This tip was submitted by David.

One of the great features of Safari on the Mac is the way it handles a network outage. If you’re somewhere with an unreliable connection, say because you’re using a distant wireless network (or if like me you live in Africa), then Safari will give you a message if it can’’t connect to the internet with a button to click to open the network diagnostics window. What’’s more, it automatically loads pages if the network becomes reconnected.

The diagnostics window is great because it gives you clear red/green indicator lights that show what’s working and what isn’t so you can quickly diagnose connection issues and find out whether it’s something wrong with your computer or with the network.

But what if your favourite browser is Firefox or if you have to deal with tricky or unreliable network issues without using Safari? Well, you don’t need to go and use Safari, you can just open the Network Diagnostics application directly. The problem is, it’s not in the Applications or Utilities folder, it’s buried in /System/Library/CoreServices. For a quick convenience diagnostics tool this is not so handy.

To make the Network Diagnostics application more accessible, first navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices. Look in this folder for Network Diagnostics, and drag it to the Dock. Now, whenever you have problems connecting to the internet via an application other than Safari, you can simply click on the icon in the Dock to find out what’s wrong.

If you don’t like a whole dock space being taken up with it, then you could make a shortcut to the application and add it to a folder of other applications stored in a neat stack at the documents end of the dock.



David got paid $20 for this tip. If you know a good Mac tip, why not submit it to the site.

Since iTunes 8 was released it has been possible to view your iTunes music, movies and TV shows in grid view (Command-Option-4 or in the View menu). Once in grid view, if you choose to group items by genre you will see that Apple has provided some pictures for commonly used genres. Unfortunately there are not a lot, however Apple has made it so similar genres appear under the same image. For example, there is no image for Rap, but iTunes automatically gives this genre the Hip-Hop image.



If you aren't happy with the artwork provided, or you want to add your own genres, you can do this fairly easily by adding an image to the iTunes package, and then editing a plist file to pair it to the genre. Here's the step by step process.

Start by going to your applications folder and finding iTunes. Right-click (Control-click) on it, and choose "Show Package Contents" from the menu. In the folder that appears, navigate to the Resources folder. This is where you will find everything you need to change.

All the jpg images with names like genre-XXXXX.jpg are the artwork files. Note that all the movie ones end in M, and ones especially for TV Shows end in T. If you want to edit one, hold the option key and drag it to your desktop to copy it there. Once you are done editing, save the file to the desktop and the drag it back to the Resources folder. I would suggest you don't replace the old image, just in case you want to go back to it. Simply rename the old one to oldgenre-XXXX.jpg or something similar.

If you want to create your own genre artwork, note that all the movie genres are 171px x 256px and all the TV show and music genres are 256px x 256px. If you create artwork that isn’t the right size, iTunes will automatically scale it for you anyway, so you don’t need to worry about this too much. Also note that you don't have to round the corners yourself, iTunes does this for you. When copying the file to the iTunes resources folder, make sure to give it a name different from any existing genre images.

If creating your own isn't your thing, a quick search on google brought up a flickr group containing artwork others have created.

The next step is to get iTunes to use your image automatically when you use certain genres. In the Resources folder, look for the file genres.plist. Before we make any chages to this file, you might want to back it up. Once you've done this, open it up in TextEdit (Right-click and choose Open With TextEdit). This will pretty much look like nonsense to anyone unfamiliar with plists, but don't worry. You will notice that most of the file is made up of the following lines, repeated over and over again:

<dict>
<key>matchString</key><string>action</string>
<key>resourceFile<key><string>genre-actionM.jpg<string>
<key>kind</key><string>movie</string>
</dict>

This one looks out for any "movie" with the genre "action" and gives it the image "genre-actionM.jpg". You may notice that some other ones are slightly different. Most TV show and music genres don't have the final line. The one that does is the TV show genre "Classic" which also has the line <key>exactStringMatch</key><rue/>. This is to make sure it doesn't get mixed up with the music genre classical.

Say, for example, you created some genre artwork for Gothic Rock, and called it genre-gothicrock.jpg. After the last </dict> in the file, you would write:

<dict>
<key>matchString</key><string>Gothic Rock</string>
<key>resourceFile<key><string>genre-gothicrock.jpg<string>
</dict>

For movie genres you would also include the line <key>kind</key><string>movie</string>.

Save the file, the quit and re-open iTunes. If everything worked, your genre artwork should show up in grid view. If it doesn't, the most likely problem is typos in the genres.plist file.

