When you rip a DVD to your Mac you end up with a VIDEO_TS folder, which can be dragged to DVD player icon to play the DVD (you might find some stubborn DVDs will only play in VLC though).

As the DVD media is a folder, obviously you can't double-click it to open it in DVD Player. Instead you have to do the cumbersome open-the-app-then-drag-and-drop-to-icon procedure.


The way around this is to rename the folder with the .dvdmedia extension. This will turn the folder into a bundle, and add a nice DVD icon as well. Double-clicking this will automatically open it up in DVD player, but you can easily change this to another app like VLC for example. The easiest way is to choose Get Info on the bundle, choose the new app from the "Open with" section, and click the "Change All..." button. While you are in the Get Info window you might also want to click “Hide Extension” and rename the bundle to the name of the movie. You can also change the icon to the artwork for the movie which you can get from a site like Get Video Artwork.

One annoying side effect of this is that Front Row won't recognise dvdmedia bundles, whereas it will recognise VIDEO_TS folders. Of course, to get your movies to work well in the Finder, Quicktime iTunes, Front Row and iPhone all at the same time you might prefer to run them through a tool like HandBrake. This can also save you some space depending on how you encode them.

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Often you might find you have a folder containing hundreds of files, and you want to rename them all, for example to create a numbered list. In the Finder this would take ages, but luckily you can use Automator to make the process more efficient.

Simple open up Automator and add the following actions into the workflow. First add "Get Specified Finder Items" followed by "Sort Finder Items" followed by "Rename Finder Items". Your workflow should look something like the screenshot below. When you add the "Rename Finder Items" action, you will be asked if you want to create a copy of the files. Generally you won't want to do this, so choose "Don't Copy".


What the workflow does is pretty straightforward. When you click Run in the top right, it gets the files you have added to the list in the first action. You can add the files by clicking the Add button below the list before you run the workflow. The second action then sorts the files by name, size, kind, or whatever you specify. The final action takes this list of files and modifies their file names.

There are a huge amount of options in the "Rename Finder Items" action. The first drop-down menu allows you to choose between adding a date or time, adding text, changing uppercase/lowercase, making a sequential list or performing a find and replace for a string of text.

The second action, "Sort Finder Items" is really optional and only makes a difference if you have the renaming action set to "Make Sequential". This takes the list in the order it's given and places sequential numbers before or after the file names depending on the files position in the list.


Also, there are a couple of alternatives to the first action. One option is to use "Get Selected Finder Items" instead, which will perform the renaming on whatever the current selection is in the Finder. Another is "Ask for Finder Items", which will open up a dialog prompting you to choose the files each time you run the workflow. This is a good choice if you want to regularly perform the same renaming on different batches of files. You can then save the workflow as an application (File, Save As... and then choose Application from the File Format menu) that simply runs the workflow when you open it, instead of bring up Automator.

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.

Quick Look is a way to quickly preview files in Leopard. Simply hit the space bar and whichever file is selected in the Finder will expand to give you a sneak peak of the file. This means you can watch videos, listen to songs, view presentations and flick through the pages of a PDF document without even opening it. Here are a few ways to enhance Quick Look.

Index Sheet
If you select multiple files before activating Quick Look, you'll just be shown a preview of the first file. There are buttons to flick forward and backward through the different previews, but much more interesting is the Index Sheet button. Clicking this is just like using exposé, only with the previews rather than windows. The previews will shrink down to show you them all in a grid. Clicking on one of the thumbnails will expand that one.


Plugins
Quick Look works with most file formats straight away, but for those that don't work there are plugins available. There's a great list of them here. In my opinion, one of the most useful is Folder Viewer. This makes Quick Look list the contents of a folder, instead of just showing a huge folder icon.

Other ways to activate Quick Look
There are many ways of activating Quick Look. The simplest and most well known is hitting the space bar, but there is also the official keyboard shortcut, Command-Y. If you would prefer to use the mouse to invoke Quick Look, you can add a button to the Finder toolbar that does just that. With a Finder window open, choose Customize Toolbar from the View menu and drag up the Quick Look button. Quick Look is also available in the File menu and in the Contextual menu that appears when you right-click on a file.

