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.