linux

Do you enjoy being pestered with annoying “Show Notification” requests from the many websites you visit from Chrome? Maybe you do, or maybe you don’t.

You’re likely familiar with the Chrome message that pops up intrusively on so may web pages, reading like “someURL .com wants to Show Notifications – Block / Allow”. Since these Show Notification requests are so pervasive, you’re probably quite skilled at clicking on “Block” by now in Chrome, but perhaps you’re tired of repeatedly doing so.

Fortunately you can completely disable the ability for websites to hassle you to show notifications in Chrome. Once you turn this feature off, you won’t see anymore of the annoying “blahblah wants to show notifications” requests popping up relentlessly across the web when using the Google Chrome web browser.

How to Stop Websites from Asking to Show Notifications in Chrome

This demonstrates how to disable Show Notifications in Chrome on a Mac, but this applies the same to Windows and Linux as well.

1. Open the Chrome browser if you haven’t done so already
2. Enter the following in the URL bar then hit Return / Enter:

chrome://settings/content/notifications 

3. Flip the switch next to “Ask before sending (recommended)” to OFF



4. That text under Notifications should now read as “Blocked”, signifying that Notification requests have been disabled in Chrome

Now you can browse the web with Chrome and not be continuously hassled to receive and show notifications for so many websites.

This obviously applies to Chrome browser, but you can also disable web notification requests in Safari on the Mac too, where the haranguing requests are just as annoying. Better yet, apply it to both browsers, that way you whichever you use as your default won’t bother you with unwanted notification requests.

Obviously if you like the website notifications feature or you’re fond of the requests in Chrome, then you won’t want to disable this capability, but that’s up to you. You can always reverse the action as well.

How to Re-Enable Website Notification Requests in Chrome

Want to get website notification requests in Chrome again? Just re-enable the feature:

1. Open Chrome and visit:

chrome://settings/content/notifications

2. Find the “Blocked” option and toggle it back on again, where it will read “Ask before sending (recommended)”

By re-enabling the feature you can browse the web as usual, and you’ll be back to having notification requests all over the place again. Yippy.

Related

Need to get the line count of a text file or document? Counting lines of any file is easy at the command line, and the command for line counting is the same in all modern Unix based operating systems, meaning this line counting trick will work the same on Mac OS and Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and even Windows with Bash shell.

For our purposes here we will use the most direct line counting tool available at the command line, wc. The wc utility is able to display line count, as well as reveal word count and character count. Our focus here is of course on the former, so we’ll be showing how to use wc for counting lines of any text file provided as input.

wc defines a line as “a string of characters delimited by a newline character”, meaning only unique new lines will be counted as a line. So if there are no newline characters in a file, and the file is just one enormous sentence or single command string, it would be reported as one line.

How to Count Lines of Files from the Terminal with wc

1. Open a Terminal window if you have not done so already (in Mac OS the Terminal application is found in /Applications/Utilities/)
2. At the command prompt enter the following command syntax, replacing “filename” with the file you want to count lines for

wc -l filename

3. Hit Return, you will see the line count of the file printed before the file name

As you likely guessed, the -l flag (lower case L) is for “line”.

For example, running the wc -l command on a file located on the desktop called “exampleFileToCountLines.txt ” would look like the following:

% wc -l ~/Desktop/exampleFileToCountLines.txt
1213 /Users/Paul/Desktop/exampleFileToCountLines.txt

As you can see in this example, the line count of the text file given is 1213, meaning the file is 1,213 lines long.

The wc command works the same on any modern Unix based operating system, including Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows with Bash, and more.

Using wc to Count Lines, Words, and Character Counts of a File

You can also run the wc command without the -l flag, which will then reveal the line count, the word count, and the character count, in that order. Like:

wc /etc/hosts
9 32 214 /etc/hosts

Contrast that command output to the same command with wc -l flag only:

wc -l /etc/hosts
9 /etc/hosts

This is only counting the lines of a text file as input and it does not modify the file at all. If you do wish to modify the file you can manually add line numbers to a text file via command line.

How to count lines of piped output data with wc

You can also use wc to count lines of any data piped into it, for example from cat or ls:

cat /etc/hosts | wc -l

The output in that scenario will simply be the number of lines in the file, like “9”.

