Google Software Update, which vexes system purists everywhere since it’s installed silently when you install certain Google products, is set by default to autonomously execute on a daily basis. In Mac OSX, there’s no control panel or preference pane with which to change this annoying behaviour unlike in Windows.
However, I just found this page tucked away which describes how to set the update frequency for OSX (Windows users look here). You have to get into Terminal and:
$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval <frequency>
…where <frequency> is in seconds. Setting it to 0 (zero) disables it completely.
If you want to manually run an update check, you need to look in either
- /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
- ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
for a file called ‘CheckForUpdatesNow.command’ and run that. Convenient, huh?
If I get the time, I might hack together a Pref Pane for this.
Well, looks like I can retire WebKit for a little while. The Safari developers have released a beta of version 4. I had a bit of trouble starting it at first (Mac OSX 10.5.6). It was the Glims plugin which was crashing it. I removed it from /Library/Application Support and Safari started up nicely.
Update: Turns out Google Gears doesn’t work in this Safari 4 beta.
Update 2: The Glims developers have release a new version which doesn’t crash Safari, but is missing a chunk of functionality.
Update 3: Safari, even in the development WebKit nightlies exhibited an irritating “bug” with the WordPress 2.7 administrative interface. It would cause a modal overlay dialog to hang. The dialog appears when editing a post with the visual editor (e.g. add a link, upload images, etc.). This is still quite present in 4 beta.
Update 4: (June 11, 2009) The bug mentioned in Update 3 with the modal dialog has been fixed in Safari 4.
I was having problems transferring files from one external USB drive to another. They were both attached via a powered USB hub. I tried running TechTool Pro on the drive I suspected with having a problem but it kept hanging.
The system.log showed this whenever it happened:
AppleUSBEHCI[0x6dfc000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0xfa, timing out!
I finally switched cables and removed it from the hub and plugged it directly into the computer. Seems to work fine now…but I should check it with the old cable again…
I have a little Folder Action set up on a “dropbox” type folder that automatically adds a given file (usually MP3s) to my iTunes library. I created a dumb-as-bricks Automator workflow and saved it as a plug-in of type Folder Action. Worked flawlessly in 10.4.
With OSX 10.5, for some reason it runs the action but doesn’t actually execute it properly. I found this little article which provides a workaround but doesn’t actually fix anything. You have to edit the AppleScript file from something like this:
[sourcecode language=’plain’]on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
tell application “Macintosh HD:Users:MyUserName:Library:Workflows:Applications:Folder Actions:Name Of My Workflow.app”
open added_items
end tell
end adding folder items to[/sourcecode]
to this:
[sourcecode language=’plain’]on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
tell application “Finder”
open added_items using alias “Macintosh HD:Users:MyUserName:Library:Workflows:Applications:Folder Actions:Name Of My Workflow.app”
end tell
end adding folder items to[/sourcecode]
…essentially getting Finder to do what you’ve already done.
