I just found a way to freeze a window in the middle of minimizing into the dock. Here's a screenshot. This is completely useless, and only works for Cocoa apps, but it looks pretty cool.

First just minimize a window into the dock, then un-minimize it. While it's in the middle of the genie or scale effect effect, hit command-H to hide the app (it's easier to do this during genie, since it takes longer**). Switch back to the app, and the window will be frozen, partly minimized.

[** Try a shift-option-click on the minimized window, which will expand it with "super slow mo" and then hit command-H - much easier since the window is really going slowly. -rob.]

Read the rest of this article for more information about this frozen window "feature" ... also be aware that this will more than likely make the application you're experimenting with unstable, so please consider that BEFORE trying to duplicate this effect!

If you've ever tried to paste a custom icon on a Java application (such as LimeWire or jEdit), you'll find it's impossible, at least through normal means. I ran across this due to some sort of odd design in the LimeWire icon - when placed in my DragThing dock, the LimeWire icon did not respond to a mouse click (quite odd). So I went to paste a replacement in, only to find that it was impossible. I also tried creating an alias and pasting a custom icon there (no go) as well as using an AppleScript to open LimeWire (no go - AppleScript must have a syntax for opening Java apps that I just don't know; it can't find the LimeWire app).

After a bit of poking around in MRJAppBuilder, I found a fairly easy way to replace Java applications' icons. If you'd like the step-by-step method, read the rest of this article.

By the way, that new LimeWire icon is from a set called "Unreleased" by Pedro Fernandez, downloaded from xicons.com.

I own a B&W G3 with the hardware DVD decoding system and was quite disappointed when 10.1 did not install the DVD Player. I tried copying the file from a machine of mine that it did install on, but alas, it gave me an error that it would not work.

All my disapointments disappeared today when I hit XLR8YourMac.com and read that it's possible to modify the DVD Player to work on unsupported machines. The hack is simple, and it seems to work well on my B&W (it does use 70% of the processor, but that's no big loss). Check out their DVD Player Mod page for all the details.

As of now, it seems that it's only been tested on Blue and White G3s, but I'm sure other machines will have reports of success or failure soon.

-THX1138

I figured this one out when I accidently moved the "Aqua Blue.jpg" picture out of the /Library/Desktop Pictures/ folder. In Mac OS X PB the default picture was stored in the Finder app itself. But when I moved the "Aqua Blue" desktop picture out of the "Desktop Pictures" folder in 10.1 and logged out, it gave me a blank background of all pinstripes in the login screen. So what i did was to make a copy of my favorite DP, rename it "Aqua Blue.jpg", and make sure it was in the desktop pictures folder. Then I logged out. It worked! The default picture was no longer the standard one, but the one I like.

The only thing I want to know now is how to change the background color during startup, but I think that's hardwired.

Here's how I set my system up for multiple users to try and guarantee that things will work for my users just like they work for me.

In the folder /System/Library/UserTemplate/English.lproj/ there is a default set of home directory files and preferences used by the system for each new user created by an admin in the Users preference panel. We will now create a new set of default preferences to replace the Apple supplied prefs.

Read the rest of this article if you'd like to change the default setup for new users on your system.

[Editor's note: This is a very useful hint if you have a number of users on your machine and you want them all to have identical customized setups!]

Want a better way to show all options in the Show Info Window? Use your scroll wheel! This just occurred to me today. Show info on anything, and use the scroll wheel in the active window to scroll through your various options, which are typically some combination of the following:

General Information
Name & Extension
Languages
Privileges
Open with application
Preview

jmil

I recently sent in a suggestion to Apple's OS X Feedback page that they should provide the option for users to use the Desktop as their Home. That is, rather than having to view the items in their Home folder through a Finder window, these items (Documents, Pictures, etc.) would appear on the Desktop along with mounted volumes. The beauty of this is that it would allow the Desktop to be reborn as the center of user activity, rather than being restricted to the confines of a window.

Then I realized there is a way to make this a reality now! Read the rest of this article if you'd like to know how to make your "Home" directory contents live on your desktop.

After upgrading to 10.1, I could no longer move anything to the trash: I got a message that the items would be deleted immediately.

After a couple of days messing around, I solved the problem. The owner of my home folder (/Users/myname) was root; regaining ownership via this command in the terminal:

sudo chown myname myname

Replace 'myname' with your short user name. This changed things back to normal.

[Editor's note: Make sure you're in your home directory first if you haven't just launched the Terminal -- type cd and hit enter, then execute the above command.]

Previously in 10.04, you had to do some tricky terminal things to do this, but with 10.1 this is easier than pie. here is a step by step to put a hierarchical volume menu on your dock:

1. in your documents folder, create a new folder, call it "volumes" or "drives" or whatever. You can also assign a custom icon to this folder using get info.
   
   
2. open the folder and open a separate finder window (command-N). Select the "computer" icon at the top of the toolbar to open up the hard drive icons for each drive or partition.
   
   
3. select a drive icon and then holding down option-command (apple), drag to create an alias in the "volumes" folder. Do this for each partition/volume.
   
   
4. Drag the folder to the dock. Voila! now you have a hierarchical menu of each drive.

you can do the same for classic applications or frequently used folders or files. Simply opt-cmd drag the item into a folder in your documents folder, then move that folder to the dock. I presently have one for volumes, classic apps, and folder

Sparky the wonderpig

This is a quick and simple observation (hey, it's early on Saturday morning!), but still useful to know. When you use the contextual menus in the dock, they don't change the active appliation. This means, for example, that you can quit any application while remaining in whatever app you're working in - just control-click on the app to quit in the dock and select "Quit". That application will exit without first becoming active.

Where I find this most useful is if I'm working in a Classic app that likes to use the whole screen (Quicken or Photoshop, for example) and I want to change the current iTunes song - a quick control-click on the iTunes dock icon folloed by a click on "Next song" and I don't have to watch the entire screen switch from Classic to Aqua and back for a simple song change.

As more robust dock contextual menus become common (with the elimination of docklings), this should become even more useful.