Jump straight to slideshow mode
Some people have complained that the slideshow function in the Finder has disappeared in Leopard. Actually, it has just become a part of Quick Look. When using Quick Look on multiple images, there is a play button at the bottom to start a slideshow. However, there is an easier way to jump straight to slide show mode. Just add in the Option key to the activation methods listed above. Command-Option-Y will start a full screen slideshow, and if you hold Option when looking in the File menu you will see Quick Look has changed to Slideshow. If you have activated the toolbar icon for Quick Look, holding down option changes it to a play button that starts a slideshow when clicked.


Zooming
If you activate Quick Look on an image, there are a number of ways in which you can zoom. Hold down the Option key and you will notice that the cursor changes to a magnifying glass. Now, using the scroll wheel you can zoom in and out. Alternatively you can Option-click to zoom in. To zoom out, hold Option and Shift while clicking. For PDFs this method doesn't work for some reason. However, you can still zoom using the Command-- and Command-+ keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard navigation with Quick Look open
While you are previewing a file with Quick Look, you can still use the keyboard to navigate to other files. In column view this is easily done with the arrow keys. In the other views, use Command-DOWN and Command-UP to go into and out of folders.

Examine Trashed Files
It is impossible to open files in the Trash without first moving them out onto the Desktop. So in the past, if you wanted to check through files before emptying the Trash, you had to get them all out first. Luckily, Quick Look works on items in the Trash, so you can quickly look through them to check if you are about to delete anything important.

Use with Time Machine
Another great place to use Quick Look is with Time Machine. Once you've found a file you want to restore, verify it with Quick Look before clicking the restore button.

When you double-click a file it will open in the default application, which is fine for most situations. Often, each file format corresponds to a single application. Word documents open in Microsoft Word, MP3s open in iTunes and movies open in Quicktime Player. But there are times when you might want a file to open in a different application. For example, you might want a image to open in Photoshop rather than Preview, or a Word document in TextEdit instead of Microsoft Word. In this situation, you have a few options.

Firstly, if the application is in the Dock, you can simply drag the file onto its icon in the Dock. Alternatively you can open up the application first, and choose "Open" form the File Menu. A third method is to use the "Open With" menu. You will find this by right-clicking (Control-clicking) on the file and looking near the top of the contextual menu. Within the Open With submenu you will find every application that can open the file, as well as an "Other" option.



When you use the Open With menu, it is a "this time only" thing. Next time you double-click on the file, it will open with the default application again. To change the default application, bring up the menu as before, but hold down the Option key before choosing the application. The menu should change to "Always Open With".

When you use the Always Open With menu, it is a "this file only" thing. To apply a new default application to all files of that format, you can use the Get Info window located in the File Menu. In the Open With section, set the new application and click the "Change All" button.

To reset all of your files to open with the original default application, you need to delete a certain file. Go to your user folder, and navigate into the Library folder then into the Preferences folder. Find the com.apple.LaunchServices.plist file, and drag it to the Trash. Alternatively, drag it to the Desktop if you think you might change your mind and want to put it back later.

Over time, you may find that the Open With menu gets cluttered with duplicates, older versions or applications you thought you deleted long ago. To get rid of these, you need to use Terminal. Open up Terminal (from Applications/Utilities) and paste the following line:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Press return and your Open With menu should have been cleaned up to only include the most current applications.

For all of these tips you will need know the password to an administrator account. You can check whether an account is an administrator in the Accounts section of System Preferences.

1. Add a message to the login window
You can add a string of text above the list of users in the login window. To do this, start by opening up Terminal. This is located in the Utilities folder, inside the Applications folder. Once it has loaded, paste in the following line and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText "Hello There"

Replace "Hello There" with your text. To remove the text, type the following line:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText ""

2. Hide accounts
If you find yourself with an overly long list of users in the login window or you just want to get rid of that annoying scroll bar down the side, you can stop accounts appearing in the login window.

Start by go to the Accounts pane in System Preferences, and find the "short name" of each user you want to hide. Once you have these, open up Terminal and enter the following:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add shortname1 shortname2 shortname3

Replace shortname1 2 and 3 with the short names of the user accounts you wish to hide. You can hide as many as you like, just separate each with a space.

To make a hidden name appear again, type the command with no names in it, therefore resetting the list of hidden users.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add

Notice that doing this adds an extra option to your login window - "Other..." When you select this, you will be presented with text boxes to enter a username and password.

If you aren't running OS X 10.4, this doesn't work. Another option is to replace the list of users with username and password text boxes. Go to the Accounts pane in System Preferences and click on Login Options. There you will find an option to display the login window as name and password fields. This isn't as pretty, but saves time if you have lots of users, and is also more secure.

