As a heavy-user of Firefox, the biggest annoyance in Safari for me was the missing shortcuts for directly accessing tabs. In Firefox you can access the tabs by pressing Cmd+<number of tab>. For example, if you want to jump to your third tab you would press Cmd + 3 (⌘ + 3), however in Safari this loads the third bookmark from the bookmark toolbar - very annoying if you are used to a different behavior.

Luckily there is a way to change this behavior and make Safari (4, not sure about 3) behave like Firefox with the help of this innocent looking piece of AppleScript:

tell front window of application "Safari" to set current tab to tab 3

Simple, isn't it? Now, all we need to do is to figure out how to combine this script with the shortcuts. Thankfully there's a small and free application called FastScripts Lite (hidden on the bottom of that page), it's limited to ten shortcuts, but all we want are nine (since Cmd + 0 is assigned to a somewhat useful "Actual Size" function), so it's perfect. If you need more shortcuts, you can purchase the full version.

Let's review that AppleScript above to ignore any errors caused by non-existing tabs:

try
	tell front window of application "Safari" to set current tab to tab 3
on error
	tell front window of application "Safari" to set current tab to last tab
end try

Open Script Editor and create nine files from 1-9 in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari, let's call them Tab1.scpt to Tab9.scpt and paste in each file the script from above, changing the 3 at the end of the long line to the current number. I have prepared a Zip with all nine files (SafariTabs.zip), so you don't need to do this by yourself. Simply extract this file in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/.

Next, launch FastScripts, click on the icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen and go to FastScripts->Preferences:

1. We want FastScripts to start when we log in.

2. Assign Cmd+1 - Cmd+9 (or any other combinations) to the proper Tab-scripts

Go back to Safari, and see the magic at work!

As a follow up to my earlier teredo howto, here i want to show you how to use the Tunnelbroker provided by Hurricane Electric on OS X 10.5, Leopard, behind a NAT Router that passes protocol41 (e.g. Fritz!box Fon WLAN 7170).

I did not want to make rocket-science out of this, so i did the easiest and simpliest possible way to achieve my goal, which means that it might not be the 100% correct way to do things. Also, it's not going in to details about IPv6, so if you are new to this topic, the tutorial may be a bit difficult for you.

How all this will work: Once you have finished this tutorial, you will have a Launchd script checking every 30 mins for IP changes, if your IP has changed, it will reset your IPv6 configuration. That means, in worst case, your IPv6 will be down for 30 minutes, but in best case you won't notice the script at all.

Step 1, Register with Hurricane Electric's tunnelbroker.net
Just go to http://tunnelbroker.net and get your free account.

Step 2, Create a new tunnel

Click on Create Regular Tunnel, and enter your current public IPv4 there (see You are viewing from IP: <that's your ip>)

Next, pick the closest location to you. You can also ping each of the IPs shown there and pick the fastest one, since - at least in Germany - the closest geographical location not always is the fastest one.

When you are finished, you will get your tunnel details displayed, which should be similar to the screenshot below. You will need some values from this screen and the account overview screen in the script in the next step.

Step 3, The IPv6 Script

This is the IPv6 script, it is documented inside, so follow the steps there and then come back here :-)

#!/bin/bash
#######################################################################
# Update the HE (Hurricane Electric) ipv6-tunnel
#######################################################################
# Interface to use: en1 = Airport, en0 = Ethernet
MYIF="en1"

# leave as is
IPCACHE="/Library/Caches/ipv6scriptIP"

# Your Tunnel settings start here
# 1. get HEUSER hash from the website, "UserID"
# 2. get HEPASS hash: echo -n YourPass|md5
# 3. get HETUNNEL from the website, "Global Tunnel ID"
# 4. get other settings from the website

HEUSER=fb3f06c821388858cafe95cea24895d3
HEPASS=420cc447758fe38e9df69a3a17c77c33
HETUNNEL=123456

HETUNEND=216.66.00.00
HEYOUR6END=2001:0123:123a:1234::2
HETHEIR6END=2001:0123:123a:1234::1
HEPREFIX=64

# This is some IP from the "Routed /64" pool, used for outgoing connections from your Mac.
# Should it get blocked by anyone, you can simply change it to any other IP from the pool
# without having to apply for a new tunnel. e.g. if your Routed /64 pool is 
# 2001:0123:123b:1234::/64, you can use this for your IP:

HEMY64IP=2001:0123:123b:1234::0bad:cafe

#######################################################################
# Config end
#######################################################################
# sometimes this script will get executed twice at the same time, not good, so:
if [ -f $IPCACHE.lock ] ; then
  echo A copy already running!
  exit 0
else
 touch $IPCACHE.lock
fi
# This is faster if your router sets a dyndns entry:
#NEW_IP=`dig mycomp.myvnc.com|grep "^mycomp"| grep -Eo "\<[[:digit:]]{1,3}(\.[[:digit:]]{1,3}){3}\>"`
NEW_IP=`curl -s "http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/cgi-bin/ip.cgi"`

# Wait for the network...
while [ ! -n "$NEW_IP" ]
do
	sleep 10
  #NEW_IP=`dig mycomp.myvnc.com|grep "^mycomp"| grep -Eo "\<[[:digit:]]{1,3}(\.[[:digit:]]{1,3}){3}\>"`
  NEW_IP=`curl -s "http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/cgi-bin/ip.cgi"`
done


