Macintosh Notes

Notes on the Macintosh

I do most of my work on Macs because I like having a full Unix operating system, I like having well-integrated graphical tools, I like having hardware that's highly integrated with the software, and I like having other people worry about the system administration. The Mac is a great system, but I've also found that there are some programs that make it a lot easier to use:

• MacPorts, a nice port management system for Open Source ports on the Mac.
• EMACS on MacOS: Aquamacs Emacs 21 for MacOS Emacs.app
• iterm (better Terminal)
• TeXniscope
• Enhanced Carbon Emacs (ECE) plugin
• pdfsync
• LinkBack Framework; you want the Keynote plug-in
• SuperDuper!, an easy-to-use backup system for the Mac which makes bootable drives.

Other places to look for cool Mac stuff:

• Hawk Wings' list of MacOS Plug-ins
• PHP5 for Mac

Backing up a Mac

Although there are some nice programs like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! for backing up Macs, here is an easy way to clone /dev/disk0s2 to /dev/disk1s2:

 #!/bin/sh
 asr --source /dev/disk0s2 --target /dev/disk1s2 --erase --noprompt 
 disktool -n disk1s2 backup