This is probably a no-brainer for many people, but it never occurred to me until today. Every morning when I wake up, I check my e-mail, take a shower [editor: get dressed?], eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and finally, grab my iPod and take off for school. Of course, I can't just "grab" my iPod and go, because it's always mounted on the dock, so I have to find my iPod icon on the desktop, right-click, and select Eject (or, left click and command-E). This process can be mildly annoying, especially when I'm in a rush.
So today, I finally decided I should try to make it as simple as a keystroke. First, I created an AppleScript (my very first, no less):
tell application "Finder"
eject "name_of_my_iPod"
end tell
I saved it as an application (but I guess you can save it as a script) in ~/Documents -> scripts. Then, I went and downloaded Xkeys. After that, I installed Xkeys, assigned F13 to run the script application, and voila! F13 is now my own "eject iPod" key. I just wished I could assign F16 for the task, as the keyboard that came with my iMac G5 has F16.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040926183902446