OSX Leopard Hints

Activate One Window mode for Safari.

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:48:49 +0000

If you’re like me, you’re tired of all sorts of Safari windows all over the place, and wish you could keep them all in one browser window! If that’s the case then you’ll love this terminal trick that does just that for Safari, here’s what you do. Browse to terminal ( applications/utilities/terminal.app ) and enter the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

You’ll have to restart Safari for it take effect, but now any links that are set to open in a new window will now open in a new tab saving you from having 10 browser windows open all the time.Of course to reverse this setting, you simply enter the same command except change ” true ” to false at the end.

Speed up Mac Mouse tracking via terminal

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:33:24 +0000

Here’s a great Mac OS X terminal trick to change your mouse tracking speeds via terminal.If the available settings in the mouse preference panel aren’t good enough for you, You can adjust the rate via terminal using the following command:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling *.*

Replace the *’s with a number between 1 and 5 ie:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 5.0
for fast tracking or
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 1.0
for slow tracking

Change Leopards Scrollbars

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:28:15 +0000

I love leopards new sleek look, but I wasn’t too happy when I saw that aqua was still around, and googled around till I found an interesting post on a forum that describes how to change your scrollbars in leopard to match iTunes.

It looks awesome and works perfectly, You’ll need admin access to whatever Mac you’d like to do this to, but all you have to do is delete 1 file and replace it with another, Restart or kill finder and viola! brand new scrollbars for your mac!

Read how to change leopards scrollbars over at Macthemes

Pause video feed in iChat

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 10:15:26 +0000

You’re conferencing with your boss, and realise that document you need is in the car, now rather than let him watch you make the mad dash for the car in a vain attempt to look somewhat professional, you can pause the chat and restart when ready without boss man ever havin’ a clue.

To pause a video feed while chatting simply hold down the option key and the microphone icon will change into a pause button, click it and you’re all set.

I don’t use ichat myself, because I usually work in my underwear, and that’s best saved for text chat I find, but I’m sure this tip will come in handy for a bunch of you!

Thanks Dave for the tip.

Override Finders maximum icon size

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:27:06 +0000

If you really want to jazz up your finder and “supersize” your icons, open your terminal and enter the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder DesktopViewOptions -dict IconSize -integer 128; killall Finder

Replace 128 with the size in pixels you’d like to set as maximum as high as 512, but becareful not to push the limits of your hardware as it can be very taxing on your system so proceed with caution

Add Hover Effect to Stacks

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:08:13 +0000

To add a nice hover effect to the icons in the stacks pop up enter the following code into your terminal ( applications/utilities/terminal.app)

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES killall Dock

To Remove this Stacks hover effect enter the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean NO killall Dock

Here’s a preview of the magic at work.It’s also important to note that this only shows when you navigate your stack pop up by keyboard.

Customize stacks icons

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:57:55 +0000

If you would like to set a specific icon for each stack instead of the default stack pile of icons, Stacks in Da Place from Eagle-of-liberty was developed with you in mind, It’s a great little piece of donationware that lets you use any icon you want for any stack, easy as dragging and dropping the icon you want.

Download Stacks in Da Place at the developers site - Click here to Visit

Great List of Leopard Tips

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:49:39 +0000

While browsing a few of my favorite apple sites I came across this great list of leopard tips I thought I’d pass along,The list includes a few great Timemachine and quicklook tips etc. Here’s a great little tip from the listCollect all windows in one Space When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion. For the whole list of OSX leopard tricks jump on over to AppleTell.

Add your Favorite Radio station to your dashboard

admin — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:04:50 +0000

Leopards new version of Safari comes packed with new features, my favorite being the new webclip feature. WebClip basically allows you to create a custom widget on the go from any part of any webpage.

This can come in super handy, and recently I discovered a little trick that brought my favorite radio station to my dashboard so it’s always ready, and not taking up a browser window.

Here’s what you do, Browse to your favorite radio station that allows you to listen live online,browse to the player and click File/Open in dashboard, You will be prompted to select the area of the web page you want to make into a widget, Select the radio player and hit okay, your new custom radio widget will now open in dashboard.

You can change the style and size of the widget by clicking on the little i icon just like any widget, While you’re there uncheck the ” only play audio in dashboard ” option and it’ll play while you work!

Free Alarm Clock for your Mac using iCal

admin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:31:54 +0000

There’s a lot of good alarm clock software out there, but there’s also a way to turn your Imac or Macbook into an alarm clock totally free using iCal and iTunes.
First you open iCal and set up a new event for the time you want the alarm to go off, then set up an action by editing your event and setting the alarm to “Open File” then attach a song from your iTunes.

Make sure you’re volume is up and you’re all set with your own free alarm clock for OS X