The wc command is pretty neat, you can read the manual page for wc to get even more ideas and tricks for usage.

This is obviously all geared for the command line, but there are other ways of getting line and character counts of files as well.

You can manually count them out for short files, third party Mac apps like BBEdit show line number by default, and if you get the little cousin to BBEdit known as TextWrangler then you can go about showing line numbers in TextWrangler too. You can also make a DIY Word and character counter tool for the Mac as a Service. And if you happen to already know the line number of a file you want to access, you can jump directly to a specific line number in TextEdit, though unfortunately TextEdit doesn’t show line numbers, which seems like an oversight.

Related

Have you ever wondered how to stop autoplay video in Chrome? You’re not alone, since most users consider autoplaying video and autoplaying audio on the web to be annoying. The good news is that with a little secret settings adjustment you can easily disable autoplay video and autoplay audio on Chrome for Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, and Android.

The walkthrough below will show you exactly how to disable autoplay video and audio in the Google Chrome web browser. This goes beyond muting a tab or browser window in Chrome that is playing audio or video, as it actively prevents any Chrome browser tab or window from starting the media playing in the first place. Once activated, you must manually start playing audio or video in Google Chrome, all autoplay events will end.

How to Stop All Autoplay Video & Audio in Chrome

This works the same to end autoplay video and audio with Google Chrome for every operating system the browser works on, and perhaps the best thing about it is you won’t need to install a plugin or extension because the capability is native in Chrome. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. Open Chrome or Chrome Canary if you have not done so already
2. Go to “chrome://flags” in the URL bar and hit Return/Enter
3. In the search box at the top, type in “autoplay”
4. Look for “Autoplay policy” and pull down the submenu, then choose “Document user activation is required”



5. Relaunch Chrome for the setting to take effect

You can immediately test it out by going to any webpage that autoplays video or audio, like a Bloomberg video article or Youtube.

All video or audio now requires you to click on it before it will play (hence, user activation being required), nothing will autoplay without you allowing it to play in the first place.

Speaking of YouTube, you can also simply disable autoplay on Youtube videos if you’d prefer to do that exclusively, rather than turning off all autoplay in the entire web browser.

How do I re-enable Chrome Autoplay Video and Audio?

If you decide you miss those autoplaying sounds and videos, and now want autoplay video and autoplay audio back again in Chrome, that’s just as simple:

• Back in the Chrome browser, go to chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
• Choose “Default” as the option from the submenu pulldown
• Relaunch Chrome

Once the app relaunches, autoplay will be back again for web video and web audio.

This obviously applies to only the Chrome web browser, though not just on the Mac or Windows PC, but on all Chrome platforms. It’s worth remembering that you can also stop autoplay video in Safari on the Mac if you’re a Safari user as well.

Autoplay video and audio is often maligned and rarely appreciated, we have covered this topic many times for many different apps, including how to stop autoplaying music over car Bluetooth from an iPhone, stop autoplay in the App Store, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Another approach for iOS Safari users is to use a content ad blocker on iPhone and iPad which will stop autoplaying media as well as advertisements if you use an extra aggressive blocker, but if you go that route then please remember to whitelist sites that you like and want to support, like ours.

One perk of blocking autoplay video on Chrome is that you’ll find the web browser may use less system resources, and you won’t have to hunt down tabs making noise and mute background tabs or windows that are making sounds from a video or sound embed.

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iMessage is the wonderful messaging platform for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users that allows for free and easy messaging between other iMessage users. One common question regarding iMessage is if there is a way to run iMessage on a Windows PC or in Linux.

The answer is a big complicated, but in short, yes you can technically get iMessages accessed on a PC, but how it is accomplished is probably not quite what you expect.

For this to work, you will need a Mac. Yes, even if you’re aiming to get and use iMessages on the PC itself. This is very much a workaround, but it does work to send, receive, and have complete iMessage functionality from a Windows or Linux environment, as long as you have a Mac to begin with.

Before getting into the details about having iMessage access in a Windows or Linux environment, let’s backup a bit: First, and this may be obvious to most Apple users, but there is no native iMessage client for Windows (or Android for that matter), as Apple allows imessages only in Apple products like a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Second, it’s very difficult and complex to get iMessage working on a PC even with Mac OS installed via Hackintosh methods, thus we’re ruling out that option.

