Streamline your Mac

As I prepare for tax season, I'm looking forward to what might wind up being a decent-sized income tax return (having a kid helps!). Being that my current Mac is three years old, I'm hoping that it works out for me to upgrade (that, and my wife needs a new Mac badly!). Thinking about that, I started cataloging all the little things that I would need to install to make myself at home: OS X is incredible right out of the box, but here are some little tools that I think would help any Mac power user.

1. Quicksilver

Never, ever, ever use a Mac without Quicksilver. I use but a fraction of what Quicksilver can do, but it's still an indispensable tool for me. Quicksilver is an application launcher: you invoke it with the Ctrl-Spacebar key combination, and then start typing the name of the application or other file you want to open. Since Quicksilver actively catalogs your hard drive, it quickly knows what you are typing, and a simple Return key launches the file or app. Quicksilver also allows navigating through folders, allowing you to find other files and apps that are close to where you currently are in the folder hierarchy.

2. Caffeine

Caffeine is probably the second thing I install on a new Mac. This is a simple little menu item that allows you to force your Mac to stay awake. This is handy when watching YouTube videos or performing other tasks that would normally allow the display to sleep. Instead of adjusting the Energy Saver preferences, clicking the little Caffeine cup icon in the menu will keep your Mac awake until you turn it back off.

3. Jumpcut

Another menu item that I am never without is Jumpcut. This handy little utility stores up to the last 40 things copied to the clipboard, and allows you to select them from a drop-down menu and paste them into the current application. If you prepare sermons or other typed information on a regular basis, Jumpcut is indispensable.

4. iStat Menus / iStat Pro

iSlayer's iStat line of tools are a great help in many areas. The Menus add-on give you detailed controls and views in the menu bar of things like RAM and CPU usage, network connections and activity, temperature statuses, disk usage, and a very handy time and date replacement that includes a drop-down mini calendar. iStat Pro is a dashboard widget that gives you much the same information, but in one place out of the way, just in case you don't want it on your menu bar.

5. OnyX

OnyX is a very powerful utility for your Mac: use carefully! It contains many options and configuration options for power users to play with, but newer users should probably avoid it. OnyX allows you to manually run maintenance scripts and repair disk permissions to help keep your system running smoothly. Use sparingly, but you could very well see a significant performance boost after using it if your machine seems bogged down.

Customization

I have only a few things that I do to get a new system ready for me, and I'll outline what works for me and how you might be able to customize them to your liking.

1. Exposé & Spaces

In System Preferences, at the top you'll see the Exposé & Spaces preference icon. Exposé gives you quick, one-button shortcuts to access the different applications that you have running. By default, the F9, F10, and F11 keys invoke basic Exposé functions as follows:

• F9 shows you all the windows that are currently open in every application
• F10 shows you all the windows in the currently selected application
• F11 moves all windows to the edge of the screen so you can view your Desktop

Other Exposé keys include F8, which shows you all the active Spaces (if you have Spaces turned on), and F12 brings up the Dashboard, the place where your Widgets live.

Spaces gives you multiple "copies" of your desktop; though the icons on the Desktop remain the same, the applications either opened in each Space or specifically assigned to that Space are viewable there. If you Command-Tab to switch to an application that lives in another Space, you will automatically be moved there. Spaces are easily navigated (once switched on) with the Control+Arrow Key combinations.

My favorite detail of Exposé, however, is the Active Screen Corners option. With these drop-down boxes, you can assign each of the four corners of the screen a function; for instance, when I move my cursor to the top-right corner of the screen, it behaves as if I had pushed the F10 button: it tiles all of the selected application's windows. When I move the curser to the bottom-right corner, F11 is invoked, and I see my Desktop. My other corners are bottom-left for F9, and top-left for "Put Display to Sleep" in case I want to shut the screen off quickly (Screen Saver can also be invoked instead).

2. Finder Preferences

The only other main thing that I change when I set up a new system is the behavior of the Finder (including some Dock thingamajigs). First, I invoke the Finder Preferences with the Command-comma key combination (remember that: it's the default way to quickly access the Preferences in almost every Mac app). Under the General options, I set new Finder windows to open in Applications instead of the Home folder; I generally want to access Apps, but you can set it to whatever makes life easier for your workflow. I also uncheck the "Show warning before emptying the Trash" option under Advanced options; when I go to empty the Trash, I'm doing it on purpose, so I don't need a reminder!

As far as the Dock (back in System Preferences:  Menu -> System Preferences, or use Quicksilver!), I set the size about ⅓ of the way down the slider: I want to be able to see everything, but I don't want the Dock taking up my whole screen. Secondly, I set the Magnification about 70% of the way toward the Max end of the scale: I need to be able to fine-tune my Dock actions, and with the size being rather small, Magnification is the easiest way to make sure that I'm doing exactly what I want to.

If you're using Snow Leopard, you'll notice a new, nifty little option: "Minimize windows into application icon." This sends minimized windows into that application's Dock icon instead of to the right side of the Dock. I can't stand it when there are several different things minimized into the Dock: it stretches everything out and makes the Desktop look cluttered.

That's all that I can think of: leave me a comment with more questions if you have any!