Installing DMGs With A Bit Less Work
While today's posting should be entitled Why It Is Important To Backup Your Harddrive Before It Crashes, that isn't a particularly Mac OS X specific subject. I still haven't gotten my MacBookPro running but I've usurped my son's MacBook Air and think I have all my data backed up but need a bit more than the 64Gig the MacBook Air has on it to get my data back and check.
I found a cool trick for installing DMGs. It only saves one step and doesn't seem to work on all configurations of all browsers. It seems to always work on Firefox.
Typically, you download a DMG and save it to disk and then have to open it separately. Despite DMG's being Mac OS X's specific file format, it is easier generally easier to install something from a .zip or a .tar file. Firefox gives you the option to save the file or open it immediately.
But, at least in FF, you have the option to open a DMG file directly. The only problem is that FF doesn't give you any programs to open the DMG file with. But it' there if you know where to find it So, the next time you open a DMG and are given the choice of using an application to open it:
Select the choose option to bring up a file selection menu.
Then type& ⌘^G.
Copy and paste /System/Library/CoreServices.
Then select the DiskImageMounter app.
And voila, you get a Finder window with your DMG's contents already in it.
Related articles
Using encrypted DMGs to store sensitive data on OS X (petewarden.typepad.com)