Add Google Maps iframe & YouTube embed to Apple Wiki Server

Apple’s Teams Wiki Server supports very few HTML tags out of the box, in order to keep things simple. But, like Any Good Unix Ought To, Mac OS X Server gives you the ability to manipulated things, such as adding iframe, embed, param, and object tags to the Wiki/Blog server. Here’s how: Continue reading

Handy regex / preg_match for ZIP codes, phone numbers, states, SSN, URLs, and email addresses

Here is a handy collection of regular expressions, for use with PHP preg_match. If you need to check for properly formatted US states (two letters), US ZIP codes, US phone numbers, US Social Security Numbers, URLs for web sites, and properly formatted email addresses, read on: Continue reading

Set up Screen Sharing (VNC) via command line on Mac OS X remotely using SSH

Locked out of a Mac because Remote Desktop has suddenly taken a crap on you? Want to remotely enable Screen Sharing (Apple’s fancy name for VNC)? Well, as long as you have SSH active, you can enable Screen Sharing on Mac OS X 10.5 by following these easy instructions.

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Restore 30 second commercial skip to your Motorola DCT 6416 DVR

Want to fast forward 30 seconds at a time (commercial skip) on your Motorola 6416, 6412, or 6408 DVR? I’ve got a Motorola DCT 6416 DVR, which is used by Insight Cable here in Northern Kentucky and elsewhere, and by Comcast elsewhere. Both cable companies have kowtowed to the networks on this issue, disabling the feature. Fear not! The days those annoying ads that interrupt the TV shows you’ve already paid for are over! Continue reading

Mute system audio when increasing/decreasing volume

Here’s a cool tip from The Distant Librarian on how to silence the audio feedback you get when using the keyboard to increase or decrease the volume in Mac OS X.

Hold down the shift key while depressing the volume keys will silence the auditory feedback while raising and lowering the volume, but still show the visual cue.

Other cool tricks:

Hold down option while clicking one of the sound keys to access the Sound system preferences.

Get more granular volume control by holding down shift-option while clicking one of the sound keys to increase/decrease volume in 1/4 the normal increments. Normal, the Mac provides 16 volume levels. Holding down shift-option gives you 64 increments.

Configure Apache Web Sharing for user accounts in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Apple’s new Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) changes how web sharing is set up. Thankfully, they’ve moved us all to Apache 2 codebase (a good thingâ?¢). But in doing so, they’ve disabled the ability to serve web pages contained in your home Site directory.

If you turn on Web Sharing from the System Preferences panel, it works for the main computer (http://localhost) but not for user accounts (http://localhost/~username/). Most perplexing is that Apple’s graphical interface confirms that web sharing is turned on for your personal account, but it doesn’t work. This is *very* un-Apple.

Even if you turn on web sharing from the System Preferences panel, you’ll still receive the dreaded 403 Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server.

Thankfully, it’s a simple oversight on Apple’s part. Your options are two-fold. You can either set it up to activate the Sites directory in all your user accounts, or just for individual ones. I’ll cover both. Continue reading