Lately I’ve needed to show .htaccess file in finder. In finder every file with a dot in front of it is hidden. You have to change this using shell commands. But this is a superfluous process. I scoured the internet and found ways to automate this. There are some software solutions but the way I will tell about is using the Automator

Step 1
Start up your Automator. It is under Tools in your Applications. On opening the Automator choose Custom. Choose Run Shell Script and drag it into the workflow area.

Step 2
In the input area copy the code:

Code:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit';
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate';

Step 3
From the top menu choose File -> Save As Plugin. This script will show the hidden files. Save it as ShowHiddenFiles.

Step 4
We successfully created the Automator script to show the hidden files. Repeat the steps to create the script to hide the files again using the following:

Code:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit';
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate';

and save it as plugin as HideHiddenFiles

Use it:
In finder you can use Control Click -> More -> Automator to access the Automator scripts you just created

Since everyone is doing a top 10 list of greatest things here is my cut. If you don’t know about the tipping point:”It is the moment things get momentum or die out (something like that anyway)”.

My tipping point top 10:

1. Learning Mandarin. After a few months with Chinese people I am starting distinguishing and perceive more sounds. When I first arrived at this place I never had a clue what they were talking about, nowadays nothing has changed except: I hear more, A lot more… Somehow before I was deaf for this Chinese language. I did not experience this with German and Bahasa Indonesia.

2. Dropbox, Twitter and Jaiku for being great services but with lousy business model. Don’t get me wrong these are all great services and they should be cheap. But they have no way to get paid… Almost nobody minds paying for something good but these services have almost none or no payment plans at all.

3. Digsby and Google Chrome for almost being great applications. You guys will be great when you are available for OSX(and Linux). How can you expect to bring something revolutionary when you bring it only to windows? Hurry up with the versions on OSX…

4. My fellow blogger Saiful Rizal with his plan to inspire us all. He is a bit late with the twitter thing but this also tells us twitter still has momentum. He made a list of youtube videos that I found motivating, this made me check his blog once in a while.

5. The book Reality Check of Guy Kawasaki. It is the book I am reading now and it is really good so far and if all the books were this interesting and fun to read at the same time the next point won’t be a problem at all.

6. My plan to read one book a week. My New Year’s resolution, it’s HiDef

7. Arie.nl werkkleding & werkschoenen, Poetsplaza.nl, Baliday.com and some other projects I am working on.

8. Inscorta is the name of an open source project I am starting. It is actually the code behind Arie.nl & Poetsplaza.nl. Until now the development has been done solely by me. It turns out to be a great software package but further development is slow and difficult since I am do it all. That is why I decided a long time ago to make this software public so everyone can use it and help to improve it.

9. Me turning into something usually named blogger. This is not a New Year’s resolution, I just enjoy it. 

10. Me turning into an Apple Fanboy! Like the attack some M*$*&*F*#^%*rs did on my villages in Tribalwars, I am afraid there is no stopping to this Bill and Steve.

Ok, this is not exactly a tipping point list.

“Whaddaya gonna do, life goes on” (My favorite quote from The Sopranos)