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Essential Mac OS X tools: NoSleep extension

macosx-nosleep-extension – The MacOS X kernel extension, preventing sleep when you close the lid. – Google Project Hosting.

Very useful, especially when watching a movie on a projector using HDMI directly, instead of using AirPlay with an Apple TV. Thanks to NoSleep, you can close your MBA’s/MBP’s lid but still stream the movie to the projector.

If I were Apple, I’d be a bit embarrassed that such a setting is not already built-in.

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macvim – Vim for the Mac

When using Mac OS X, I used to use the CLI vim by the excellent Homebrew package manager.

Now I’ve just stumbled over macvim, which is kind of a “deluxe vim” for Mac OS X, including adjusted key bindings for the Mac and a GUI menu, supporting Cocoa file dialogs, among others.

It’s highly recommended if you want to have the best of both the CLI and GUI editor worlds.

Download

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Using IRC on the go

Running the console IRC client weechat (not to confuse with the wechat messenger) in a screen or tmux session on a Linux (or Mac OS X) server and accessing it trough mosh is a great way to use IRC on the go, i.e. with a unsteady Internet connection.

P.S. Thanks to Devaux and rmeyer for the hints

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Zimbra ZCS: OpenDKIM not running

After upgrading Debian, OpenDKIM sometimes stops running or fails to properly restart. If you don’t actively monitor your ZCS server, the only way to detect this is either through a growing mail queue of unsent messages or through a note in the ZCS server admin panel.

Usually, manually restarting either OpenDKIM itself or the whole ZCS server once “fixes” the problem:

# service zimbra restart

or

# /etc/init.d/zimbra restart

In other cases, fixing the permissions may help:

# /opt/zimbra/libexec/zmfixperms -verbose -extended

(source)

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Mac OS X: Reduce/increase workspace switching delay

Does dragging windows to the adjacent workspace in Mac OS X feel sluggish? Try lowering the according delay, e.g. to 0.1 seconds. For a persistent change, enter the following in a terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.1; killall Dock

If you’d like to have a longer delay, try setting a value of 1.0 or even 2.0.

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System information on Mac OS X

Mac OS X comes with a pretty useful tool to list all the details about your system:

# system_profiler

E.g. to find out whether your RAM supports ECC:

# system_profiler|grep ECC
          ECC: Disabled

Or wether your SSD supports TRIM:

# system_profiler|grep TRIM
          TRIM Support: Yes
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Some helpful Git resources

A friend recently told the following joke:

“The idea that git can be used offline is an illusion – you still need connectivity for googling which arguments to pass to what command.”

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but as always, there’s a grain of truth in it. So here we go: