I just now noticed that Parallels for OSX now has a Directory of Virtual Appliances that offers over 50 open source operating systems with specific features. For example there is an AMP Web Developer Suite that contains PHP/PERL/Python, MySQL and PostgreSQL all installed, configured, and ready to use.

If you’ve ever had to install PHP from source on Mac OSX, two of the dependencies you’ve likely come across are libpng and libjpg.  Ethan Tira-Thompson has created a universal binary installer for both of these libraries to make them easier to install.  You could also grab these from Darwin Ports or Fink, but the installer is easier!

Alright - forget my terminal hack for removing the glass dock!  Apple has apparently made the Dock completely skinnable!  Pimp My Dock is a freeware application that will let you create your own dock style by importing graphical elements that you create in your favorite image editing application.

If you are graphically challenged,  you might want to check out LeopardDocks.com where you can download and share custom Leopard Docks.

I’ve never really liked the look of the glass 3-D dock in OSX Leopard. However, I really like the look of the Dock if you pin it to the left or right of your screen. I prefer my Dock at the bottom of my screen so I have been stuck with the glass dock. Until now!

To rid yourself of the glass Dock, open Terminal and type (press return at the end of each line):

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

Once your Dock has been restarted, you will see that glass has been replaced with this new style:

If you’d like to go back to glass, simply reopen Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO
killall Dock

Here is a neat OSX Terminal tip. You can pipe command line output to the system clipboard by using the pbcopy command. To see it in use, open Terminal then type:

ls -al | pbcopy

Then open your favorite text editor and press command-v. The output from the command you typed is now pasted into your text document!

Michael Angeles has created a fantastic OmniGraffle HTML Wireframe Palette that will take your wireframe diagrams to the next level.  OmniGraffle is a Mac OSX only diagramming tool that can be used for creating diagrams of floor plans, database schema, network topologies and much, much more.

I once knew a UNIX guru who could not for the life of him, figure out how to get a custom compiled installation of Apache to automatically startup on OSX.  He was quite frustrated as being a UNIX guru, he expected OSX to behave exactly like other UNIX distibutions he had used in the past.  I doubt Mark reads this blog, but MacDevCenter.com has a list of the Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks.  I’m pretty sure the third tip would have solved his problem!

If you have an active Subversion repository with a few users, you may be interested in this article that will show you how to Server your Subversion activity as an RSS feed. The instructions are for OSX, but I’m sure with a bit of modification, it would work fine on any UNIX based OS.

I recently had to install GIMP on my MacBook Pro, and the step to install X11 temporarily stumped me. So I though I would share a little OSX gotcha that will help you install X11 if you should ever need to.

X11 is a UNIX windowing system that allow developers to create graphical user interfaces on the UNIX operating system. It also allows UNIX users to view these GUI’s. As OSX is UNIX based, X11 allows your Mac to run the thousands of applications that were created to use X11.

The steps to install X11 on OSX are pretty simple. Insert your OSX Install Disk #1. A finder window will open that will show you all the installers and folders on the disk. Here is the gotcha though - to install X11, you have to double-click on the Optional Installs package. However, due to the organization of the icons in the finder window, you must scroll down to find the Optional Install icon. I swear I missed this at least 3 times while trying to install X11.

Hope this tip saves you some time!

SizzlingKeys for Mac OS X lets you control iTunes from the keyboard using global hot keys.  You can pause the player, skip a track or rate a song by using simple customizable keystrokes.  You can also search your iTunes Library or Playlists with a simple keystroke.