3. Change the Apple logo
You can replace the large Apple logo that appears at the top of the login window with any tiff image that is 90x90 pixels. In the Finder, choose Go to Folder from the Go menu or press Command-Shift-G. In the dialog box that appears, type the following line:

/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/Resources/

A folder called Resources should appear. Here you will find an image called applelogo.tif. You will need to create a copy of this file, just in case you ever want to revert back to it. The easiest way to do this is to hold the Option key and drag it to a safe place (like your Documents folder). Now, rename you new image "applelogo.tif" and drag it to the Resources folder to replace the old file. You will be asked to type in an administrator password.

To change back to the Apple Logo, just drag the copy that you made back to the Resources folder.

4. Get useful system stats
The name of you Mac is displayed in the login window below the words "Mac OS X". Since Mac OS X 10.4.3, you can click on the name of your Mac to show different statistics about your machine. Each time you click, it will cycle through different bits of information that are particularly useful when troubleshooting problems.

The order of the statistics are as follows:

One click: Your OS X version number (e.g. Version 10.4.9)
Two clicks: Your OS X build number (e.g. Build 7M271)
Three clicks: Your mac's serial number (e.g. WN1511LHKNW)
Four clicks: Your mac's IP address (e.g. 196.254.0.1)
Five clicks: The status of any networked account
Six clicks: The date and time (e.g. Saturday, January 20 2007 4:02:31 AM GMT)
Seven clicks: Back to where you started, the name of your computer.

So you click a few times and set the information line to your favourite thing, but next time you log in, it has changed back to the name of your mac. To change the bit of information that appears first, you need to do a bit of tinkering in the Terminal (Applications/Utilities). Open Terminal and type the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo HostName

Depending on which piece of information you want displayed, replace HostName with one of the following:

SystemVersion
SystemBuild
SerialNumber
IPAddress
DSStatus
Time

After doing this, hit return, and the next time you view your login window the information you chose will be displayed. To change it back to normal, simply repeat the command with HostName at the end.

5. Change the background image
There are ways to change the background image by replacing the Aqua Blue image, but that is slightly crude. A better way to do it is using the Terminal. Type the following command and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /Users/Shared/mynewbackground.jpg

The last part, /Users/Shared/mynewbackground.jpg is the location of the image you want to use. You don't have to type it out. Just paste the command as far as DesktopPicture and put a space after it. Then find your image in the Finder, and drag it onto the Terminal window. The address to your image should just appear. As far as I can tell, you have to place the image in a place that all users have access to (the shared folder is a good place).

To change back to the normal Aqua Blue image, type the following command and press return:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Aqua\ Blue.jpg

Recently I came across a couple of scripts on Mac OS X Hints that automate emptying the Trash so you don't have to remember to do it regularly. One of them deletes items that were trashed over seven days ago and the other empties the oldest items once the trash reaches a certain size.

The one that empties items that have been in the trash for too long is a bit complicated and involves using the Terminal. The second one, however, is fairly simple and accessible to anyone who wants their trash to empty automatically.

It involves an AppleScript that you attach to the trash as a Folder Action. This script checks the size of the trash every time you add a file to it. If the size goes over a limit, it will deleted the item that has been in the trash the longest.

There are various versions of the script on the Mac OS X Hints page as many users added suggestions in the comments. If you are interested, take some time to read through the page to see how the script works. Adding all the suggestions and improvements, I made a copy of the script you can copy and paste from here.

Select all the text and paste it into Script Editor (in Applications/AppleScript). Now you need to decide what size limit your trash will have. This is specified in megabytes on the 4th line of the script. It is currently set to 2048 (2GB). If you would like a different size, change this number. 512 for example, would mean that older items would be deleted to keep the total size under 512 MB.

Once you are done choose Save As from the File menu and go to the Library in your User folder. In here go to Scripts, then Folder Action Scripts. You will probably have to create these folders unless you have added folder actions in the past. Save the script here.

Now open up Folder Actions Setup (in Applications/AppleScript). If you click the plus button, you will be presented with a normal "Open" dialog. However there is the problem that the Trash is a hidden folder. It's actually located in your user folder with Documents, Music, Movies etc. To get to it, press Command-Shift-G. In the box that appears, type "~/.Trash" (without the quotes) and click Go then Open.

