Library MIA?

This is a little bit geeky my friends. If you want to say ‘What’s my library folder and why would I want to be in there anyway… smile, and just stop reading now. If however, you say, like Colin just did five minutes ago, “Where the heck is Mom’s Library folder!??’, this post is for you.

Lion Ate My Library Folder

To keep new users from trashing anything critical, Apple has made the user’s Library Folder invisible (did you know that there are many folders hidden like that on your Mac? Impress your friends at parties with that little tidbit).If you are used to going into your Library folder to do things like delete bad Preferences, or copying things over from a backup to your new system, you really need to see that folder. And where is the library folder? On the Mac (and Unix in general) the home user is represented by the tilde symbol ~   .

So the Library folder for the current user can be gotten to (even though invisible now) by going to the ‘Go’ Menu in the Finder and choosing to Go to this folder ‘~/Library/

OSXDaily has done a nice, simple job explaining how to make your Library folder reappear permanently via using the Terminal App in your Utilities folder. Check it out  HERE on OSXDaily.com 

What’s Terminal? Well, it’s the raw Unix interaction with your Mac that geeks live for. If you don’t know what Terminal is… go open it up some day and peek, but don’t type anything (see below).

Top 9 Reasons to Visit Your Library Folder:

1. To delete preferences as a first step in fixing a misbehaving app
2. To clear out cookies and caches
3. Move things like fonts or Mail accounts to your new OSX from a backup
4. Visit your Application Support folder, where many apps put important files
5. To tidy your Widgets folder
6. To remove the Prefs files from those 200 apps you tested and didn’t keep
7. To copy your Safari Bookmark .plist file to a new computer
8. To keep on top of your Aperture  plug ins
9. Because you a geek and it’s a folder on your Mac… you must know what it’s all about!

Party Like it’s 1979!

Here’s what you can do, even if you are afraid of Terminal. Entering in the right code gets you into an OS in Unix ‘GNU Emacs’ and Emacs has kept in all of the silly text based games from way back.

• From your Applications folder, open your Utilities folder and launch Terminal (or in your new Unix-speak /Applications/Utilities/Terminal  )
• At the prompt in terminal (just like in the olden days!) type   emacs
• type the Escape key and the X key together    esc-X
  
• type    tetris
• enjoy a game of tetris
• typing Q for Quit or esc-X again will get you out and you can do esc-X to choose another exciting game

Other options are:

• 5×5
• blackbox
• dunnet
• gomoku
• hanoi
• landmark
• mpuz
• pong
• snake
• solitaire
• tetris

Personal favorites are dunnet (Colossal Cave Adventure that started the adventure game craze like ‘Myst’), and Doctor, which we showed off in Jr. High circa 1979  via telnet.

Thanks to MakeUseOf.com for some of this great info and memories  :-)