I found a good way to free up RAM - quit the finder. Doing so freed up 100MB on my TiBook! It's so nice not paging to disk as often, and I have more CPU time available.

I used TinkerTool (ed: see Hall of Fame Apps box for link) to add a quit option to the Finder application menu and it works just fine. The drawback is that I don't have my desktop picture! Does anyone know of a program that supplements the Finder Desktop picture capability? This flat blue is getting old ;)

[Editor's note: You can also install SNAX as a Finder replacement; see this hint for details...still no desktop picture, though.]

I often want to do something in OS X and find that I need root when I have navigated to a specific location in the Finder. So then I would have to open the terminal and navigate to that same location (or drag the folder while holding command-option onto the Terminal icon in the dock).

Well, I finally got around to creating an Applescript that does it for me, here it is:

on run
  tell application "Finder"
    try
      activate
      set frontWin to folder of front window as string
      set frontWinPath to (get POSIX path of frontWin)
      tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        do script with command "cd \"" & frontWinPath & "\""
      end tell
    on error error_message
      beep
      display dialog error_message buttons¬
      {"OK"} default button 1
    end try
  end tell
end run

Save the script as an application and drop it in the Finder toolbar (or in the Scripts folder or use one of the available utilities to assign it a keyboard shortcut) and then each window has a handy link to the terminal which will open a new window navigated to that folder. This saves duplication of effort and long drag and drop operations.

While playing a movie file in the Finder's column view preview, the up and down arrow keys adjust volume. When the movie is paused, the keys move up and down the file list as usual. Also space bar pauses but for some reason half the time it unpauses and half the time it moves you to the first file in the list (like in List and Icon views).

I discovered this while going through a large folder of audio files (specifically, the sounds from Oni. She's everywhere!) :D

I found that the command

 % hdiutil eject -force device_name

is able to simply force eject a unit witch refuses to unmount due to files still "in use". The device_name can be estabilished by consulting the df command.

I wonder if there is any drawback in using 'hdiutil' in this way.

[Editor's note: Please note that there is a hint about Ejecting a busy disk image with a different method of solving the problem - namely, identifying the processes that are preventing the ejection in the first place. I believe this would be the preferred manner of resolving a stuck Volume problem, as it cleans everything up prior to unmounting the volume. I've chosen to publish this "brute force" method in the event that the first method fails to solve the problem ... and in the hopes that it sparks some conversation about the possible dangers -- what can go wrong if you force eject a busy volume? Thoughts?]

One of the advantages of OSX is the ability to keep your home folder on a network server, so that when you log on from any OSX mac on the network, all your preferences, Finder windows, and settings are as you left them. The same applied to the desktop picture in 10.0, but this changed in 10.1 so that using the system preference to change the desktop background only changes it for that machine.

The combination of an AppleScript and a shell script restores the ability to change the background on all machines at once. Read the rest of the article for the scripts and the instructions.

After messing around with SNAX as a Finder replacement, I noticed something that seemed reasonably doable in the Finder. I really liked having the trash in my SNAX toolbar. Why not see if it worked in the Finder? Sure enough, it worked.

Here's what I feel is the easiest way: Click the trash icon in the dock. When the window opens, click and hold on the title bar trash icon until it turns black, and then drag it into the toolbar. BOOM done. Now you can trash files in majorly shorter dragging distances.

[Editor's note: I can't believe this hasn't been published here before; I wrote about it in the OS X Solutions Guidebook! So I'm listing it for completeness sake, and apolgies if it's a duplicate. Of course, you can also use "Customize Toolbar" to add a "Delete" button to the toolbar, and then you can delete files with no dragging at all.]

I use list view quite a bit. I'm mostly interested in the size and the date columns and turn the others off. I was really happy to find that I could drag the size column to be before the date column since it's more important to me. Unfortunately, it always reverts to the default column order on new windows or windows switched to list view. I wanted any folder that was asked to display in list view to retain my preferred order.

I could, of course, open a new window, set it to list view, move the columns, and close it again to set the "global default" for new windows to list view with my preferred column order. But I didn't want to use a list view global default; I just wanted any window that I switched to list view to come up with the proper column order.

Read the rest of the article for an explanation of how to make the Finder retain your preferred column order for any window you set to list view...

After discovering Goliath for iDisk access (thanks to this hint from cram), I wanted a way to make it nearly as seamless as the integrated Finder support that Apple's iDisk icon provides. Using the Finder's toolbar, it's actually quite easy to do.

Use Goliath to connect to your iDisk. Use File -> Save Connection As to create a new connection document for the iDisk connection, and save it somewhere on your drive. Switch to the Finder, do a Show Info on the Apple iDisk icon, select the icon, and copy. Navigate to the new Goliatch connection document, click on it (with Show Info still open), select the icon, hit paste. Rename the Goliath shortcut 'iDisk' and drag it into the Finder's toolbar. Drag out the Apple original icon.

Now I have the same one-click Finder access with Apple's stock iDisk icon, but it connects via Goliath with 10x the speed. Yea, this is a basic tip but sometimes those are the best kind ;-).

[Site news side-update: There may be some downtime this weekend - we may try moving to the new server on Saturday or Sunday. In addition, I received a notice that there will be some scheduled ISP maintenance on Tuesday April 23rd from 4:00am to 5:00am (Eastern US time) that may cause occasional disruptions in service.]

I noticed on my system that the preference for the desktop background sometimes doesn't "stick". Sometimes (usually after one or two background changes) it's not possible to drag an image file onto the well. It's also a bit tedious to select your image folder everytime you want to have a picture from a different folder because the app only remembers the last chosen folder (yes, I've read the hint about editing the corresponding .plist file).

Here's how you do it easily and without any "hacking" whatsoever. Download Joakim Nygård's freeware app DesktopControl, save the app somewhere on your disk (give it a more original icon) and then drag it into the Finder's toolbar.

Now you can just drop any image file onto the icon and bingo, instant background switching! Works everytime.

[Editor's note: There are other tips here discussing auto-switching desktop picture software, but this little app is a great program to use if you wish to change the background image yourself.]

An anonymous tipster submitted the following a few days ago:

I found today that I could get rid of the dreaded spinning technicolor ball whenever I switched to the Finder by moving all the zillions of files on my desktop to a folder on my desktop. Now I don't get the spinning wheel when I go the the Finder!

I'm posting this hint in the hopes that others may be able to validate its functionality. As a rule, I keep very little stuff on the desktop, and I've never experienced a delay when switching to the Finder. But I'm not sure those two things are related.

As an experiment last night, I added literally 100 or so aliased items to my desktop and then spent some time using the system. The result? No change. I tried this on both a G4 tower and our 2001 iBook/500, and neither system seemed bothered by a large number of aliases on the desktop. I'm not sure if results will differ with actual files instead of aliases, but I'm not going to move that many actual objects out to my desktop to find out.

So how about it? Is this tip true? Can a loaded desktop cause the spinning cursor when switching to the Finder? Anyone care to test it out for themselves and post their results? I went zero for two in my testing, but maybe I missed something.