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For those of you who are getting the following error when trying to launch Portal, there is hope! Unless you’re running it under Boot Camp on a MacBook, if that’s the case you’re screwed.
Hanging application hl2.exe, version 0.0.0.0, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0×00000000.
Just add the following to the end of the Target [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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Continuing the series of posts I started last week, here are a few more Terminal tips.
[16] uptime
Shows the current time, how long your computer has been running, as well as the average load.
[17] top
Much like Activity Monitor, the top command displays a list of all running processes on your system.
[18] emacs
Allows you to run the [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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[13] defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
This command lets you see the current path of the Finder window you are in. Quite handy if you’re working with a ton of finder windows.
[14] defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES
Enables Quit in Finder. killall Finder command is required to take effect.
[15] telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
Using a simple telnet [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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[10] defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
Leopard only. Replaces the 3D dock with a 2D one. Requires killall Dock to take effect.
[11] defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE
This sets the save dialogue to the expanded view as default. Requires restart. Replace TRUE with FALSE to disable.
[12] sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app
This command removes the spotlight icon [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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Yay! More terminal commands!
[7] whois
It’s a handy way to quickly track down registration/contact information about domain ownership. Simply enter whois domainnamehere.com.
[8] defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
If you use the screen shot function, you may at times want to change the format it stores the images in. Where jpg is in the code you can change [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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Continuing from where my last post left off, here are a few more Terminal commands.
[4] defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
Deactivates Dashboard. Requires the dock to be [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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Terminal is a fantastic way to customize random little settings in OS X, but it’s hard for new Mac users to know what commands do what. So over the next few days I’ll be posting random Terminal commands that I’ve found useful.
[1] defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, OS X, Tips by Aaron Nelsen
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I’d recently added a few new email accounts to Mail.app and when I went to sync my iPhone it threw back the following error:
“iTunes could not sync mail accounts to the iPhone “Aaron Nelsen’s iPhone” because an error occurred remapping record identifiers.”
Here’s what ended up fixing it for me: Next time you go to [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, Tech Support, Tips, iPhone, iSync, iTunes by Aaron Nelsen
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Recently someone approached me with a question about their CD drive, basically Windows XP wasn’t recognizing it, it would only show up in the device manager with the following error message…
The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31).
Uninstalling and reinstalling the drive yields the [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, Tech Support, Tips, Tutorial, Windows XP by Aaron Nelsen
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Yes, I did just use the word “pwns” in the title of my post… blame it on the fact I’m typing this on my iPhone since Apple has my computer for the next week.
So apparently Spybot has a nasty habit of taking away your ability to disable your Windows Firewall, go figure, so now when [...]

Filed under: Aaron Nelsen, How-to, Spybot, Tips, Windows Firewall, Windows XP by Aaron Nelsen
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