Is there a way that I can access some very old PDF files that are encrypted with a password I cannot remember any longer? I have a system running Mac OS X (Leopard), and I do need to do the decryption myself. [more inside]
posted on May 16, 2008 - 12 answers

I would basically like to rip off, wholesale, some command-line script which will provide me a countdown -- only in days. No years, months, minutes, or seconds. Unfortunately, adapting an existing script is beyond my ken. [more inside]
posted on Sep 27, 2007 - 5 answers

I have Mac OS X, with its Unix underpinnings. I have a number of text files through which I did a search-and-replace. Unfortunately, that altered all of the timestamps on the files. I'm trying to restore things via the "Date Created" info. [more inside]
posted on Aug 6, 2007 - 12 answers

In need of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Enabling/Getting the 'Mail' Unix Command to E-Mail You Stuff, for Complete and Utter Dummies." [more inside]
posted on Sep 20, 2006 - 3 answers

My process status command (ps) has stopped working in Mac OS X. Help? [more inside]
posted on Sep 19, 2006 - 17 answers

datascrubbing: I'm using rm -R */*.gif (for example) to get rid of unnecessary files in a directory. There is stuff that's nested about five directories deep that I can't get to using the above command. I'm using the Bash terminal in OS X. specifically, there is a redundant file called "popup" nested in there that I want to get rid of, among others.

Second related problem: is there a way to recursively delete (full) directories, say ones that end in .blob using wildcards? And would I use rmdir or rm -R to do this?

I'm working on a copy of the original, so its ok to experiment a little
posted on Jul 16, 2004 - 18 answers