One more thing to note is that you might lose your changes when iTunes updates. You might want to keep a backup of your new jpg artwork images and the genres.plist file in a separate place as items within the package contents are often replaced when the application updates.

If you know the right tricks, you can maximise the lifespan and battery life of you MacBook or MacBook Pro. The way you charge the battery, the conditions is which you use and store your laptop and the way you have your energy saver preferences set all have an effect on how long your battery will last and how well if performs.

Over time, your battery holds less and less charge, meaning your laptop doesn't last as long between charges. Apple claims that their batteries are designed to retain 80% of their original capacity after 300 cycles.

You can check how many cycles your battery has done by looking in System Profiler. You can find this by clicking on the Apple menu in the top left and choosing About This Mac. In the window that appears, click the "More Info..." button. In the sidebar of System Profiler, click on Power to bring up all the details about your battery. The interesting part is the Health Information. (Note that the stats shown below are for a fairly new battery).

Charge Information:
Charge remaining (mAh): 4940
Fully charged: Yes
Charging: No
Full charge capacity (mAh): 4940
Health Information:
Cycle count: 21
Condition: Good

If it says "Check Battery" under Condition, there is likely a problem with your battery. The good news is that if the cycle count is under 300, Apple are likely to replace the battery for free. If your laptop is under one year old, they will almost definitely do so. However, before seeking out a new battery, make sure to completely charge and discharge the battery at least one to check it is not a temporary problem.

If your battery is in good condition or is starting to show signs of aging, you will want to make sure you get the most out of it before you have to replace it. Here are a few tips to prolong the lifespan and battery life of your battery.

The best way to use your laptop on a day to day basis is to keep it fully charged as much as possible (i.e. plugged in), but run down the battery fully at least once per month. This is because it is important to keep the electrons inside moving occasionally. Doing this will make sure that your battery will continue to recharge to the maximum capacity for as long as possible.

To get the longest possible battery life, you should use your laptop between 10° and 35°C (50° to 95°F). More importantly, when storing your laptop you should keep it between -25° to 45°C (-13° to 113°F) even if you are not using it.

If you are going to store your laptop for a long time, Apple recommends you remove the battery from the laptop and store it at 50% charge. If you leave it fully charged or fully discharged you may find the battery loses a lot of capacity.

A simple method that can make your battery last a lot longer between charges is to tweak your System Preferences. Firstly, go to the Energy Saver Pane. Here, make sure the optimization menu is set to Better Energy Savings for when the laptop is powered by the battery. This will put the hard disk to sleep whenever possible, and reduce the laptop's CPU performance.

One trick that I often use if I am trying to squeeze an extra half an hour out of my battery is to reduce the brightness of the display. The simplest way to do this is to use the F1 key (F2 will increase the brightness again). Dim the screen to the lowest comfortable level, which should be pretty low especially if you are indoors.

You might also want to eject any CDs or DVDs you aren't using, quit as many applications as possible, disconnect any unused peripherals and turn off Bluetooth and Airport.

Stickies is a simple note taking application that has been included on every Mac since 1994. The current version looks almost identical to the version that was released in 1994, however it has gained a huge amount of new functionality over the past few years.

If you aren't familiar with Stickies, you'll find it in the Applications folder. Once opened, it will display a number of differently coloured "notes". You can write in each of these, and any that you leave open when quitting will still be there next time you open up Stickies.

Here are 10 tips for getting the most out of Stickies.

1. Make Stickies float above all windows
With the note you want to float selected, press Command-Option-F. This will cause the Sticky note to appear above all other windows no matter which application you are in. This is great if you are switching between multiple windows and application while writing or referring to a single sticky note. If you can't remember this keyboard shortcut, you'll find the command in the Note menu.

2. Make Stickies translucent
If you look in the Note menu, you will also see an option for a translucent window, with the keyboard shortcut Command-Option-T. This goes well with the floating window option, as it stops the floating sticky note getting in the way too much.



3. Add scroll bars to Stickies
This one might just be for the pros, as it is a bit tricky and requires you to have the Developer Tools installed (find them on your Mac OS X Install Disc).

One thing that may annoy you is the inability to quickly scroll through long notes, as you have to use the arrow keys to move through the text line by line. The way to fix this is to modify the Stickies application by using Interface builder to add scroll bars to the side of long Sticky notes.

