[Sumbitted by brodie]

If, like me, you have loads of mp3's, or .sit(s) .bin(s) all downloaded into one folder, or several diferent folders, you can throw them all together in one clean move without having to find them all and drag them painstakingly one at a time.

Just open up your destination folder, open Sherlock and search for their common property (ie their name or .sit suffix). Select them all and drag them into the desitination folder. You can then, if you need to, delete all your partially downloaded mp3's by opening the folder in list view, select size to arrange and delete ...etc.

[Editor's note: Not specific to OS X, of course, but a good organization speed-up tip in general]

You know how the Desktop folder is inside your home directory under Mac OS X? Well, if you select the desktop and Cmd-Up Arrow it will open a window to your home directory.

A quick short-cut for those "old dog" Mac users like myself that haven't yet gotten used to the browser...

Here's a substitue for pop-up folders. It works best with Finder windows, but can be applied for others.Take a window, resize it to a small size but so that you can still see the name of the window, and drag it to the bottom on the screen (should only see the title bar). Now hitting zoom will reveal the window in full. Hitting zoom again will return the window to the bottom of the screen. This is easier to use when the dock is is located on the side of the screen. Enjoy.

If you want to keep a folder in a standard state (for whatever reason) then the following is one way of doing it (I'm sure there are others). Making the folder read only is another way, but this may not be what you want to do.

(MAKE SURE YOU USE THE CORRECT " ' ` SYMBOLS IN THESE STEPS!)

Create a list of the files in the directory that you want to keep standard e.g. the root level of your hard drive ( '%>' represents the prompt):

%> cd /
%> ls >/filelist

This creates a file at the top level of your hard drive called 'filelist', which we'll use to compare contents to. If you are using this to keep the top level of your hard drive clean then run 'ls >/filelist' twice so the 'filelist' file does not get deleted or moved!).

Now if you execute the commands:

%> cd /
>%> rm -r "`ls | grep -v -x --file=/filelist`"

it will delete all files and folders in root except those listed in the file called "filelist".

or (a safer way to go about cleaning the top level of the hard drive!)

%> cd /
%> mv "`ls | grep -v -x --file=/filelist`" ~/Documents/

which will move all files and folders not listed in the filelist from root to the current logged in users 'Documents' folder (or any other path you care to specify).

One use for this is to make the last example into a shell script that would run at startup (discussed elsewhere on this site) and this would then move all files that had been saved loose on the HD (root) to the users Document folder, thereby keeping the hard drive tidy.

Until now I had been using Get Info the hard way, open and close for each file, but recently, I noticed by accident that by not closing the "Get Info" window and just clicking on a drive, a file, folder, or an application ... I noticed that the information was updated on the fly.

I'm sure this is old news to some but for me it saves a few key strokes and was a nice touch. :-)

[Editor's note: The one-window Get Info interface has both pros and cons ... this tip is the "pro" side; the "con" side is that it's very hard to compare more than two files at once. If you have just two, it's pretty easy to click back and forth and note the difference. If you have three, it's just tedious. Personally, I'm hoping for an option for multiple Get Info windows at some point in the future]

I downloaded and started using the Prefling dockling (as suggested in a comment to my story on direct access to preferences). However, one thing I liked about my method was the rollover name in the dock was something meaningful to me. "Prefling" just didn't strike my fancy.

So I tried renaming the dockling in the Finder and then dragged it to the dock. No go; the rollover name was still "Prefling". A little experimentation found the solution, and it's fairly easy and should work for any dockling.

Make sure that the dockling to edit is not running - drag it out of the dock before you start. In the Finder, navigate to the dockling you wish to change; mine are in the standard Applications/Dock Extras folder. Control- or right-click on the dockling application itself and select "Show Package Contents". In the new window that opens, you should see (at least) a folder named "Contents". Open this, and you'll find "info.plist".

Open this file in a pure text editor (BBEdit lite, jedit, or use vi in the Terminal), and look for the following lines (these are from the Prefling dockling, but they'll be similar in all the docklings):

<key>DLLabel</key>
<string>Prefling</string>

Change the text between the <string> tags and save your changes (make sure you save as text only!). Drag the app back to the dock, and you should see that the rollover now has the name you gave it.

To be safe, make sure you make a copy of the dockling before you start, just in case something goes wrong.

In case you missed it, Snapz Pro for OS X has been released by Ambrosia Software.

If you don't own an LCD monitor and a video camera and have been looking for a way to make OS X movies, Snapz Pro is one solution. Making movies is quite straightforward - after installing the software (no restart required, of course), hitting shift-command-3 will activate Snapz Pro from any application.

Once activated, simply click on the large MOVIE button, and then move the highlighted area to the portion of the screen you'd like to film. Drag the corners to expand or shrink the area to be filmed. You can also set a 'camera type' and target FPS in the bottom of the dialog box prior to starting.

Once you're ready to film, double-click inside the region. You'll hear "Action!" and your mouse actions are now being recorded. When you're done, hit shift-command-3 again and you'll hear "That's a wrap!" and recording will cease. Set the quality level you desire and save your QuickTime movie (by default, it goes in your Pictures directory).

Although the frame rates for large screen movies will not match what you can achieve with a separate video camera and LCD monitor, Snapz Pro does an admirable job with a heck of a lot less effort.

In addition, Snapz Pro makes taking pictures of the entire screen, a region of the screen, or (very cool) objects on the screen completely trivial. Ambrosia has written a very solid OS X application, and they'll be getting my shareware fee shortly!

If you go to change the default application to launch a file with a specific filename extension, say ".jpg", and you find that the "Change Application" button is disabled, you can fix this from the terminal as follows.

Note: you'll need the developer tools installed.

Let's say you have a directory of .jpg files that you want to fix.

cd my_jpeg_directory
foreach filename (*.jpg)
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -c "" $filename
end

This removes the "Creator" attribute from the file and this enables the "Change Application" button in the Finder's "Show Info" panel (command-I). To fix just one file use...

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -c "" filename

[Editor's note: There are also GUI apps that can delete creator codes; check macosxapps or versiontracker and search on 'creator']

Some of you may be familiar with the tsch shell's (the default shell in Terminal) auto-complete feature. When typing a file name, simply hit tab after enough of the name has been specified to be specific. Example: typing "De" in your home directory and hitting tab gives you "Desktop".

This feature also works in the Finder! By selecting the Go -> Go To Folder menu item, you bring up a message box. By typing, for example: "/user/hoff/De" and hitting TAB, you get "/user/hoff/Desktop"! This can be usefull if you wish to access folders with long names.

Although it's relatively simple (by editing three PDF files) to change the background of the dock, it still retains a dark-colored border line. There's been some discussion on various forums about how to eliminate the border, and it appears that this has now been accomplished!

'kfel' has posted TransparentDock, which will give you three different transparency settings for your dock, including completely transparent. Make sure you visit kfel's home page for some important notes about TransparentDock, as well as some links to other useful utilities he (she?) has written.