Moving Application Windows between Spaces on Leopard is EASY

Follow any of these steps to move application windows between spaces:

Method 1.

1. Hit F8 to show all of the spaces at once. F8 is the default key for bringing all spaces on top. If you have changed the default key, hit whatever key you've set for activating the spaces.
2. Hold down the Shift key, click and drag the window to another space. Once done, all of the other windows for the same application will end up in the same space.

Method 2.

1. Grab a windows title bar, use Command-Tab to switch to an application which resides in the target space.
2. Release Command-Tab. The windows is now placed to the target space. Once done, all of the other windows for the same application will end up in the same space.

Method 3.

1. Grab a windows title bar, use Command-Arrow Keys to switch between the spaces. 
2. Release Command-Arrow Keys once switched to target space. The window is now placed to the target space. Once done, all of the other windows should follow and will end up in the same space.

Hope this little trick will help you track your application windows between spaces.

Cheers! 

How to expose and use preinstalled Apache with PHP on Mac OS X

There are no traces about this but the matter of the fact is Apache and PHP comes preinstalled on your OS X. Now the question is, "Where is apache on your OS X partition and how to use it, how to use PHP?".

As always, I would try to share my experience of finding and running Apache and PHP on OS X.

To start Apache Web Server, perform following steps:

1. Open "System Preferences". You can do that from Apple Menu or can open it from Applications.
2. Locate icon labeled 'Sharing". Click on it.
3. Locate "Web Sharing" and select it. This should start up Web Sharing on your machine, which starts the Apache Web Server on your machine. Once the Apache Web Server is started, you can see URLs for "Your computer's web site" and "Your personal web site".
4. Your Apache Web Server is running now.
5. Start up your browser and open the URL (http://your-ip-address or http://localhost).
6. If everything is OK, your web browser should show you Apache default page.

You can access the pages of your web directory at /Library/WebServer/Documents directory.

To access your personal web pages, type following URL in your browser:
http://localhost/~username/

You can access your personal web pages at /Users/user-name/Sites/ directory. You can add/delete/modify web pages in this directory to set your personal web-site.

Now that you have your Apache Web Server running, running a PHP script should look trivial, you might have done it before. But it is not so easy on OS X.

By default, along with other features, PHP is disabled on Apache. You will have to enable PHP support in Apache. Follow these steps to enable PHP in your Apache:

1. We need to locate httpd.conf file to enable PHP with Apache. Go to /etc/apache2/. Open httpd.conf by typing sudo vi httpd.conf (you need super user privilege to modify this file).
2. Type the root password and you should be able to modify httpd.conf file.
3. Locate the line LoadModule php4_module or LoadModule php5_module.
4. Uncomment the line by removing the hash (#) from the begining of the line.
5. Warning! do not relocate the lines in this file.
6. Save the file.
   
7. By uncommenting the line LoadModule, you will load PHP module and allow Apache to serve any PHP file.
8. Restart Apache by deselcting and selecting "Web Sharing" on System Preferences->Sharing.

If everything goes well, you should be able to execute PHP files on your server. You can test your PHP with Apache. Create a file called "phpinfo.php" with following contents and place it in /Users/your-name-/Sites/ folder.

< ? php
// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL
phpinfo();

?>

Type the following URL in your web browser to check PHP.

http://localhost/~user-name/phpinfo.php

It should display large page with all PHP statistics.

If everything goes as described, you are good to use PHP with your Apache Web Server on your OS X. Remember, we have nothing to install here. Everything is preinstalled on your OS X. What we did is enabled the Web Server and PHP on your machine.


Have a nice day!

Update crashes Safari - Version 3.2 (5525.26.12)

Today morning an update notification popped-up on my Leopard. It was for Safari - Version 3.2(5525.26.12). This version addresses a number of bugs including - image handling, XML file processing, and several security vulnerabilities. In addition, the update adds support for anti-phishing technology to help protect users from malicious websites.

Looking at all the enhancements made available to the newer version I decided to update my Safari to the newer Version 3.2 (5525.26.12). This is how I updated my Safari.

1. Exit Safari, if using.
2. Upgrade your Safari to Version 3.2 (5525.26.12) by downloading and installing update from Apple just as you would do for any normal Apple application.
   
3. After you download and install the update, it will ask you to reboot your machine for update to take effect.
4. Reboot your machine.

While update provides the necessary bug fixes and enhancements, I have started seeing Safari crashes in about every 30 seconds. After much of digging at the crash reports, I realized that a third-party plugin called PithHelmet was the culprit.

I thought of reinstalling the PithHelmet to get it working again. But it seems I'd have to wait for an update from the plugin developer to restore the functionality. 

I installed PithHelmet on suggestion that this will effectively block ads while using Safari. Unfortunately, that was not the case. All in all, PithHelmet was making the browsing experience worse. So, I decided to uninstall the PithHelmet plugin.

Now, the question arises for me is "How do I uninstall PithHelmet?"

From the site:

Trashing the PithHelmet.bundle from /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/ folder will effectively remove PithHelmet from Safari...Unfortunately, it did not solve the problem.

With the help of Pacifist, I started analyzing PithHelmet. I found out that it comes with 2 packages. PithHelmet and its secondary component DuctTape.

To delete all remains of PithHelmet from your system, trash the following files/folders:

1. Exit Safari
2. Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/PithHelmet
3. /Library/Application Support/PithHelmet
4. Macintosh HD/Library/Receipts/PithHelmet.pkg
5. Macintosh HD/Library/Receipts/DuctTape.pkg
6. Macintosh HD/Library/Frameworks/Ducttape.framework
7. Start Safari...and....you are good to GO.

The same technique should be used to uninstall other plugins. "Concierge" -  the bookmark manager and "AcidSearch" - the search enhancement software may be other plugins for Safari crash.

Hope this would help and solve your Safari crash issues.