In the list that appears, choose the script that you just saved. Now you can start trashing things without ever having to worry about emptying the Trash again!

Be warned that this script permanently deletes files from your computer, without you specifically telling it to do so. If you change your mind and want to retrieve a file you put in the trash, you may find that it is already gone.

For an easier alternative, you can download Compost, an application for automatic trash management. You can download it for free to try out (limited to 15 files), and it only costs $12.50 to use fully.

One of the problems that seems to cause the most distress amongst Mac users who contact me is when user folders go missing.

In general, there seems to be two reasons why a user account and their home folder can disappear. The first is simply that you have (accidentally) deleted the user. Any administrator account has the ability to do this from the System Preferences.

The second way occurs when upgrading or installing Mac OS X from the install disks. If you inadvertently chose an "Archive and Install" installation, all users are deleted unless you choose to preserve them.

Luckily, in both of the above cases, Mac OS X keeps a copy of the user folder in case you want to get it back.

Recovering Deleted User Folders
In the Accounts section of System Preferences you can delete a user by selecting them and clicking the minus button. You are presented with two options - to keep a copy of the user folder (the normal way) or to delete immediately. Unfortunately, if you chose to delete an account immediately, it is almost impossible to retrieve it.

However, it is more likely that you kept a copy (the option with the big blue "OK" button). This copy is kept in the Users folder under "Deleted Users". You must be logged into an administrator account to have access to this folder. Look in here for the name of the deleted user you want to recover, and double click it. This will mount a disk image on the desktop that essentially the deleted user folder. Hold option and drag this disk image from the desktop to the Users folder in your Hard Drive. Now you have restored the user folder, but you still need to create an account for it. Skip down to "Recreating the Account" to do this.

Users lost during an Archive and Install
When you perform an archive and install without preserving users, your user folders are archived away along with the rest of the existing system files for your Mac. A new folder called "Previous Systems" is created in Macintosh HD that contains all the users from before the archive and install. If you have done an archive and install multiple times, you will have a number of previous systems. Choose the one that contains all the users you wish to restore. In here is a users folder containing each of the deleted user folders. Drag the ones you wish to restore to the users folder in Macintosh HD. Now you have restored the user folders, but you still need to create accounts to be associated with them.

Recreating the Account

Go the Accounts section of System Preferences and click on the plus button to create a new account. You may need to enter an administrator password to do this. The "short name" of the new user must be the same as the name of the folder you just dragged to the users folder. When you click OK, a dialog will appear asking if you want to associate this account with the folder that is already in the users folder. Click OK to do this.

If you just want to retrieve certain files from the deleted user, you don't need to go through the hassle of creating a new user. From any administrator account you can open up the deleted user's disk image or Previous Systems folder and copy specific files from it.

One of the most useful features of the Finder Column View is its ability to preview movies and music that you would otherwise have to open up using Quicktime. If you haven't seen this before, open up a folder containing music or movies and press Command-3 to make sure you are in Column View. Now click on a movie or music file and it will appear in the preview column with the usual Quicktime playback controls.

However, with some files, you might find that the audio is too quiet to hear. If you have turned up the volume to full and your Mac's speakers still aren't playing it loud enough, there is a simple way to get an extra volume boost.

If you hold the Shift key before clicking one the Quicktime volume control the slider has more range than normal. This also works when viewing Quicktime movies embedded in a web page.

If you have opened up the file in Quicktime, you can get the same results by choosing "Show A/V Controls" from the Window menu (Command-K). In the A/V controls there is a slider that goes higher than the maximum volume on the slider in the Quicktime window.

The Stationery Pad option has been around for as long as I can remember, in every version of the Mac OS. The Unofficial Apple Weblog does a great job of describing what it does:

If you have any kind of workflow where you need to repeatedly modify some sort of a file template, checking this option in any file's Get Info window will tell its parent application to open a copy of it by default, ensuring that the original file remains unedited.

Surprisingly, very few people know about and use this useful option. To enable it, select a file and open up its Get info window by pressing Command-I. From here you can check the stationery pad option to set that file as a dafault template for its application. Now when you open that application, a copy of the file will load up and you can use it as a template. However, when you save the file it won't save over the Stationery Pad file.

For many applications the icon of the file will change slightly if you set it as a stationery pad. For example, some Microsoft Office files will change to look like a pad.

