Macbook 5.4/Ubuntu 9.10 - getting sound to work

http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook#Sound

Mac OS X 10.6 - Start Screen Saver

I have found that you simply need to enable Hot Corners
Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver->Hot Corners...

I set my bottom left-corner as my Screen Saver Hot Corner.

Coldfusion / cfquery - quotes in strings

"Escaped single quotes mess up SQL used in the cfquery tag as described in ColdFusion single quote string screwup.

The behavior described in the page above also affects ColdFusion MX 7: When a string variable is put into a cfquery tag any single quotes are changed to TWO single quotes, ( note, not a double quote). This makes creating SQL strings difficult because they do not work inside of the cfquery tag, for example a typical SQL string with should have a single quote around a string value but inside the cfquery tag the string would become:
"

I prefer the built-in PreserveSingleQuotes() function.

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hause011/article/coldfusion_sql_string.html

Mac OS X 10.6 - F-keys as standard function keys

I turned this on when I first moved to OS X, but now use the F-keys for screen brightness, volume control, etc. To toggle this:

Preferences->Keyboard

Check, "Use all F1,F2, etc. keys as standard function keys"

MacBook - page up and down

fn+[up arrow] and fn+[down arrow]

iTunes - control from Terminal

I'm a console junkie, so the following alias and shell script tips are pretty cool:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011108211802830

I use the shell script myself, since it is more fully-featured.

#!/bin/sh
#
####################################
# iTunes Command Line Control v1.0
# written by David Schlosnagle
# created 2001.11.08
####################################

showHelp () {
    echo "-----------------------------";
    echo "iTunes Command Line Interface";
    echo "-----------------------------";
    echo "Usage: `basename $0` <option>";
    echo;
    echo "Options:";
    echo " status   = Shows iTunes' status, current artist and track.";
    echo " play     = Start playing iTunes.";
    echo " pause    = Pause iTunes.";
    echo " next     = Go to the next track.";
    echo " prev     = Go to the previous track.";
    echo " mute     = Mute iTunes' volume.";
    echo " unmute   = Unmute iTunes' volume.";
    echo " vol up   = Increase iTunes' volume by 10%";
    echo " vol down = Increase iTunes' volume by 10%";
    echo " vol #    = Set iTunes' volume to # [0-100]";
    echo " stop     = Stop iTunes.";
    echo " quit     = Quit iTunes.";
}

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
    showHelp;
fi

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
    arg=$1;
    case $arg in
        "status" ) state=`osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to player state as string'`;
            echo "iTunes is currently $state.";
            if [ $state = "playing" ]; then
                artist=`osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to artist of current track as string'`;
                track=`osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to name of current track as string'`;
                echo "Current track $artist:  $track";
            fi
            break ;;

        "play"    ) echo "Playing iTunes.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to play';
            break ;;

        "pause"    ) echo "Pausing iTunes.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to pause';
            break ;;

        "next"    ) echo "Going to next track." ;
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to next track';
            break ;;

        "prev"    ) echo "Going to previous track.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to previous track';
            break ;;

        "mute"    ) echo "Muting iTunes volume level.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set mute to true';
            break ;;

        "unmute" ) echo "Unmuting iTunes volume level.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set mute to false';
            break ;;

        "vol"    ) echo "Changing iTunes volume level.";
            vol=`osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to sound volume as integer'`;
            if [ $2 = "up" ]; then
                newvol=$(( vol+10 ));
            fi

            if [ $2 = "down" ]; then
                newvol=$(( vol-10 ));
            fi

            if [ $2 -gt 0 ]; then
                newvol=$2;
            fi
            osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to set sound volume to $newvol";
            break ;;

        "stop"    ) echo "Stopping iTunes.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to stop';
            break ;;
            
        "quit"    ) echo "Quitting iTunes.";
            osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit';
            exit 1 ;;

        "help" | * ) echo "help:";
            showHelp;
            break ;;
    esac
done

iTunes - set command F as search keyboard shortcut

You can assign a keyboard shortcut for searching in iTunes by using:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes \
NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Target Search Field" "@F"

http://lifehacker.com/246006/add-search-keyboard-shortcut-to-itunes-on-your-mac