First make sure Stickies isn't running, and make a backup of it by holding the option key and dragging it to another folder (just in case anything goes wrong). Next, right-click (Control-click) on the Stickies icon and choose "Show Package Contents" from the menu that appears. Inside the contents navigate to Resources/English.lproj and double click on StickiesDocument.nib to open it on Interface Builder.

If you are using Interface Builder for the first time, welcome to the wonderful world of how applications are made. A window called StickiesDocument.nib should be open. In this window there are a number of icons with various names including "File's Owner" and "First Responder". Double-click on the icon called "Window" which should open up a mostly empty, white window called "Stickies". Also, open the Inspector by pressing Command-Shift-I or by choosing it from the Tools menu.

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The title of the Inspector window should be "Stickies Window Attributes". Clicking ONCE on the Stickies window will change the title of the Inspector window to "Scroll View Attributes". Amongst the options in the inspector, you want to check the checkbox that says "Show Vertical Scroller" and the checkbox that says "Automatically Hide Scrollers".


That's it, you're done. Save the file (Command-S) and quit Interface builder. Next time you open Stickies, long Stickies notes should have scroll bars.


There are a lot more things you can do to modify Stickies using Interface Builder, but they are beyond the scope of this tip. If you want to do more, check out this old article on Modifying Stickies. Note that it uses an old version of Interface Builder, so a lot of the screen shots and descriptions are different to the current version.


4. Place other media in Stickies
Not many people know that the contents of Stickies is not restricted to text. You can put almost anything in them. Dragging a Quicktime movie onto a Sticky note will embed the movie in the note, complete with the usual play/pause controls. You can do the same for images and PDFs too. Sometimes Stickies will ask if you want to create an alias rather than a copy of the file within the Sticky. An alias will stop your Stickies database getting too big (especially with movies) and will mean that the contents of the Sticky will automatically be updated if the embedded file is updated.

5. Back up your Stickies library
If you use Stickies a lot, or you keep any important information in your Sticky notes, it is worth keeping a backup of the Stickies database in case anything goes wrong. All your Stickies are stored in one file that, as noted above, is fairly small unless you have embedded lots of movies in your notes. The file is named StickiesDatabase, and is located inside the Library folder in your user folder. Simply create a copy of this file somewhere else to make a backup.

6. Change default new note settings
To set the default font, text size, note size, note colour and translucency, create a new note and customize it to what you want. Then choose"Use as Default" from the Note menu. You can change even more settings by editing the Stickies preferences plist. Go to your user folder and navigate to Library/Preferences and find com.apple.Stickies.plist. The most interesting thing here is the WindowFlags item. Setting it to different values gives the following default notes:

0 - standard Sticky note
1 - minimized note (just title bar)
2 - floating note
3 - floating minimized note
4 - translucent note
5 - translucent minimized note
6 - floating translucent note
7 - floating translucent minimized note

7. Search
Using Command-F you can search for words in a single note or all notes. You can also perform a Find and Replace.

8. Dashboard Stickies
If you frequently use the Dashboard, then the widget version of Stickies might be more useful for you than the application version. Note that you can create as many different sticky notes as you want, simply by dragging another one up from the bottom bar. You can also change the fonts and colours by clicking the i button, however you are more limited than in the Application version.

9. Discover a Sticky note's creation and modification dates
This is a simple one - just hold your mouse still over any part of a sticky note to see a tooltip containing the Creation and Modification dates and times of the note.


10. Create a Sticky note from selection
Due to the Services menu in Mac OS X, you have access to Stickies whatever application you are in. Simply select any block of text anywhere and hit Command-Shift-Y to create a Sticky note with that selection.

To be honest, this is quite possibly the most powerful feature of Stickies. Never mind the ability to embed movies and have translucent windows. Being able to create a quick note of any text with one keyboard shortcut is the easiest and most useful aspect of Stickies there is.

With iTunes 8 came the first new visualizer for a long while, and it’s pretty neat. As before, simply hit Command-T to display the visualizer, and Command-F to make it full screen. These options are both also in the View menu.

Like the previous visualizer, you also have the ability to control this one. While the visualizer is running, hit the ? key to bring up a list of available functions. They are as follows:


? - Toggle help screen

M - Change mode
As far as I can tell there are 8 or 9 different patterns.

P - Change palette
Changes the colours used.

I - Display track info
Displays information about the current song.

