Keywords for Images in Spotlight

Want to sort and find images in Spotlight by keywords rather than by filenames? You can easily do this by highlighting the file and pressing Command + I. At the top of the info pane, you will see a panel that says "Spotlight Comments", you want to enter in your desired keyword here. Now whenever you type in the Spotlight Comment or Comments in Spotlight, it will automatically show the file in the search results.

Fast Safari and Mail Dictionary access

You can very quickly look up a word on any webpage in Safari or e-mail in Mail by a OS X Dictionary keyboard shortcut. All you have to do is double-click to highlight the word and press Command + Control + D. This will bring up a fast definition box without loading up the entire Dictionary application.

You can also look up words by double-clicking to highlight the word, and then right-click, and choose "Look Up in Dictionary", but this will load up the entire application into the Dock and will not bring up the fast definition box you can access with the keyboard shortcut.

Run Application at Startup

Did you know you can set an Application to run at startup in just two clicks? If you already have an Application in the Dock that you want to run every time OS X boots up, all you have to do is right click on the icon, and choose "Open at Login". Simply repeat to revert this process at startup.

Safari Address Bar and Google Shortcuts

In Safari, I have two key shortcuts that come in most handy in day to day web-browsing. Holding Command + L will select the entire link in the Address bar, allowing you to immediately begin typing a new address without using the Delete key. This is much faster than directing your mouse to the Address bar and selecting all of the text and erasing. The other handy key combination is Option + Command + F, this allows you to immediately select the Google Search Bar and begin typing a keyword. These are the two Safari shortcuts I use the most frequently.

Folders and Apps in Finder Bar

A nice feature! Did you know that you can drag and drop any folder or application onto the top bar in Finder for easy access for virtually anything on your computer? It comes in very handy for frequently accessed folders or Apps. Give it a try!

Speed Up Window Transitions

The window animations that accompany opening and saving files or minimizing windows in the OS X Finder are very detailed, smooth and pretty, but sometimes you might want to open or save many files in a row without the slight slow down of seeing the same speed of the animations over and over again. You can make a change to the duration of these transitions in Terminal, so that they can be practically instant or, if you wish, very slow.

Run Terminal, and type the following:
defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSWindowResizeTime "time value"

Type in any value from 0.001 (instant) to 0.4 (very slow) without quotation marks, of course.

Ogg Vorbis Playback for iTunes

Want to have to ability to listen to open source Vorbis ( file extension .ogg ) music files in your iTunes library? There is a good add-on for both Intel and PowerPC based Macs called XiphQT. Simply download the .dmg file, run it and follow the instructions on screen. Be sure to quit iTunes before installation. Now you will be able to import and play any .ogg files within iTunes.

Google Drag and Drop Search

Ever compose or edit a letter or document and want to search a word or phrase of it in Google? Or do you want to simply take text from virtually any text screen and search it in Google as simply as you would Copy text? All you have to do is Highlight/Select the text and drag it to the Safari icon in the Dock. And boom! A new search results page window will appear.

Change Screen Capture Image Format

Ever used one of the Screen Capture Shortcuts (Command + Shift + 3 or Command + Shift + 4) and wanted to save the file as JPG or GIF instead of PNG? There's an easy Terminal edit that will allow you to change the format that Screen Capture uses.

Run Terminal, and type this command:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format

Just be sure to replace "image_format" with the image file extension you want to use.

Right Clicking with Two Fingers

Have a last generation MacBook or MacBook Pro and want to right click without typing Control + right click? Go to System Preferences and click on Keyboard & Mouse, then go to Trackpad and then fill in the check mark for “For secondary clicks, place two fingers on the trackpad then click button”.

Now when you use two finger to click, the right click fuction will come up. Happy right clicking!

Search System Folders with Spotlight

Can't find System files or folders using Spotlight? Unfortunately, you can't use Spotlight in the upper right Main Menu to search System folder or files, but you can search for them in Finder.

First, open a new Finder window, go to "File" and click on "Find..." or you can type Command + F. Another search bar underneath will appear under the search bar. Click on where it says "Kind", then select "Other...". It will bring a list of options for various ways of finding and/or filtering your search results (handy huh?), then select System Files check mark and click "OK". Be sure to make the bar next to Kind that says "don't include" and change it to "include". Now search and find the System files and System folders you want.

Remember, this will only work in a Finder window, not in Spotlight in the upper right Main Menu of OS X Leopard.

Menu Extras in OS X Leopard

Did you know that you can have extra menus in the upper right of your Menu bar? Like menus for Remote Desktop, Spaces, and more. Some of these menus are slightly hidden from sight, so you have to explore a bit to find them.

