TerminallyGeeky Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Terminally Geeky: How to tell if a script is being called from launchd

by TJ Luoma (Feb 25th, 2013)

Warning: command line geekiness ahead. When writing shell scripts, I often send interactive output to the user via echo to give feedback or information. But if the shell script is called on a schedule via OS X's behind-the-scenes process launcher launchd, rather than from a Terminal session, ...

Terminally Geeky: use automatic login more securely

by TJ Luoma (Mar 7th, 2011)

Imagine if you rebooted your computer, and it automatically logged you in, launched all of your login apps, updated your Dropbox folder, MobileMe, email, RSS, Twitter and everything else without you even having to enter your password. That auto-login capability is built into your Mac, and in fact, ...

Terminally Geeky: Deadline reminders using Growl, sleepwatcher, and GNU date

by TJ Luoma (Feb 18th, 2011)

When I have a large deadline looming, I like to keep track of how many days I have left. I've tried Dashboard widgets, iPad apps and just about anything else you could think of, but they all have failed for one simple reason: they require me to check them. I can go days or weeks without triggering ...