Advanced Mac OS X - Technical And Security Skills

Review desktop navigation basics by examining window anatomy, finder views (icon, list, column, cover flow), toolbar customization, and dock settings to use key modifiers for efficient actions.

Master macOS desktop control with keyboard shortcuts, exposé and spaces, quick look, and Spotlight search to switch, hide, and quit apps efficiently.

Learn to configure macOS for comfort by mastering system preferences, appearance settings, mouse and trackpad options, Finder preferences, and filename extensions to optimize navigation and security.

Discover how to view hardware details, access serial numbers via About This Mac, use System Profiler to export data, and inspect file metadata with the option key for troubleshooting.

Create and use a standard macOS user for tasks, authenticating as the administrator when needed. Enable a guest account for temporary access, noting changes reset after log out.

Explore advanced spotlight use: search by exact strings, launch apps, perform quick math with pi, and filter by kind, device make, and date, with saved searches and smart folders.

Explore the terminal app and bash shell to navigate a macOS unix-like interface, learning commands like who am i, hostname, ls -l, ls -G, and man.

Navigate the macOS file system from the command line using pwd to locate your current directory, cd to move between folders, and mkdir and ls to manage items.

Develop file manipulation skills on the command line by creating, moving, copying, and removing files. Use the file command to inspect file types and mkdir to build multi-level directories.

Inspect and edit text files using file, cat, less, and search with slash; create and edit with nano and vi, save and exit, sort content, and redirect to new files.

Explore special characters in the command line, including the prompt, ls usage, wildcard, redirection, and pipelines, with tips on escaping spaces and using tab completion.

Learn to use the sudo command on macOS to execute commands as root, fix permissions and ownership, and troubleshoot system issues with proper caution, including the five-minute authentication timeout.

Explore commands unique to Apple, including pbpaste, pbcopy, diskutil, mdfind (metadata find), system profiler, and screencapture, and learn to combine them with pipes for macOS scripting.

Explore Disk Utility features, view disks and partitions, verify and repair disks, repartition drives, and monitor operations with the log file.

Master the command line diskutil on macOS: list mounted volumes, view device and partition info, verify and repair volumes, and merge partitions with ease.

Navigate the top level of macOS, identify core folders such as applications, library, system, and users, and use terminal and finder tricks to reveal hidden files.

Explore Mac home folder structure, design a custom user template in system library, and deploy it by creating Annie and populating public and Dropbox folders for a new user.

Explore how macOS uses multiple library folders—user, computer, and system—to store resources like fonts and preferences, and how font availability varies by location and search order.

Enable all filename extensions in Finder preferences to prevent confusion between identically named files, and use view options to display item info for icons and the desktop.

Explore posix style permissions and file ownership on macOS using the terminal and Finder, learning how owner, group, and everyone permissions shape access.

Expand on POSIX permissions beyond read, write, and execute by examining the sticky bit and unchangeable flags, showing how locking and ownership affect deletion and movement.

Explore how access control lists extend standard POSIX permissions on macOS, learn to view and modify ACL entries via Finder and the terminal, and understand ACL processing order.

Repair the startup volume permissions using disk utility, verify and reset permissions with repair packages and bill of materials, and monitor progress in the terminal or GUI.

Explore how ignoring ownership on external volumes affects file ownership across users, with commands like ls, touch, and get info, and why keeping default ignore settings can prevent UID mismatches.

Explore changing ownership, permissions, and flags on files and folders using chown, chmod, and chflags; apply recursive updates, set ACL for users, and manage hidden files with dot prefixes.

Explain soft links, hard links, and aliases, demonstrate creation with ln -s and Finder, and compare behavior when targets are moved or relocated.

Use Disk Utility to identify and manage external drive file systems beyond Mac OS, including FAT 32, NTFS, and Unix FS, and check read/write status with Disk Utility info.

Learn to create and use disk images from a folder using Disk Utility and hdiutil, including sparse 1 gig volumes, compression, encryption options, mounting, ejection, and integrity verification.

Create and extract zip archives using Finder, archive utility, and tar, then compare formats such as cpio, cpgz, and zip for cross-platform compatibility.

Explore hidden features of the archive utility and advanced disk image options in Disk Utility. Use the defaults write command to enable them and access expanded convert formats and checksums.

Connect to network file systems using five protocols including AFP, SMB, NFS, WebDAV, and FCP on macOS, and manage server addresses, authentication, and read-only transfers.

Explore macOS process management with Activity Monitor, examining process hierarchies from kernel task to launchd, and track CPU, memory, disk, network usage to troubleshoot and monitor system performance.

Master force quitting on macOS using the finder and Activity Monitor, with command-option-escape and dock context cues, and understand option-key safe quit and not-responding apps.

Learn how to manage running applications in the terminal using ps and top, search for processes with grep, and terminate them with kill, including remote shell usage via ssh.

Master kill and kill all to stop or signal macOS processes and log diagnostics to system or application logs, using dns responder and directory service as examples.

Learn to view and manage log files with tail, logger, and syslog; use tail -F for live updates and configure facility and log level in logger.

Configure local log files and enable remote logging by editing the system configuration (root access), back up files, and reload the launch daemon. Test with logger and consider security risks.

Explore how to create and manage launch daemons and launch agents on macOS, including the minimum keys, label, program arguments, and keepalive.

Create an Automator service to insert date and time into text across applications, integrate it into services and contextual menus, and customize the date format.

Create a simple AppleScript applet by using the Script Editor to count mounted volumes, present options, open a chosen volume, and save as script or app.

Create an AppleScript droplet that handles dropped files with On Open, integrates a shell script to hide in Finder, and tests by dropping files toward Automator-based automation.

Build a bash script that finds the latest two finger print files and reports changes using find, sort, tail, diff, grep, cut, unique, and xargs.

Automate document processing with Automator and bash scripting in the documents folder. Generate sha1 hashes, rename files by date-time, and present changed files in a dialog for review.

Explore three macOS scheduling methods: cron jobs, launch items with launch agents, and ETSI periodic or calendar alarms, with practical examples of scripts and intervals.

Trigger actions in macOS with launchd by watching a file path every 15 seconds, using a hidden file as a semaphore to start or stop logging and execute scripts.

Register on Apple's developer site, download the Xcode tools disk image, and install the package. Customize the installation to save space and verify files, editing property list files.

Learn to create a basic installer package using package maker, configure organization and contents, and customize the installer interface for Mac OS X installation.

Install packages from the command line using the installer tool, with a target and verbose output. Use PKGINFO to check package details and set the command line install environment variable.

Learn to use the property list editor from the developer tools to open, edit, and validate plist files, explore app bundles, and run at load keys with plutil.

Master the file merge tool to compare and merge two script files. Drag left and right, select an ancestor, and save a merged file via GUI or terminal.