OLD_IP=`cat $IPCACHE`
if [ "$NEW_IP" = "$OLD_IP" ] ; then
	CURCONF=`ifconfig |grep $HETUNEND`
   if [ -n "$CURCONF" ] ; then
		echo Nothing to do
		rm $IPCACHE.lock
		exit 0
	fi
fi

echo -n $NEW_IP > $IPCACHE

# if you need to use your public ip address, use LOCAL_IP=$NEW_IP instead
LOCAL_IP=`ifconfig $MYIF |grep -E 'inet.[0-9]' | grep -v '127.0.0.1' | awk '{ print $2}'`

# let's delete a pre-existing gif0, ignore any errors
ifconfig gif0 deletetunnel
ifconfig gif0 down
ifconfig gif0 inet6 delete $HEYOUR6END
ifconfig gif0 inet6 delete $HEMY64IP
route delete -inet6 default -interface gif0

# update the tunnel
curl -k -s "https://ipv4.tunnelbroker.net/ipv4_end.php?ipv4b=$NEW_IP&pass=$HEPASS&user_id=$HEUSER&tunnel_id=$HETUNNEL"
echo " "

sleep 1
ifconfig gif0 tunnel $LOCAL_IP $HETUNEND
ifconfig gif0 inet6 $HEMY64IP/64 alias
ifconfig gif0 inet6 $HEYOUR6END $HETHEIR6END prefixlen /$HEPREFIX
route -n add -inet6 default $HETHEIR6END

rm $IPCACHE.lock
exit 0

[download]

After adapting the values to your needs, you need to save it in the right place:
sudo vi /usr/local/bin/ipv6script
Paste your script, and save it with :wq

Make it executable by typing
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/ipv6script

Step 4, Launchd

Now we need to create a LaunchDaemon in Launchd, to do so:
sudo vi /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.pugio.myipv6script.plist
Paste:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>net.pugio.myipv6script</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Users/pk/Applications/ipv6script</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>1800</integer>
        <key>WatchPaths</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.network.identification.plist</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

[download]

This will tell Launchd to execute the script on Login, all network changes and every 30 minutes, in case your router gets a new IP. If you are on static IPs, you can remove that timer, just delete these two lines from the file:
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>1800</integer>

Finally you have to activate your Lauchd Agent by executing following:
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/net.pugio.myipv6script.plist

You should now be able to ping6 pugio.net - congratulations.

Bug hunting

Should something go wrong, execute the script by hand:
sudo /usr/local/bin/ipv6script

This should hopefully show you the error.

If you find this howto useful, or have anything to contribute to it, please leave a comment or link to this tutorial, thank you :-)

It seems that under some unknown circumstances you will hose your iLife 8 installation so that Garageband, iPhoto, etc and other applications which depend on iLife like Mail.app, iChat.app, Google Notifier, Pages, etc will not lauch.

Mine probably stopped working after I installed Garageband from my Macbook's bundled software DVD, which I had not initially installed.
Symptoms: The app will bounce few times in the dock, close and you will get the following crash report (Example Crash Report for iPhoto, it's the same for all other apps):

Process:         iPhoto [413]
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Identifier:      com.apple.iPhoto
Version:         
Build Info:      iPhotoProject-3640000~10
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [177]

Date/Time:       2008-05-04 16:14:58.097 +0800
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.5.2 (9C7010)
Report Version:  6

Exception Type:  EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0

Dyld Error Message:
  Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/ImageKit
  Referenced from: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iLifeMediaBrowser.framework/Versions/A/iLifeMediaBrowser
  Reason: image not found

Checkig the directory will possibly confirm, that the A directory in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/ is not there:

$ ls -l /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1 Apr 30 22:11 Current -> A

Howto fix this:

1. Cry like a baby.
2. Don't panic!
3. You need the "A" folder from a different Leopard installation with same level of updates as your machine or the proper ImageKit_tiger.pkg from somewhere. At the time of writing, the required folder has the following md5 on 10.5.2 with all security updates:

$ md5 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GraphicsAppSupport.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/ImageKit
1786a69b42c828414dbd4b191dce1d47

The version according to Resources/version.plist seems to be 1.0.1 and I have NO idea where to get it from if not from a second machine. The iLife 8.2 update on Apple's website has ImageKit with version 1.0! The 10.5.2 Combo Update does not have the required ImageKit at all. My guess would be that it came recently with one of the Standalone Updates, if you have no access to a second machine, try your luck with one of these. You will need Pacifist for browsing the packages. Should you succeed, please leave a comment here.

In any case, after copying the A folder back to it's place it is advisable to repair disk permissions with Disk Utility.

Possible other ways to fix this:

• Check your Time Machine backup, if you are doing full backups, it may be there!
• Reinstall everything and hate Apple forever

I finally found some time to watch the You Suck At Photoshop tutorials, and they are hilarious. (Attention: Photoshop CS3 needed...)

There was always one feature from Gnome that i missed in Mac OS X, the ability to quickly lock your Mac with a shortcut and go for lunch. Sure, there's that option to lock your mac every time your screensaver goes on, but the problem with that is that I do not want to enter my password every time. At home for example, there is no need to lock my Macbook. Besides this function has a lot of issues when waking up from sleep; Sometimes I would have to wait for a minute until i get a login box. After a long hunt on macosxhints.com, I found a command to show the fast user switching login box without actually having to enable fast user switching:

/System/Library/CoreServices/"Menu Extras"/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

There are several convenient ways to execute it:

• Create an Automator action which executes a shell script (slow to execute)
  
• Create an AppleScript Application and put it in your Dock:
  do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend"
• Run the shell script/ AppleScript from Quicksilver
• Run the AppleScript in Launchbar:
  Put the AppleScript (.scpt) from above in ~/Library/Scripts and enable Home Library scripts in the Launchbar Configuration (I found this to be the fastest option)
  

Finally, if you have no idea what I am talking about, but you need this functionality, check out Lock My Mac.