

I'm assuming that it won't install App Store software that is in your account
but not installed on the current machine? Which if so is a shame that Apple
haven't exposed this via the command line (preferably specifying the name of
the application to install).

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whiskykilo
You can actually specify the application as well, IIRC. I will verify all of
that later this evening when I'm in a place to do it.

~~~
whiskykilo
I've updated the site to include the details you were asking about. I was able
to test it all on a OS X VM with great success.
[http://machacks.whiskykilo.com/hacks/app-
store.html](http://machacks.whiskykilo.com/hacks/app-store.html)

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coherentpony
Where's the repository? I don't see it.

Edit: I'm an idiot. I thought the title referred to a VCS repository.

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whiskykilo
Actually, the whole site is a repo hosted on Github Pages. If you'd like to
contribute, feel free to do a pull request.
[https://github.com/whiskykilo/machacks.whiskykilo.com](https://github.com/whiskykilo/machacks.whiskykilo.com)

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whiskykilo
So far there's been a pull request and a few additional hacks merged in
tonight! Thanks everybody!

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Scarbutt
"Seriously, iTunes, does anyone still use you?"

What do you use instead of itunes?

~~~
chunkstuntman
[http://coppertino.com/](http://coppertino.com/)
[http://banshee.fm/](http://banshee.fm/)
[http://ncmpcpp.rybczak.net/](http://ncmpcpp.rybczak.net/)
[https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40721/winamp](https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40721/winamp)

~~~
sigsergv
[http://cogx.org](http://cogx.org)