C - Toggle auto-cycle (on by default)
Turns on or off automatically cycling through modes and colours.

F - Toggle freeze mode
Freezes the visualizer while the camera continues to pan around.

N - Toggle nebula mode
Turns on or off the clouds in the background.

L - Toggle camera lock
Holds the camera still while the visualizer continues.

If you want to divide the applications in your Dock into groups, the best way is to add spacers. A common method is to create "fake" applications with an invisible icon to fill the space, but that is a bit inelegant. A much better way, available in Leopard, is to use a Terminal Command. Each time you run the command it inserts a blank "space" into your Dock, which you can then drag around to where you like.

Start by opening up Terminal, located in Applications/Utilities. Type the following line and then hit enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

For the changes to take effect you will have to restart the Dock, either by logging out and in again or by running the killall Dock command in the Terminal. The spacer appears at the end of the icons that are permanently in the Dock. You can then drag it along to where you want it.


The above command inserts the spacer on the applications side of the Dock. To insert a spacer on the right hand side, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

As always, you will have to run killall Dock for changes to take effect. To add multiple spacers just run the command again and again. Note that you can use the "up" arrow in terminal to automatically enter the last run command.

If you want to remove a spacer, treat it like any other icon in the Dock. Either drag it off and let go to get a nice puff of smoke, or right-click on it and choose "Remove from Dock".

If you have you Dock set to automatically show and hide, you make have noticed that occasionally it refuses to appear when you are dragging an icon onto it. This drives me crazy when I am trying to eject disk images. I drag the icon down to the bottom of the screen, but the Dock simply doesn't appear. Normally my solution is to give up, right-click on the icon and choose eject, which takes far too long. While looking for a better way, I found a brilliant tip on the MacTipper blog.

Simply use the keyboard shortcut Command-Option-D, which turns on/off Dock hiding. You don't even have to stop dragging your icon to do this, and it works whatever application you are in.

Next time the Dock fails to appear, while still dragging your icon, simply hit Command-Option-D and the Dock should spring up. Drop your icon onto the trash (or eject icon, or whatever you want), and then just hit Command-Option-D again to make the Dock disappear again.

By tweaking one file within the System folder, it is possible to change almost any string of text that appears in Mac OS X. Amongst the endless possibilities are things like the default new folder name and the suffix added to duplicates and aliases. You can customize things like the categories in the iTunes and Finder sidebars or the System Preferences categories, or, for a bit of fun, you can change the the message you get when an application crashes.

Change the default new folder name
When you create a new folder in the Finder, it is automatically named "untitled folder". This annoyingly buries deep within a list when sorted alphabetically, rather than at the top or the bottom where it is easy to find. Luckily, it is surprisingly simple to change it.

First, navigate to Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices. In here, locate the Finder application. Right-click (Control-click) on it, and choose "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu. In the window that appears, navigate through to Contents/Resources/English.lproj. A quick way of navigating here (you might end up doing it a few times) is to use the "Go to Folder" option in the Go menu. In the box that appears, paste the following line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/

Find the file named "Localizable.strings" and drag it to the Desktop to make a copy. We are going to edit this copy on the desktop, and then copy it back into the English.lproj folder to replace the original version. You might want to make an additional copy of the file as a backup, just in case anything goes wrong.

Open up the desktop version of the localizable.strings file using TextEdit. Scroll down to the line that starts with N2. it should say the following:

"N2" = "untitled folder";

Now you can change the words "untitled folder" to anything you want. For something at the start of the alphabet, you could simply put "*untitled folder*".

Once you are done, save the file on the desktop and quit TextEdit. Finally, drag the file back to the English.lproj folder that you copied it from. Click Authenticate and type in your administrator password.

For changes to take place, you will have to relaunch the Finder, which can be done by holding down Control and Option, clicking the Finder icon in the Dock, and choosing Relaunch from the menu.

Suffixes for duplicates and aliases
These are done in exactly the same way as the new folder tip above. Only this time, change line N3 for aliases, or N4 for duplicates.

In these cases, "^0" takes the place of the original file name. So, for a duplicate, the default is "^0 copy", meaning the duplicate of "file.doc" is "file copy.doc". As above, you can change this to anything you want. "copy of ^0" would mean the duplicate would work better with file extensions, giving "copy of file.doc". However, it wouldn't be next to the original file alphabetically.

Remember to relaunch the Finder when you are done.

