Defaults Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Secrets preference panel updated for Snow Leopard

by TJ Luoma (Nov 5th, 2009)

From time to time we have shared hidden settings in applications which can be used to "tweak" an app's behavior, such as forcing Snow Leopard's dictionary to reuse the same window or make the print dialog expanded by default. These settings are normally changed using the Terminal.app which can be ...

Using Data Detectors in Leopard's iChat

by Brett Terpstra (Jan 5th, 2008)

I'm always, well, tickled by the things that can happen when you use Terminal commands that begin with "defaults write" -- thus changing the preferences for applications, the Finder, and more, often in ways that you can't accomplish via GUI pref settings. I also get a certain warmness from Leopard's ...

Make your guests feel at home with Leopard's Guest account

by Mike Schramm (Nov 10th, 2007)

I have my Mac's workspace down to a science-- everything is exactly where I want it and tuned just exactly how I think it should be. And so, even though it's a little silly, whenever a friend comes over and wants to use my computer, I always hesitate for just a second to let people invade my little ...