In a recent block post, I promoted Safari Add-in AdBlock, and it’s ability to rid your browsing experience of those annoying in page adverts.
Now I have taken this a step further, and using one of AdBlock’s manual filters I have now managed to completely remove the Facebook Chat applet completely. I am not a fan of Facebook chat, and it’s complete unreliability. Because of this I am always set to ‘offline’ mode. Which makes the button a waste of screen real estate.
You too can hide the button, simply by adding the manual filter below into AdBlock settings.
- Launch Safari
- Click on the Safari menu option
- Click Preferences
- Click on the Extensions tab
- Click on the option to launch AdBlock settings
- Click on the Customise tab
- Click on the edit filters button and paste in the following line:
www.facebook.com##A[class="fbNubButton"] - Your edit box should now look like the one below in Fig A. Now click on the save button
- Relaunch Safari and visit your Facebook page, you should find the button has now gone!
The Mac operating system comes with some pretty powerful tools out of the box. One of which, I am a big fan of. The Mac ‘Automator’ is a basic almost script editor which uses workflows to automate common tasks, and with all tools like this they can be manipulated to replace full blow applications.
Internet banking is
perhaps one of the most common practices on the internet in today’s hectic
lifestyles. Behind social networking, and web based gaming of course. Which is
why it’s not surprising that a large number of internet based nasty’s such as
viruses and spy where etc are aimed at those of us who bank online.
This has obviously
been the catalyst for the birth of countless flavours of internet security
applications. Each with their own benefits and pitfalls, most of which have
huge overheads on both your PC’s CPU and Ram. Which, if you are a power user
(as no doubt most of my readers will be) this can be a true pain!
I have lost count
of the amount of times less tech savvy users have visited me, with their shiny
all singing all dancing internet protection packages which have all the bells
and whistles and then some. Predictably each time this ends in the un-happy
comments from the user as I either refuse to install it on the acer they got
for a £10 with £5 shopping at Tesco, or even the £600 Dell. Or because they
refused to back down, I installed it as per their request then they are back a
week later stating their laptops ground to a halt.
I have always wondered
why browsers offer so little protection for the end user who hasn’t tweaked and
tuned their browsers to within an inch of their lives. Don’t get me wrong, I am
all for the new versions, IE8, Safari 4 and Firefox. However I still don’t
think they go far enough!
This is where Trusteer’s Rapport steps in. This little browser based widget has
been developed to support most browsers on the market, and Trusteer have been
working closely with the worlds biggest banks in order to make this a success.
The next time you
attempt to logon to your bank’s website you may well be prompted to install
Rapport. The installation is quick and painless, even on a Mac. After a quick download process the
widget will automatically install, and immediately start protecting your web
based banking. It’s been cleverly designed and developed to detect and intercept
attempts to compromise your security using the least possible overheads. In
fact the only way you will know you are protected is by the coloured arrow in
your browsers address bar. (Which is only visible when using secure web banking
facilities)
You can find more
details about Rapport and Trusteer’s other service offerings on their website.
If you do prefer to
use installed antivirusfirewall products it’s imperative you ensure these are
kept completely up to date, this is normal done by using the applications built
in auto update wizard.
Cocktail is an award winning general purpose utility for Mac OS X. It is a smooth and powerful digital toolset with a variety of practical features that simplifies the use of advanced UNIX functions and helps Mac users around the world to get the most out of their computers. Cocktail is installed at more than 200 000 computers world wide.
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Disks |  |
System |
• Automatically check SMART (Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status of disks
• Enable or disable journaling on selected disk
• Repair disk permissions permissions on selected disk
• Reset home directory permissions and Access Control Lists
• Set disk sleep (spindown) time
• Modify sleep settings for portable computers
• Allow or prevent mounting of external disks during system startup
• Enable or disable Sudden Motion Sensor
• Run periodic maintenance scripts
• Enable or disable Spotlight indexing of selected disk
• Erase Spotlight index for selected disk
• Set backup interval and modify other Time Machine settings
• Rebuild Launch Services database
• Update locate and whatis databases
• Change startup mode
• Set startup delay
• Force empty Trash
• Enable Kiosk mode
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Files |
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| • Clear system caches, component caches, data detectors caches, Directory Service caches, dynamic link editor’s (dyld) shared cache, kernel caches, user caches, ColorSync caches, Dock caches, Java caches, QuickLook caches, QuickTime caches and font caches (including font caches created by applications from Adobe, Microsoft and Quark) • Clear trojan horses and worms such as Astht (AplS.Saprilt, Hovdy), Inqtana, iServices, Leap (CME-4, Oomp), RSPlug (Jahlav), Lamzev, PokerStealer or other malwares that may harm your system in any way. • Clear CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) job files, core files, virtual memory swap files and other temporary files • Clear Internet caches, cookies, download lists, form values, history files and page icons created by Safari, Camino, Firefox, OmniWeb, Opera and Shiira web browsers • Search for corrupted preference files • Manage (view, print and save) log files • Clear log files (manually or automatically rotate and/or remove archived copies of log files) • Delete DS Store files from disks or folders and their subfolders • Allow or prevent DS Store files creation on network volumes • Delete locked or inaccessible items • Lock or unlock files and folders |
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Network |
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| • Change speed, duplex and MTU of network cards • Easily optimize network settings for common connection types (Dial-up/PPP, Bluetooth/GPRS/EDGE, Satellite, DSL/PPPoE, Cable modem and Fiber/FiOS) • Manually modify TCP receive and send window sizes, TCP slow link window size, UDP outgoing datagram size, UDP receive buffer size, receive and send buffer sizes for local stream sockets as well as state of delayed ACKs, NewReno Fast Recovery and RFC-1323 extensions • Configure the built-in (File Sharing) Mac OS X file server |
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Interface |  |
Pilot |
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| • Customize look and features of Finder, Dock, Safari, Exposé, login window and other system services • Modify hidden settings of Address Book, Backup, Disk Utility, iCal, iTunes, Mail, QuickTime X, Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing and Terminal |
• Clean, repair and optimize your system with one click of the button • Schedule clearing of system, user and Internet caches, clearing of log files, repair of disk permissions and run of periodic maintenance scripts |
For a limited time only (until 27th December) you can get a copy of Cocktail from MacZOT for only $9.95£6.24 (Normally $19.95£12.50)
