Here is a list of a few handy things that I use on my Mac. Maybe you already know about them, or maybe you will pick up a new thing or two.

apple-shift-G

The G is for “go”.

Use this key command in finder, it pops up a textbox where you can type in the path directly. Very handy, and has tab-autocompletion! It also works in native file browser dialogs.

contextual menu plugin to make symbolic links

This baby really comes in handy on occasion. You can make symbolic links and rename them just like any other file. It’s much better than finder aliases.

download make symbolic link CMplugin

There are some other handy CMplugins here, but they don’t work on intel macs yet :(

option-click the airport statusbar icon to show networks sorted by signal strength

This one isn’t mind-blowing, but can be handy. Even better is the Airport Radar dashboard widget, which tells you which networks are open/closed as well. There is also coconut wifi, and for the true h4×0r, KisMAC.

Unsanity FruitMenu

This is a commercial app, but it is totally worth it. It gives you a customizable Apple menu, where I can put links to Applications folder and home directory, as well as easy access to system preferences, and anything else your heart desires. It was a little flakey with Intel macs, but seems to be working okay now.

all about FruitMenu

Custom Keybindings

Did you know that every cocoa app has configurable keybindings? You may have noticed already that some common emacs keybindings are available by default, I use kill and yank all the time (ctrl-K and ctrl-Y, it’s sorta like a mini clipboard).

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/Cocoa%20Text%20System.html http://www.lsmason.com/articles/macosxkeybindings.html

Another handy app in this vein is Unsanity Menu Master, which let’s you customize the keyboard shortcuts for GUI menu commands, on a per-app basis. Very cool!

It was also flakey with intel macs, but supposedly this has been resolved. Though I’m a little cautious still, after it caused me hours of angst from photoshop crashes.

apple-option-I in finder

This gives you a global file info window, it stays open and when you select different files, it updates correspondingly. Again, not mind-blowing, but handy once and awhile when you want to inspect multiple files.

preview multiple images

On the topic of inspecting multiple files, if you select several images and drag them into Preview, you’ll have a nice sidebar to select between them.