Snow Leopard

I installed Snow Leopard on Tuesday with little hassle. Almost annoying little hassle. Nothing went wrong. Nothing broke. It was almost disappointing there was nothing to fix or change. So far the most detrimental thing that happened was that Snow Leopard made a few screen savers obsolete, but my favourite one (Pong Saver) has been updated for Snow Leopard already anyway.

My impressions: favourable. The only large tweaks I've noticed are Expose and stacks (and faster startup and shutdown). The new iTunes (and iPod Touch) software that also came out a few days ago have been a welcome addition. As well as the nicely redesigned app store.

I still have a few projects hanging around to which I need to get, and hopefully will have something interesting to post soon.

A Few Updates

It has been far too long since I have posted an update here. I have been on holiday and generally busy, and in consequence 1) I have not had time to post, and 2) I have not had as much time to play around with my computer(s). A few things I think I have not mentioned:

-I obtained a Mac Mini (but that was back in March)
-OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is on the way!
-I obtained an iPod Touch

The Mac Mini has been having some audio issues I have yet to fix, and I'm sure Snow Leopard will give me a cornucopia of new thing to talk about when it arrives. The iPod Touch has given me access to the world of the app store, so I may end up writing about some of my favourite apps.

Photography is becoming more of an interest for me as well, so I might have some brief forays into that world if the fancy strikes me.

Finder Tweaks

This article from Lifehacker I found quite interesting, though I only applied a few of the tricks myself. The two tricks from the article I applied were the ability to view the contents of compressed folders and normal folders in QuickLook.

I underutilise QuickLook myself, and these should allow me to use it more than I currently do. The instructions for both are the same: download the QuickLook Generator file from the website and paste it under ~/Library/QuickLook and restart Finder. (The easiest way to restart finder is to hold Alt, right-click the Finder icon in the dock and select "relaunch."

For viewing compressed folders, download the file here.
For viewing normal folders, download the file here.

The article is great and definitely worth a read.

Show Hidden Files and Folders

As I am a curious sort, I always want to know exactly what is on my hard drive. One thing that always irks me about OS X is all of the hidden files and folders. Because of this, I prefer to keep them hidden. However, it is always good to know how to reveal them, and as such I will tell you how here.

Open Terminal and type the command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

This reveals the hidden files and folders.
Hit enter and then type the command:

killall Finder

This restarts Finder so the folders and files will be visible.

To revert it, the process is basically the same. Open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.finder ShowAllFiles FALSE

Hit enter and then type:

killall Finder

A utilitarian trick all should know.

Some Good Freeware

A couple of good freeware programes: LiteIcon and AppCleaner.

I had an odd issue of the icon for my NAS reverting every time I tried to change it. LiteIcon solved that issue for me; it allows for the changing of the default icon for any number of things. You can get it here.

My second application stemmed from the first. You will remember AppTrap from a few posts back. This one does more or less the same thing, but with a bit more in the feature department. AppCleaner is an application (rather than just a preference pane) that does the same things as AppTrap, but also allows you to remove widgits, preference panes, and other such files. A good thing to have around. It also can be found here at FreeMacSoft.

ACDSee Pro for Mac Beta

ACDSee Pro for Mac Beta is live now! Download it here.

AppTrap

Now one thing I like about Apple programmes is that most are contained in that single .app file. To uninstall, simply move that to the trash. However, unbeknownst to you, many also create files scattered about your hard drive, and when you delete the .app file, it does not delete these files.

Cue AppTrap.

AppTrap (when running) detects when you send a .app file to the trash and asks you if you want to delete the other system files associated with that app. A nice little cleanup preference pane to help keep things tidy.

Links:
AppTrap