Tec(h)tonic

Insights into building a solid I.T. foundation in the mid-size business world.

Category: How To

  • Disable Mac OS X window zoom effect

    I’m not a fan of cutesy transition effects that essentially do nothin more than slow me down. I found that I can speed up Mac OS X’ UI by disabling the window zoom effect seen whenever opening or closing a window. All it took was this one-line command from the Terminal: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled…

  • LDAP query to an Active Directory server

    Here’s a great way to test your *nix-based system’s ability to successfully query an Active Directory server from the command line: ldapsearch -LLL -H ldap://<ADserver>:389 -b ‘dc=<domainName>,dc=<topLevelDomain>’ -D ‘<ADdomain>\<userName>’ -w ‘<password>’ ‘(sAMAccountName=<shortName>)’

  • Run Internet Explorer on Mac OS X

    This is a great tip; can’t believe I never stumbled onto it before: basically, download and install the free VirtualBox virtual machine system and then download a prepackaged version of IE to run within it. No standalone OS install or anything. Brilliant! From OSXDaily.com: Internet Explorer for Mac the Easy Way: Run IE 7, IE8,…