Adding is very easy. First, go to System / Library / CoreServices / Menu Extras. Once there, you can see different names indicating what kinds of Menu Extras are available to add. Double clicking one of the files will automatically add on the menu feature to your main menu.

Removing is a little easier. All you have to do is hold down one of the Command keys and drag the Menu Extra off as you would an icon in the Dock. You will see the Menu Extra vanish the same way you would see an item disappear in the Dock.

Send photos from iPhoto to Facebook

Did you know that you an export all or some of your photos in iPhoto to Facebook? As you probably already know, if you use Facebook, you know that you can't import photos (like my photo at the left) from iPhoto directly using Facebook's uploading tool. But, you can upload files directly to your Facebook account from iPhoto using the Facebook Exporter for iPhoto. Download the zip file, unzip using BetterZip or another file extractor, run the Installer package (be sure to quit iPhoto before installing), after the Installer is done, open iPhoto, afterwards there should be a new Facebook tab in iPhoto's export panel. Now you can add captions, descriptions, locations and upload directly to Facebook. Now, check out your Facebook page in your web browser to see the photos you just uploaded.

You need to log in to Facebook and confirm that you want your photos published. From there, you can choose whether you want the album accessible only by friends or by everyone.

News: New LG Display contract for Apple

The LCD manufacturer LG Display has started a long-term five year contract with Apple.

The news initially became leaked because of the Securities and Exchange Commission's regulatory filings.

There have not been many details disclosed, but the company said it would be receiving a large payment of $500 million us dollars by the end of the month.

LG already has been supplying Apple with more than half of its LCD displays, so there should not be any worries over quality issues related to this new contract.

LG is the second largest manufacturer of LCD displays in the world after Samsung.

Delete duplicate iPhoto photos

Want to get rid of those pesky duplicate files created by iPhoto? iPhoto Diet is a great little free application to do this. The application will allow you to find and delete any duplicates, thus eliminating your frustration! Also, it can identify photos on your hard drive which have not been added to iPhoto albums. It can allow you also to remove thumbnails which have been assigned to the wrong photos, and other handy things!

Advanced users: If you want to get rid of your original photo files and leave them in iPhoto, thus freeing up much hard drive space, you can use these commands in Terminal:

mkdir ~/.Trash/iPhoto-Originals
cd ~/"Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/"
find . -type f -exec mv "../Originals/{}" ~/.Trash/iPhoto-Originals/ \;

Type these commands carefully and it should work!

File Extension Dashboard Widget for OS X

Here's an extremely useful widget from FileInfo.net for looking up the facts about a particular file extension. All you do is simply type in the full extension (for example, .ogg at the left) in the search bar and hit enter. It will bring up a fully detailed page about the extension you have chosen.

Once you have installed the widget in OS X Dashboard, you can access it by pressing the F12 key or clicking the Dashboard icon in the Dock, or by simply using one of the corners you assigned in Exposé.

Find MAC Address in OS X Leopard

Want to find your MAC Address for your network card?

First, open System Preferences.
Click on Network.
Then, click on Ethernet.
Click on Advanced.
Then choose the Ethernet tab. If you look next to the Ethernet ID,
you will see the MAC Address.

How to empty your DNS Cache in OS X

If you are a web developer of some sort, you will probably want to empty your DNS Cache. It is actually very straight forward and easy to do.

Run Terminal (I prefer typing it in with the spotlight search and hitting "return") and type this command:
"dscacheutil -flushcache"

YAY! Your DNS has been flushed or emptied of its contents.

How to change the Leopard Dock

Want to have a different looking Dock in Leopard? Easy! First, you need to find the Dock image you want to use. There are many redesigned Docks out there on the web ready to download.

All you need to do is open the folder "System/Library/CoreServices/" then type "Control + right-click" on Dock.app and select "Show Package Contents" then go to folder "Contents/Resources/" and make a backup save of the scurve .PNG files and send them to the Trash.

Then, copy your newly downloaded dock contents into this folder. Then, go to Terminal, and type: killall Dock. Ta da! You have a new Leopard Dock.

Use Screensaver as Desktop Wallpaper in Leopard

Do you want a more exciting Desktop? You can easily turn any Screensaver into a dazzling animated Wallpaper (I'm using the RSS Visualizer Screensaver, at left). There are several apps on the web that allow you do to this, but my personal favorite is BGScreenSaver 1.1. All you do is download the app from the web. Go to System Preferences in your Dock or Applications folder and choose the Screensaver you want. Then, run the app you downloaded from the web and boom you have an animated Desktop Wallpaper. There's also a terminal edit, for the more advanced users, if you wish to use it; simply type the following in Terminal: /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/

Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

Now the Screensaver is your background. To revert back to normal, just type Command-C.