Orangeinks

Tweak Your OS X Leopard Using Secrets

Secrets is an OS X application that lets you modify you OS X Leopard easily by using a simple and easy to use preference pane in your System Preferences. You can easily browse Secrets and choose what application you want to tweak depending on what is available for the specific application you have installed in your system. Instead of using code hacks you can just click on the application you want to tweak in your preference pane and secrets will do the rest.

 

Secrets requires OS X 10.5 or later to run. Just double click the preference pane to install it. Use the Reload button to get the latest values from the web. You can easily revert to the default value by hitting the X button (delete key). You also have to note that before changing values for a particular application, you have to quit that application in order for the tweak to work.

The app is available for download for free and you can also share your own secrets in the community discussions. You have to note though that if you use this improperly, it can seriously harm your system, so use with precaution. You may also want to read the comments and the discussions for new updates, errors and new solutions for a safer tweaking.

Tags: 10.5, Apple, Leopard, Mac, osx, secrets, tweak

Firefox Tip: Make Firefox Browse Faster

This is an old Firefox trick that I have been using for a few years now. It is said that when you download Firefox it is initially optimized for dial-up connection browsing. Meaning it can only load one file at a time. This tweak will open up that restriction and allow multiple objects to be downloaded simultaneously by Firefox for a given time depending on your connection. Just follow the instructions below:

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return(Enter). Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining

network.http.proxy.pipelining

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

When you enable pipelining it will make several requests at once, which will really speed up the page loading. What is pipelining? Normally, HTTP requests are issued sequentially, with the next request being issued only after the response to the current request has been completely received. Depending on network latencies and bandwidth limitations, this can result in a significant delay before the next request is seen by the server.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true“

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number between 8 and 30. This means it will make x requests at once. Remember to be careful on choosing your value for this, for if you set it too high it might also affect your browsing negatively. But, if you really have a high speed connection, then give it a high number.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere (on the white part of the about:config page) and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you are afraid that you might screw things up and you don’t want to go to all that tweaking the configuration and go Jedi Master with Firefox, you can download this Firefox Extension that will pretty much do the same thing. Just download and install the plugin and restart Firefox.

After restarting your browser, click on the Tools menu and hit Tweak Network Settings and a window like the image above will open. Just click the Power button and the settings will change. Remember, if you are going to play around with the values and got a negative effect on your browsing speed, just hit the default button and the settings will reset. Enjoy the tip and happy browsing.

Note: This tweak only works for Broadband users

Tags: browse, browsing, faster, Firefox, hack, tip, tweak