Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

launchd posts

Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, Tips and tricks, Troubleshooting

Automatically restart crashed programs

Over at Macworld Rob Griffiths has a great column on automatically restarting a program after a crash. Although it is much more stable these days, for a while last year Quicksilver was constantly crashing on me and often I wouldn't notice until ? + space was strangely unavailing. If there's any program for you, like Quicksilver for me, that simply must be running all the times (but which unexpectedly crashes sometimes), Rob's hint is potentially very handy. It basically involves using Lingon to create a launchd daemon that watches for a crash log and then restarts the application when it sees one. Full instructions are available at Macworld. I'm now going to go see if I can get this set up for Quicksilver.

Filed under: OS, Terminal Tips

Trigger backups on connect with launchd

The fine folks at macresearch.org have put out an interesting tutorial that walks through setting up launchd and rsync to do automatic backups whenever a specific external drive is mounted. Loyal readers may note that this is similar to the core feature of Martian Lifeboat (which should not be confused with Mojave Shade's Lifeboat, as mentioned in several comments). The script, however, is free; Martian Lifeboat is not.

Although the currently published script leaves out the crucial -E flag to force rsync to copy resource forks (credit to Josh Wisenbaker of afp548.com for spotting the silent E), it's still a good primer on the power of launchd. For a simple way to create your own launchd configuration files, be sure to check out the powerful, open-source and free Lingon utility. If you try this out, let us know how it works for you.

[via macenterprise mailing list]

Tip of the Day

To get an instant map to any address, just go to your Address Book and right click on the address field of any one of your contacts and select "Map Of." The address will then be revealed in Google Maps on Safari. You can do the same if a data detector determines there is an address in an e-mail in Mail.


Follow us on Twitter!
 TUAW [Cafepress]

Featured Galleries

DNC Macs
Macworld 2008 Keynote
Macworld 2008 Build-up
Google Earth for iPhone
Podcaster
Storyist 2.0
AT&T Navigator Road Test
Bento for iPhone 1.0
Scrabble for iPhone
Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer Briefcase
Apple Vanity Plates
Apple booth Macworld 07
WorldVoice Radio
Quickoffice for iPhone 1.1.1
Daylite 3.9 Review
DiscPainter
Mariner Calc for iPhone
2009CupertinoBus
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D
MLB.com At Bat 2009
Macworld Expo 2007 show floor

 

More Apple Analysis

AOL Radio TUAW on Stitcher