Most people store some kind of data on their computer that they don't want other people to see or use. Whether it is financial information, confidential files for work or files you shouldn't have in the first place, it is often hard to guarantee that no one has seen them. If your computer was stolen, for example, you would hope that the thief would just wipe the hard drive, but there is no way to be sure. Leaving your Mac logged on in the office or at home also allows other people to gain access to your private data.

Encryption

The easiest and most secure way to protect your files is an encrypted folder. This means that a password is needed to access the files within it, and the files won't show up in Spotlight searches. Moreover, it is almost impossible to decrypt the data without that password, even with data recovery tools.

Mac OS X comes with FileVault, which you can turn on from the System Preferences. However, this really is overkill as it encrypts your entire user folder, including your music, photos and files that really don't need to be protected.

A much better option is to use Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities) to create an encrypted disk image. This is just like a normal disk image (downloaded software often comes in one), but to mount it on your desktop you need to provide the correct password.

To create an encrypted disk image, open up Disk Utility, go to the File menu and choose New - Blank Disk Image. In the dialog box that appears choose a name for your disk image and where you want to save it. The size is a maximum that the disk image can hold, so the preset sizes for CDs and DVDs are useful for if you want to burn the contents when it gets full. Choose AES-128 encryption and sparse disk image from the Format drop down menu.

Now when you click Create, you will be prompted to enter your password. To really protect your data, don't choose a password that you use for everything else or something that is easily guess-able. Press the key button next to the password field to open the Password Assistant. This will help you choose a password that is both easy to remember and hard to crack. The best type to choose from the menu is "Memorable" as the others are a bit more complicated. Obviously longer passwords are more secure, but you have to find the right balance. If you don't like the password that the assistant suggests, press the down arrow next to the password to see a list of other suggestions. Alternatively, type in your own password and it will tell you how good it is and give tips on how to improve it.

Remember to deselect the "Remember Password" option before pressing OK, as that would really defeat the point of creating the disk image in the first place. Now your encrypted disk image will be located in where you chose to save it. When you double-click it you will be prompted for the password, then it will mount on your desktop and also appear in the Sidebar of every window.

Hiding

For some people there is no need to encrypt data. For a quick, temporary solution you can just hide away your files on your Mac. This is much less secure and far from foolproof, but quite often it is as much as you need.

Probably the best place to put your files is in the Library folder. The main benefits of this are that it isn't searched by Spotlight, and that there are hundreds of other files in there already. The Application Support folder in you Library is a good place, as there are all sorts of random files in there. You might also want to rename your file if it has a name that stands out ( super-secret-file.doc for example).

One of the things that has always been an annoying problem in Mac OS X is that the text in text clippings doesn't behave like normal text.

You can create a text clipping by selecting a portion of text in any application and dragging it to the desktop (or anywhere in the Finder for that matter). Once you have done this, a text clipping file will appear, which you can open using the Finder.

The text in the clipping looks normal. For example, the text highlight cursor will appear when you put your mouse over it. However, if you try and make a selection you will find it doesn't work. This means that text clippings are only really useful for drag and drop. Instead of dragging text from one application to the other, you can store it on your desktop for a while before dragging it to somewhere else.

The functionality has been improved somewhat in the past few major updates of Mac OS X. Since Mac OS X 10.3 it has been possible to copy a text clipping by choosing copy from the Edit menu (or by pressing Command-C) instead of only being able to drag them.

Since Mac OS X 10.4 it has been possible to select a portion of a text clipping, but it's a little trickier than it should be. Remember I said you couldn't make selections in text clippings? Well you can... sort of.

If you drag over a part of your text clipping obviously it doesn't look like a selection was made - nothing is highlighted. But when you copy and paste into another application (TextEdit for example) you will find that only the text you dragged over was copied, not the entire text clipping as you would expect.

Now there are a few problems with this. Normally the text clipping will retain the style of the original text, however now it won't. Also it is still pretty annoying having to guess if you have selected the right text.

Luckily, Mac OS X Hints has an article on how to make selected text in clippings highlight.

Basically you have to edit one word in a file within the Finder application. To do this, open your Hard Drive and navigate to System / Library / CoreServices / Finder.

Right-click (or Control-Click) on the Finder and choose "Show Package Contents". Now you have to navigate to Contents / Resources / English.lproj. If you are using a different language, you will need to choose that one instead. Inside your language folder, right-click ClipWindow.nib and choose "Show Package Contents".

