10 Random Mac OS X Tips

Today I was reading the Slashdot story on 15 Things Apple Should Change in Mac OS X and I came across these excellent hints in the comments:

1. Hold down on the + window button to fully maximize a window (may not work in some apps)
2. To find the actual path of a app or file drag it into a terminal window
3. To rename a file, select it and hit enter
4. Create a shortcut on the dock for the Apps folder, then click-and-hold for a pop-menu of all your apps
   
5. Shift-A will open the Apps folder if you don't want it in the dock
   
6. Don't copy and paste, drag and drop everything, including text
7. To put a widget permanently on the desktop, open a terminal and type:

   defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

   press F12, and while dragging a widget press F12 to drop it
   
8. Use Command-O to launch an App or open a file
9. To skip the"Are You Sure?" dialog. hold down the option key when choosing to shutdown
10. Use the dock for temporary storage of files when using the drag-and-drop method of cutting-and-pasting
    

A Macs Best Friend

Yesterday Penny Arcade geared up for their 2007 Childs Play Charity and I checked out their newly updated site which includes what looks like Egypt, a huge leap from the original US only hospitals when they started. While scrolling down I saw the sponsors and thought I'd see what kinds of companies were helping them out, which lead me to a page for Bruji, or as the title calls it A Mac's best friend.

I love using my Mac and all, mainly because OS X is awesome, but I haven't found any must have Mac only applications until now. Bruji makes media database software that resembles the look and feel of Apples iLife apps like iTunes and iPhoto. There are four products, DVDpedia, Bookpedia, CDpedia, and Gamepedia, all of which catalog what their name says.

At once I was impressed by the free demo for Bookpedia. Even on my old G3 iBook the app starts almost immediately and in less than five minutes I had cataloged ten books on my bookshelf. It uses a simple keyword search to look up titles and authors on Amazon and other book websites, displaying the full details of each title. It even grabs the cover image and puts all that information into your catalog, very slick.

Once you've completed your library there's all sorts of cool things you can do with it such as tracking books you've lent to people and custom exporting of your library to all sorts of data formats (cvs, webpage, .mac, iPod). It even keeps statistics on your library and will look up a title on listmania to find similar titles.

These apps are why I love using a Mac, everything is exactly as it should be, no surprises just simple power that immediately produces results. I will most likely buy the Bookpedia app (18$), but they have a bundle where you get any three for 39$ and it could be nice to catalog our DVDs and games as well.