Shorten the Finder's 'Show Item Info' text
One of the features I like about Mac OS X is the "Show item info" check box located in the View Options of the Finder. This works for all windows in icon view, and is therefore especially useful on the desktop. However, one problem with it is the text for Hard Drives is too long, unless you make the text size really small.

You can solve this problem by editing the same localizable.strings file as above. Carry out the steps exactly the same, but search for the line "IV9" = "^0 free";. The best way to change this is to get rid of the word free, just leaving "IV9" = "^0";. You can see the result below.

Remove default Genres in iTunes
iTunes comes with a long list of genres, some of which many people will never use. Occasionally this may become annoying, for example when using the autofill feature.

To remove some of the genres, you have to edit the localizable.strings file within iTunes, rather than within the Finder. You can find this by going to iTunes in the applications folder, right-clicking and choosing "Show Package Contents". In here, navigate to Contents/Resources/Englihs.lproj where you will find the localizable.strings file. As before, you will have to copy it to your desktop before editing.

Open up the file in TextEdit. You'll find the list of genres under the line /* ===== Genres ===== */. To remove a genre, don't bother deleting it, just in case you ever want it back. Simply "comment" out the line, by putting a /* at the start, and a */ at the end. For example, to remove Techno, you will simply replace the line with /* "9200.019" = "Techno"; */.

As always, quit and reopen iTunes for changes to take effect.

Change the iTunes sidebar labels
The most obvious reason for wanting to do this is if you would prefer the labels to be lowercase. Using the same localizable.strings file as in the genre tip above, find the following lines:

"135.011" = "LIBRARY";
"135.012" = "DEVICES";
"135.013" = "STORE";
"135.014" = "PLAYLISTS";

You can change these to anything you want, or simply remove the capitalization.

Change the Finder's sidebar labels
You can do exactly the same thing in the Finder's sidebar. The file you need to edit is localizableCore.strings, located in exactly the same place as the localizable.strings file inside the Finder application. The lines you want to change are the following:

"SD5" = "DEVICES";
"SD6" = "SHARED";
"SD7" = "SEARCH FOR";
"SD8" = "PLACES";

Customize System Preferences
All the System Preferences panes are grouped into five categories - Personal, Hardware, Internet and Network, System and Other. It is quite easy to change these category names by going inside the System Preferences package, which is in the Applications folder. Inside it, navigate to the English.lproj folder inside the Resources folder. In here, find a file named NSPrefPaneGroups.strings and drag it to your desktop. Now open this file up in TextEdit and you'll see the following lines:

"personal" = "Personal";
"digitalHub" = "Digital Hub";
"hardware" = "Hardware";
"net" = "Internet & Network";
"system" = "System";
"addons" = "Other";

Don't change the words on the left, these are the ones used by System Preferences. You can change the words on the right. These are the ones displayed in the System Preferences window. Just make sure you don't delete any quotes or semicolons. Also, ignore the "Digital Hub" entry. This isn't used anymore and is probably just left over from a previous version of the operating system.

Now save the file and drag it back to the English.lproj folder from the Desktop. You will have to Authenticate this action with your administrator password.

Dock Menu items
For a bit of fun (I can't see why else) you can change the items in the menus you get when right-clicking on icons in the Dock. The Dock application is located in /System/Library/CoreServices. Right-click on it and choose "Show Package Contents". In the window that appears, navigate to Contents/Resources/English.lproj where you will find DockMenus.strings. Copy this file to the desktop to edit it.

Some of the lines you might want to edit are the "Application Not Responding" and "Force Quit" lines to something more reflective of the feeling you get when you see them.

Change Unexpectedly Quit message
With some tinkering it is possible to customize Mac OS X alert messages and dialog box text. For a bit of fun, you can change the message that appears when an application crashes to something more humorous.

Open up your hard drive and navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices. Find the Crash Reporter package and open it by right-clicking and choosing Show Package Contents.

In the window that appears, navigate to Contents/Resources/English.lproj and find Localizable.strings. Copy it to your Desktop and open it up in TextEdit. Near the bottom of the file you will see the line -

/* Unexpectedly quit dialog */

In the lines that follow this it is fairly obvious how to change the message. The symbol "%@" will make the message display the crashed Application's name, and "\n" will make a line break. Save the file and then copy it back to the package to replace the old version. You will have to enter your administrator password.

All Apple keyboards now come with volume keys, so you can easily increase, decrease and mute the volume. But did you know there is more functionality to these keys.