Here there are three files. Keep this window open because you will need it later. Copy objects.xin to your desktop and open it up in TextEdit. In this file you need to change one word. Look for this line:
<boolean name="noSelection">TRUE</boolean>
You can do this using Command-F to search for it or just look about 23 lines down. Change the TRUE to FALSE so it looks like this:
<boolean name="noSelection">FALSE</boolean>

Save and close the file, and drag it back to the ClipWindow.nib folder to replace the original file. You may be prompted to enter your administrator password to do this if you are not an admin. It is probably a good idea to make a backup of this file before you replace it, just in case everything goes pear shaped.

Finally, you will need to relaunch the Finder for changes to take effect. The easiest way to do this is to hold down Control and Option and then click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Choose Relaunch from the list.

Now you have wonderfully improved text clippings!

There is a huge amount of hidden settings for Mac OS X and its applications that aren't accessible from preferences dialog boxes or the System Preferences. Applications such as Tinkertool and Mac Pilot allow you to access some of these, but the real flexibility is from the Terminal. From here it is possible to edit any preferences file for any application on your Mac.

You'll find the Terminal in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. To carry out any of the following commands you will need to copy/paste or type in the line of text then hit enter. For the most part, applications will need restarting before changes take place. For most applications you can just quit and open them again, and for the Finder you can use the Force Quit dialog, just log out and log in again or type "killall Finder" into the terminal after the command.

Feel free to add any of your favourites in the comments.

1. defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES
Makes hidden applications' dock icons translucent. NO to reverse.

2. defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YES
Normally the arrows next to artists and albums in your iTunes library search the iTunes store when you click them. This command changes them so that clicking will search your iTunes library instead. Put NO at the end to reverse.

3. defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
This allows you to drag widgets out of Dashboard onto the desktop. Requires the dock to be relaunched to take effect, so type "killall Dock" and press enter. Now, if you click and hold onto a widget in the dashboard and press F12 to return to the desktop, the widget won't disappear with the rest. Put NO at the end to reverse.

4. defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
Forces all mail to be displayed as plain text. Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.

5. defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE
Sets expanded save dialogs as default (showing column/list view of folders rather than a drop down menu). Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.

6. /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background
Displays the currently chosen screen saver to be shown as the desktop background. Press Control-C or Command-. to stop. More details here.

7. defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo SystemVersion
Displays useful system stats in the login window. More details here. Replace "SystemVersion" with one of the following for different stats:
SystemBuild
SerialNumber
IPAddress
DSStatus
Time
HostName

8. sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow HiddenUsersList -array-add shortname1 shortname2 shortname3
To remove accounts from the login window type this command with the short name of each account you wish to remove. More details here.

9. com.apple.frameworks.diskimages skip-verify TRUE
Skip disk image verification. Potentially risky, use with disk images from trusted sources. Replace TRUE with FALSE to reverse.

10. defaults write "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBothPuts double scroll arrows at both ends of scroll bar. Use Appearance pane in system preferences to reset.

11. defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none
Disables the unexpectedly quit dialog that normally appears when an application crashes. Replace "none" with "prompt" to enable again.

12. defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryItemLimit 2000 and/or
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryAgeInDaysLimit 30
Sets the history limit in Safari to a certain number of items and and/or a certain age.

13. defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Shows hidden files in the finder. Replace TRUE with FALSE to hide hidden files again

14. defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Enables the debug menu in Safari. Type again but with 0 instead of 1 at the end to disable.

15. defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
Deactivates Dashboard. Requires the dock to be relaunched to take effect, so type "killall Dock" and press enter. Replace YES with NO to enable again.

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A business software can be easily run on a mac operating system. You can avail a proper distance learning through the use of ip phones. Getting yourself enrolled in certifications like 220-601, will help you gain extra knowledge. You will be aware of the usefulness of a backup of your system. It's time you started thinking on the numbers 646-002.

Here's a tip that (vaguely) follows on from 10 Tips for Mastering Finder Windows that I posted a few days ago. You know that little button in the top right of finder windows? Yes, the one that Windows users always click accidentally when trying to close the window. It normally just shows and hides the toolbar, but Technoforest has found some great extra functionality.

If you want to customize the items in your toolbar (and there’s nothing wrong with that), just Command-Option-click the little white pill-shaped button at the top right of your window’s title bar, and the Customize Toolbar dialog will appear, right there in your window. Now you can just drag-and-drop icons onto the toolbar.

