Ask TUAW: Automatically printing attachments, upgrading to Leopard, testing backups and more

Sean asks

In Safari, sometimes I come across a word/phrase I want to google. I right click and hit "search google" what I want it to do is open that google search in a new tab by default, like Firefox does. I really don't care for firefix except when dealing with safari-resistant pages.

All you have to do is first hold down the Command (⌘) key then select the text, right-click and choose "Search in Google"

ball asks

I'm looking for a way to automatically print email attachments provided that they come from the proper sender, etc... using Apple Mail. I know that I can set up a Mail rule to run an applescript if certain conditions are met, but I can't find a pre-existing applescript that can grab the attachment and send it to my printer. I also lack the leet-haxor-applescript-skills to throw my own script together. Help?

Let me say that I haven't tried this myself, but I ran across this site that includes an AppleScript to automatically print incoming PDFs. As he author, Ryan Hunt, notes it should work for any kind of file that the comman line utility lp can handle.

Jim asks

I work as internal IT support so I'm having to log in and out of various shared drives all day. My company has a policy (due to SarBox audits) that we log into shares we use for "normal purposes" such our personal home directory or other general use shares using our "normal" credentials which restrict permissions. There are occasions though where I will need to log in to that same share with Administrative privileges which essentially give us full control of the share (create directories, delete files, move files, etc.) and then log out after handling my admin requirements and log back on with my "normal" (restricted privilege) account. My problem is that keychain remembers my ID and if I try to command-k to that same drive it logs me in with whatever credentials that I last used instead of prompting me so that I can use the appropriate ID.

Well if I'm understanding you correctly all you have to do is start the Keychain Access application in /Applications/Utilities and then delete the keychain entry for that server. The next time you log on (with ⌘K), just be sure that you don't check the "Remember this password in my keychain" box, and then it will prompt you for credentials each time.

Update: My colleague Mike Rose, who has more experience with this sort of Enterprise problem, says: "Even if AFP creds are saved in keychain, you still get the dialog box -- his problem is Kerberos, which is invisibly doing single sign-on... he needs to open /system/library/coreservices/kerberos.app and kill his ticket."

Benjamin asks

1) Is it possible to have a single account that logs out automatically after a set period, without having all accounts do so?

I think I found exactly what you need, a free screensaver called Ciao from LorenB software.

2) I've been trying to select a custom user account image, but the results have been terrible. On the first attempt, I cropped a photo to a square shape, but left it at original size. OS X did a very poor quality resize, leaving a blocky icon. So, on the second attempt, I both cropped the photo and resized it myself to 48x48... but when I tried to select the image in the Accounts preference pane, the zoom control wouldn't go all the way in! I was left with a border around the image much bigger than the image itself, which was only appearing at 16x16. I don't get it. How can I turn an existing image into a decent user account icon?

Well, I don't think there's any magic here. Some sorts of icons just won't look very good when resized to that small. If you'll notice all of the default choices have very bold colors and stark shapes. So I'd suggest just playing with it a bit, trying different sizes, etc.

Phil asks

Is there any way to make an iTunes music library composed of unencrypted AAC visible to a PS3 over my network via the media server interface? I've tried Twonky media, but it fails at this with weird error messages (despite user complaints on their forum). Windows Media Player can play the files, but refuses to share them / make them visible via the media server interface. If I plug in a usb drive with the music on it, the PS3 can play the files, so I know it's not file incompatibility.

I would suggest checking out the tutorial which we posted on a while back for using MediaTomb with your Mac.

Nick asks

Everyone talks about backing up your data and how important that is, but people also mention that an important aspect of backing of your data is testing your restore process so that you know you can actually restore a backup if needed. Can anyone recommend a good process for this? I have never been able to come up with a good way to test it.

I recommend making a complete bootable backup of your main hard drive every day (e.g. in the middle of the night), using the excellent SuperDuper ($27.95) or Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware). Once you've done that you can test your backup by booting to the external drive by restarting your Mac and holding down the option key. Since the external drive should be a perfect mirror of your internal drive, everything should be the same. I do this on my computers (using SuperDuper) and I've never had a problem.

Adam asks

1) As a Mac newbie what should I expect when I upgrade to Leopard? I will certainly back up just incase, though will it wipe my system clean or will it archive everything and install the new OS on top of the old?

If you have enough hard drive space it should allow you to do three things: 1) upgrade (i.e. overwrite the Tiger system folder with the Leopard System), 2) archive (the Tiger System) and install (the Leopard System), or 3) erase and install. Here's my suggestion (indeed what I am going to do when Leopard ships). Make a complete bootable backup of the Tiger install with SuperDuper (as described above) to a FireWire external hard drive. Then, either archive or just erase and do a new install of Leopard. After Leopard installs use the Migration Assistant to pull user data from the external FireWire drive.

I generally think that it's much better to do a clean install than an upgrade. You don't want the cruft of left over from an upgrade (rather than a clean install).

2) I have a USB flash drive I like to use when I am swapping files between computers. The other day I noticed that there was significantly less memory available on it. It turns out that whenever I was deleting files from it it would send them to a hidden trash folder on the USB drive which would only be cleared when I emptied the trash on my computer. Is there a way to delete these files without having to clear my entire trash.

Well you could do this manually in the terminal, but as far as I know there's no built-in way to do this with the default Finder. The free applet Super Empty Trash will allow selective volume trash emptying. The shareware application Compost ($12.50) is perhaps a more elegant way to do the same thing (with additional features as well).

To delete files immediately I put the little application Graveyard into the toolbar of the Finder. So I can drag and drop a file onto Graveyard and it will simply be deleted, bypassing the Trash altogether.

My macbook has been acting very strange lately! Every once in a while whenever I type, the cursor moves either to another text box or into the middle of the box I am currently typing in. It also does the same in XP and Ubuntu, so that lessens my hopes that a clean install would do the trick... I am not touching tab or the trackpad. As you can imagine its very hard to type ANYTHING!!!

Well, are you absolutely sure you're not accidently brushing the trackpad? I have one suggestion to try first. Go the Trackpad tab of the Keyboard & Mouse Preference Pane. Check the box next to "Ignore accidental trackpad input" under Trackpad Options. If that doesn't help (and it's happening in other OSes) it's probably a hardware problem and you should take it into an Apple Store, etc.