Holding down the Option key while pressing one of the volume change keys will bring up the Sound System Preference pane. Here you can change the alert sound, alert volume, and when different sound effects are played. You can also change the sound input and output, incase you have an external microphone or speakers.

Holding down the Shift key when pressing the volume keys will disable the sound that is normally played when you change the volume. You can disable this permanently from within the Sound Preference Pane by un-checking the box "Play feedback when volume is changed". Now, when you hold shift it does the opposite, temporarily enabling the volume change sound.

Unfortunately, this one is Leopard only. If you hold down both Option and Shift while pressing the volume keys, you can change the volume more accurately. The entire volume spectrum is divided into 65 instead of the usual 17 (by my count). This means you can adjust the volume by just a tiny amount if it is not quite right.

To disable the startup sound that plays when you turn on your mac, simply hold down the mute button while pressing the power button. Keep it held down for a while, until after the sound would have normally played.

I've noticed a lot of recent articles around the web about taking screenshots on a Mac. There's just the odd tip here and there, so I thought I'd do a complete guide. If you are familiar with taking screenshots, you might want to scroll down to the bottom, where there are some more advanced tips.

Keyboard Shortcuts
The quickest way to take a screenshot is to use a keyboard shortcut. Annoyingly, these aren't particularly intuitive. There are two main ones:

Command-Shift-3 - Take a screenshot of the entire screen.
Command-Shift-4 - Allows you to click and drag around the area you want a shot of.

Each of these will save a file to the desktop named Picture 1.png, or a higher number if that file already exists.

Now there are a few extra things you can do. If you press Space after pressing Command-Shift-4, you will notice that the cursor changes to a picture of a camera. You can now just click on a window, icon, widget or almost any other interface element to take a screenshot of it. You can also add Control into the keyboard shortcut to put the image in the clipboard instead of saving it to the desktop. For example, pressing Command-Control-Shift-3 would allow you to then paste the image into another document.

The Grab Application
If you can never remember keyboard shortcuts, the Grab application is for you. It is located in Applications/Utilities and it has many more options for screenshots than the keyboard shortcuts do. The two main advantages (in my opinion) are timed screenshots and being able to change the pointer type.

You can create a timed screenshot by going to the Capture menu, or by pressing Command-Shift-Z. Using this, you can achieve screenshots that are supposedly “impossible”. One example is the login window.

To change the pointer type, go to the Preferences. See the image below for the different options.

Disable Shadow
If you use the Command-Shift-4 Space method to take a screenshot of an entire window, you will find that the shadow is in the screenshot. This was added in Leopard because without the shadow, windows don't actually have a border if they have no scrollbars. However, if you prefer no shadows, you can disable them with a Terminal command. Simply open up Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities), paste in the following line and hit return.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

Afterwards you will need to log out and in again for changes to take effect. To enable shadows again, simply repeat the command but with false at the end. The two images below show a before and after shot.


Change Image Format
The default image format for screenshots is png, which gives a nice, high quality picture. However you can change this if you want. As before, use the following Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

Simply replace png with your file format of choice. The available options are jpg, tiff and pdf. Changing to jpg gives a lower quality but smaller file. Some people prefer this for quick snaps, but others dislike the slightly blurry results it gives. As before, log out and in again for changes to take effect.

Advanced Screenshot Applications
If widgets are your thing, Screenshot Plus will probably be the method of choice for you. It's free, and allows you to do everything that you can achieve with keyboard shortcuts. It also allows you to view a preview image, before saving it to the desktop or importing it into Preview.

If you really want to go all out on your screenshots, you might want to consider buying an application like Snapz Pro. It allows you to do all of the things above, as well as record movies of your screen.

Finally, if you want to get screenshots of long webpages that don't fit on the screen, Paparazzi! is your solution. It gives allows you to set the size of the image, set a delay, choose the file name and choose the file format. Of course, if you want a PDF of the web page, that functionality is already built into Mac OS X.

UPDATE: Many people in the comments have pointed out that I forgot Skitch. After playing around with a it a bit this morning, I have to say I agree, it’s probably the best screenshot application available at the moment. For those interested, there’s a great 3 minute introduction video available.

Also, the MacTipper Blog pointed out one more thing I forgot. Using another Terminal command, you can change the default save location to somewhere other than the Desktop. The command is as follows:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Full/Path/To/Folder

For full instructions, check out the MacTipper Blog.