So what works to get iMessage on a PC then? The answer resides with having a Mac with a stable internet connection that is logged into the iMessage account you want to use and get access to from the PC, and then using the built-in screen sharing feature in Mac OS to remotely access that computer and it’s messaging client via Windows PC (or linux).

The basics of how this approach works to gain access to iMessage on Windows or a Linux PC is as as so: you enable Screen Sharing on the Mac with iMessage. Then, on the Windows PC you want to access and get iMessages on, you screen share into that aforementioned Mac. That might sound complicated but it is actually pretty easy to setup.

How to Get iMessage on a PC

1. On the Mac with iMessage, you will need to enable Screen Sharing on the Mac via the Sharing Preference Panel



2. Next on the PC to get and use iMessages from, you will need a VNC client app (RealVNC or TightVNC are two common options for Windows users, TigerVNC and RealVNC are options for Linux )
3. Open the VNC client in Windows and connect to the Mac with Screen Sharing enabled, do this by pointing the VNC client at the IP address and then logging into the Mac with a valid user login



4. Now from the Windows PC you are remotely logged into the Mac and have full screen access to that Mac, including access to iMessages via the Mac Messages app

Remember screen sharing allows for full remote control of a computer over the internet or LAN, so this is really only appropriate for using your own iMessages from your very own Apple ID from your own Mac.

You’ll notice this does not depend on any Hackintosh method, nor any virtualization of Mac OS or any other tweaks, mods, or third party apps. In fact there are no third party iMessage apps for Windows or for PC currently, and at the moment Apple does not offer an iMessage client on Windows or PC either.

For what it’s worth, this same screen sharing feature in Mac OS can also be used from Mac to Mac very easily via the iMessage app itself, but since the Mac has Messages app and direct iMessage access there is less need to do so for this purpose anyway.

What about using iMessages on PC via iCloud?

iMessages in iCloud is a new feature with High Sierra and iOS 11, but (currently anyway) this does not allow iMessages to be accessed from iCloud.com.

It is possible that one day Apple will build a web based iMessage client for icloud.com like they have iCloud apps for Pages, Keynote, Reminders, Mail, and similar iOS apps, but at the moment there is no Messages app for iCloud.com or iMessage ability on icloud.com.

Do you know of another way to get iMessages on a PC through Windows, Linux, Chrome OS or even Android? Perhaps a trick that doesn’t involve using a PC with VNC to remotely access a Mac with the Messages app running? Then let us know in the comments below!

The “man” command is short for manual, and with it you can summon detailed manual page and information on nearly any other command or command line utility that is available, including using an extensive man document search to find related manual pages. While man pages are frequently used and referenced, many users don’t know how to properly exit our quit out of the man command. That may sound a little silly or newbie-ish, but even longtime unix users may not know how to quit out of man (let alone quitting VIM for that matter – both are more common than you’d think).

We get this question often, and not to worry; exiting the man command is extremely easy and it’s universal, meaning you can quit man the same on any unix OS that includes the feature, whether that is Mac OS, Mac OS X, linux, BSD, or otherwise.

The Trick to Exiting man Command: q

Just press “q” key to quit out of a man page. Yes it is that easy, simply pressing “q” will exit out of the man command properly.

This should be easy for Mac users to remember because the Command + Q keyboard shortcut quits an application, so it’s already fairly similar – just drop the Command key and press “Q” alone and you will quit out of any open man page.

If you want to try this out yourself, go ahead and launch the Terminal application and then open any man page by typing “man (command)” for example “man ipconfig” (you can quick launch man pages through the Terminal Help menu by the way, or right-click on a command and launch one from there).

Of course what not to do is the button mash: a common theme is for many command line users to mash Control+C, Control+Z or Control+X to try and suspend or exit MAN, I have seen this many times (and ages ago when first exploring the command line did the same thing myself) but all that will do is suspend man which then must be terminated separately. That’s not the right approach, and it’s actually harder than just pressing “q” anyway – so if you have that habit, try to remember to just press ‘q’ instead, it’s a lot easier.

Do you know of any other tricks or easy ways to remember exiting manual pages or to better work with man command? Let us know in the comments.