As well as dragging the customize items to your toolbar, you can also now drag files or folders as well. However, if you are only adding files to the toolbar you can just hold Command-Option while dragging them there - you don't need to bring up the customize dialog box.

From the customize dialog that appears you can choose from a number of items (shown below) and change the view options - icon, text or both.

The added benefit of Command-Control clicking this button is that it works in every application that allows you to customize the Toolbar. Note that these other applications don't allow you to drag your own files, folders, applications etc. to the toolbar. You can only choose items from the dialog box.

There's quite a few quick Mac Tips over at Technoforest, be sure to check them out!

As one of the most commonly used Mac applications, it is worth taking some time to get to grips with the Finder. There is a wealth of little known features and ways to carry out tasks more quickly and efficiently using the Finder's settings, menus and keyboard shortcuts. These ten tips mainly address the basics of working with Finder windows, but hopefully there will be something new to everyone.

1. Normally you just double click to open an item, but if you hold option while doing it the current window will close as the new one opens.

2. Spring loaded folders allow you to easily drag a file wherever you want. If you drag the file onto a folder icon and hold it there for a while, the folder will spring open, allowing you to drag the file onto a folder within a folder. You can do this as many times in a row you want, and when you let go of the file all the windows that have sprung open will close again. Hold the Space bar while doing this to get rid of the delay before a folder springs open.

3. Look in the Finder Preferences (located in the Finder Menu) for more window options. For example you can change the delay for spring loaded folders, set the default location for a new finder window (Command-N) and set folders to always open in a new window.

4. You can change the view of your Finder windows by pressing Command-Option-T. This shows and hides the toolbar and sidebar. The contents of both of these are customisable by dragging files and folders to them (Hold Command and Option if dragging to the toolbar) or by choosing Customise toolbar from the View Menu. You can also resize the sidebar and turn it into icons without names.

5. To close every single Finder window, hold option while clicking the red X in the corner. Alternatively press Command-Option-W.

6. In list view (choose from the View menu or icons in the window toolbar) you can peek into folders using the expansion triangles. Option clicking one of these triangles will expand the folder along with any folders it contains. Option clicking again will collapse all these folders again.

7. In column view it is sometimes easier to navigate through the file structure using the arrow keys. In the other views this is still possible, but to go inside the selected folder press Command-Down. In list view Command-Right will expand the currently selected folder. This can be used with multiple folders selected to look inside them all at the same time.

8. You can do many tricks to resize column widths to the right size in column view.

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9. Command-1, 2 or 3 will change you to icon, list or column view. Command-[ and Command-] will take you back and forward.

10. Another tip gives details on browsing a website by command clicking on the title bar in Safari. This works even better in the Finder. Command Clicking on the title bar gives you the path to the current location, allowing you to jump to any of the enclosing folders.

11. You can use the Go menu to quickly navigate to common places such as Home, Applications and your 10 most recent folders. Most of these places have keyboard shortcuts associated with them.

At some point, everyone encounters a file that just won't delete. The most common situation is a file that sits in the trash and refuses to be deleted, however many times you restart your mac. Here are 4 different methods for removing stubborn files, at least one of which is guaranteed to work.

Method 1 - Secure Empty Trash
Probably the most simple solution, and almost always works. Go to the Finder Menu in the top left corner of the screen and choose "Secure Empty Trash" located right below the usual Empty Trash. Secure Empty Trash is normally used to make sure deleted items stay deleted by writing over them multiple times with random data. Luckily this option seems to be more effective with stubborn files than the regular Empty Trash.

Method 2 - Third Party Applications
There are many applications available that allow you to force the trash to empty. One that is completely dedicated to it is Super Empty Trash, a free application with the sole purpose of helping you empty your trash. There are a few alternatives that perform many other tasks as well, such as Mac Helpmate (free) and OnyX (also free).

Method 3 - Using the Terminal
This method requires a bit of care, as making a mistake in the Terminal can result in things going horribly wrong. To delete a file using this method, first open up the Terminal, located in the Applications/Utilities folder. Type in "rm -f " without the quotation marks, and with the space after the f. Then find the file that wont delete, and drag it to the Terminal window, and the path to that item should appear. Double check that this is the thing you want to delete, then press enter. If the item that won't delete is a folder rather than a file, type "rm -rf " instead.

If this still doesn't work, the next stage is to use "sudo rm -f " instead. This is a little more dangerous as you can accidentally delete lots more vital files. Carry out the steps as above, and this time you will be prompted to enter an administrator password.

