scp: Secure Copy

Copying files from your Mac to another Mac or a Linux box is easy with scp - also known as secure copy. Mention ftp to anyone and the first thing they’ll tell you is that is sends your password in the clear.

A common complaint about the Mac is that it doesn’t have an ftp application. That’s not entirely true - there’s an ftp client you can access in Terminal. Still, it’s probably not what some users are looking for. You might want to skip ftp and take a look at scp, which transmits over an encrypted channel. Murphy uses scp to upload content to his Bluehost account, and has never had a need for ftp. If you want this kind of functionality make sure your host supports it.

You can use scp to copy entire folders, single files, or wildcard specified selections. You can upload files to the remote machine, or copy files down. You could copy a zip file up and then unpack it over ssh with zip.

In the screencast Murphy connects to a Linux machine, but the steps would be exactly the same if he were copying to another Mac. He’ll also show how to move a Terminal task to the background with bg, so other commands can be entered. This is especially useful when connected via ssh to a remote machine. You can kick off additional tasks without opening another ssh session or waiting for the current task to finish.

Throughout the screencast Murphy has to enter his password. That can get old really fast. See this post for a screencast about using keys instead of entering passwords.

The screencast assumes you’ve got some familiarity with getting around in the Terminal. If you don’t, check out Navigating the Terminal. It includes a warning screencast - tools like scp will overwrite files without warning. So be careful where you copy to.

Finally, Murphy refers to the remote machine by its ip address throughout the screencast. You can use domain names to use scp with computers on the Internet. You can use names on your own network too. See these two posts if you’re having trouble using names on your network:

The Hosts File
Netinfo Manager

Geek Tool: Getting Started

Geek Tool is one of the cooler freeware utilities Murphy’s seen in recent months. We’re just going to get you started today, but there’s a lot of information packed into this post.

If you like to have lots of information at your fingertips this could be the tool for you. Geek Tool can take the output of Terminal commands and the content of log files and display them on your Desktop. Images too, like a file on your computer or an image linked by url.

The possibilties are nearly endless. You might find you prefer Geek Tool to certain Widgets. And even if you don’t, it’s nice to have a choice. Geek Tool can display information about disk space, wireless networks, IP addresses, songs playing in iTunes, output from webcams - the list goes on and on.

There’s an always-on-top function that brings your Geek Tool output way up front. Even your application windows will slide under the text. Murphy did a screencast about mounting your Widgets to the Desktop instead of in their floating layer - but some people didn’t like this because the Widgets could be covered up with a web browser window or an icon. Those people might find a solution in Geek Tool.

You can group different Geek Tool items together and make the groups active from the menubar. This is a checkbox in the interface. If the menubar doesn’t work for you check out Menu Extra Enabler. Geek Tool installs as a pane in your System Preferences.

In the screencast Murphy creates Desktop items for reporting free disk space, the date, and a tiny calendar. Let’s not judge the content choices, we’re here to learn! In fact, Lifehacker has a calendar that marks off the current date. But again, Murphy wants you to know what the commands you enter mean.

The screencast also introduces awk. We’ll learn more about awk later - but for today it’s a useful way to extract the parts of the date we want to see. If you think awk is cool check out sed.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with Geek Tool you might want some inspiration for your new capabilities. Nick Young has gathered a bunch of cool examples, take a look.

The screencast only deals with Geek Tool in a shell command sense. We’ll look at other stuff soon. If you’ve got some great ideas for Geek Tool be sure to let us know in the comments.

Quicktime Auto-Play and Auto-Close

If you distribute Quicktime content without embedding it in a web page you might want to apply a skin to your video. Murphy’s covered that before. The downside of the skin is that the controls don’t show up, unless you create some - which requires some commitment to the task.

Your viewers might not know how to initiate playback on your Quicktime movie, unless you’ve added a title page with instructions to hit the space bar. Making the movie auto-play could alleviate some confusion.

The screencast shows how to make your movie auto-play and auto-close. The interface also has an option for auto-quitting. Follow this link to learn how to make a skin for your Quicktime movie or click here for instructions on making a title page.

A skin really sets your movie apart and draws attention. Someone might even think you know what you’re doing. Maybe.

Launching Applications From a Dock Folder

You can drop a folder on the Dock and create aliases for some of your frequently used Applications inside. Then when you click-and-hold on the folder you’ll get a pop-up list of the Applications so you can click-and-launch. You can create subfolders too - they’ll show up as fly-out menus when you access the folder from the Dock. Sort of like the Windows Start Menu.

This is probably better than placing an alias for the entire Applications folder in the Dock because it will load more quickly. It’s also better than rearranging your Applications folder or moving its contents to other folders. Software Update expects certain applications to be in certain locations. And as we saw yesterday some applications can lose functionality if they’re moved from their default location.

Sometimes Murphy uses a Dock folder to launch applications. But usually he uses the Terminal, where he’s created a series of aliases for quickly launching applications. See the screencast Alias App Launcher for more details. Or take a look at Spotlight Application Launcher - that’s another screencast.

When you’re done adding your custom folder to the Dock you might want to change its icon.  Here’s a screencast for that.

Cocoa Dictionary

Your Mac has a built-in dictionary that works in your Cocoa applications with a keyboard shortcut. Cocoa applications are kind of tricky to identify without using developer tools. If you know an easy way please post it in the comments. Anyway - you can always try the shortcut, which is Control+Command+D. In Cocoa applications you’ll get a pop-up defining the word under your mouse pointer.

There’s a comment thread on gizmodo about this feature. Posters there mention that it doesn’t work if you move your Dictionary application out of the Applications folder. Since this is a Monday post at Murphy Mac - where we try to help the beginners and switchers - we’re going to recommend against moving applications from your Applications folder.

Software update probably won’t update applications it can’t find in that folder - which is a good reason to leave them there. The dictionary loses a function if you move it. And who knows what happens if you move your other applications.

But maybe you’ve rearranged your applications so the folder isn’t so cluttered. There are other ways to handle that. Tune back tomorrow and we’ll make a custom Applications folder and add it to your Dock. Without breaking Software Update or the Dictionary.

There’s a brief screencast in case you’re away from your Mac and want to see this feature in action. Using the dictionary Murphy finds out what Murphy means.