Method 4 - Creating a temporary user account
This method is a little time consuming, but it is great if you don't want to use the Terminal. Start by going to the Accounts preference pane in the System Preferences and creating a new user account. It doesn't matter what details you give it, just remember the password. Next, move the troublesome file from your trash to the Shared folder, located in the Users folder. Log out of your account and log into the newly created one. From here, move the file into this users trash. Then log back out, and go back to your normal user account. Return to the Accounts pane in the System Preferences and delete the temporary account by selecting it from the list and hitting the delete key. Select Delete Immediately from the dialog box that appears, and the user account will gone, along with the stubborn file.

One of the main new features when Panther was introduced a couple of years ago was the introduction of a newly designed Finder, including the sidebar to every finder window.

You can customise this sidebar by adding icons to it, such as commonly used applications and folders. For example, if you use iMovie a lot, open your applications folder, find iMovie and drag it to a position in the sidebar. Notice how the other icons shrink and slide away to make room for the new icon.

You can use this icon just how you would use it in the dock: Click on it to open the application, drag a file over it to open it in the application, and just drag it out of the sidebar to watch it vanish in a puff of smoke.

Navigating through the columns of an open or save dialog box can take a long while, especially if the location you are looking for is hidden deep within multiple folders.

Instead of painfully clicking through each level, you can just drag the folder from the finder straight into the dialog box. The open/save dialog instantly changes to display the contents of the folder you just dropped on.

Obviously you can use all the usual tricks with this, like Command-Tab to switch over to the Finder and back again, and exposé to find the window you want, but there are also a few extra quirks. For example, dragging any file to the dialog will display the enclosing folder, and you can also drag the folder icon from a Finder window's title bar.

This is a feature of the Finder that very few people use, yet it is so powerful. Folder actions allow you to perform an action to any file that is dropped into the folder. What you can do is only limited by what you can script, or what scripts you can find.

Start by creating a new folder and checking that folder actions are enabled by right-clicking (control-clicking) and selecting "Enable Folder Actions". If it says "Disable Folder Actions" then you are all right, and don't need to change anything.

Next, attach an action to the folder by again right-clicking (control-clicking) on the folder and choosing "Attach a Folder Action...". A number of example scripts are located in Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts. The majority of these examples involve image manipulation and converting from one file format to another.

Selecting one of these format converting scripts will mean, for example, that all jpeg images dropped into the folder will be turned into tiff images.

However, as I mentioned at the start of this tip, this is only a taste of what you can do. Any applescript, automator workflow or shell script can be attached, and therefore the possibilities are endless!

Ah, the Finder's column view, inherited from Nextstep with the coming of Mac OS X. Love it or hate it, everyone admits it is a fairly useful way of browsing and moving files through your folders. Here are a few tips concerning the column view and one of its few shortcomings - thin column widths.

By default, columns are relatively thin, and quite often file names get truncated and aren't always easy to read. This is solved by holding your mouse over each name and waiting for a yellow box to come up showing the full name. Instead of holding your mouse there for a long time, simply hold down the option key to get the yellow box to appear instantly. You can even let go of the option key while you move the mouse up and down a list of shortened filenames.

The best place to use this is in open/save dialog boxes, as that is where I find columns get squished the most.

Another option to use is to double-click the "handle" at the bottom of the column, which is usually dragged to resize it. This will automatically resize your column to fit the longest name in the folder, resulting in no shortened names. Moreover you can option drag the column handle to change the default column width, which the finder will remember next time you open a window.

A super quick tip -

To create a zip archive for a folder, file, or a selection of folders or files, select them, right-click (or Control-Click) on one, and choose "Create Archive".

This will automatically archive your selection into a zip file, ideal for storing away, sending via email or to save space.

Provided by Jeremy, the owner of the Life in a circuit board blog.

With Mac OS X Panther came the Finder Sidebar - allowing quick access to drives, files folders etc. Even though this is useful, it can sometimes take up a lot of space, especially if you have a small screen.

Some people will choose to disable the sidebar completely by double-clicking on the divider turning off the toolbar completely (command-option-T) if they want to save space, but there is another option.

You can drag the divider bar until only the icon shows, there should be a point where the bar jumps into place. Now don't worry that you can't tell what the icons are, because putting your cursor over any of them brings up the name. If you still want a way to distinguish between them, try adding custom icons for each item.