Andrew's Mac Tips
Software Must-Haves

These applications and add-ons aren't necessarily the biggest productivity boosters; they don't have the most features or options. What qualifies them to be included in this list is that they all (as they say in Macdom) simply work. They are all perfectly seamless, and just feel like part of the system...

Never be Overdue Again

When I get books or DVDs from my local libraries—a machine prints out the dates when they're due back. The loan times are: one week for DVDs, two weeks for magazines and three weeks for books. After dropping in on three libraries in six days, each time grabbing three types of media...

Needless to say, figuring out when each item is due back can be quite a headache. There is a website for my local libraries where I can navigate through three different pages, and log on with a 16 digit number that I can never remember off the top of my head...

Or, I can use Library books.

Library Books is an icon that sits in your menu-bar. Once you've set up the preferences by entering your library and log on information, Library Books will keep a track of everything that you have borrowed, and reserved, and present that information to you via a drop down menu.

When an item is soon due to go back the icon will change color to remind you. You can also have Library Books integrate with iCal. Library Books will also take you directly to your library website, if you need to renew a book, or make a request.

Flawlessly crafted, giggle-inducingly brilliant; Library Books is definitely on my Must-Have list.

Uno
Oh So Subtle

There are no before and after shots because frankly, I don't want to go back to before. Suffice to say that you are probably looking at Before on your own interface. Uno is the after.

When Uno is installed it takes some of the system's interface information and stores it to one side, replacing it with it's own. The result is that OSX takes on a new look, similar to the style of the Tiger iTunes and Mail apps.

This kind of tweaking sounds a little scary, but I've been running my system in this form for over a week with no side-effects at all.

Not only that, there seems to be no hit on performance either. The only glitch that I've noticed is with Quicktime: the two lower corners of Quicktime windows have white parts, where formerly they were rounded.

I really love this new look; gone is the brushed metal, replaced with a graduated satin finish, and gone are the faint horizontal lines commonly found in open and save dialogs.

Butler
OS Rev Up

Once you've spent a week or so getting used to using a Mac, install Butler!

What is Butler? It's a system-wide menu, combined with a pasteboard, quick searcher, iTunes remote; you name it. It's absolutely freak'n brilliant! It's one of those super-flexible OS extensions (like Standalone used to write for the Newton) that really feels like it's only limited by your imagination.

The heart of Butler is a configuration screen on which you add and arrange so-called Smart Items. These Smart Items can be accessed via menus in the Mac titlebar, or they can be hidden and accessed using key combinations or hot corners of the screen.

Butler also has a hot corner drop zone. How does that work? Let's say there's an app that I like to access a lot. I drag the app out of the Applications folder and hold it over the bottom-left corner of my screen (my drop zone). The Butler configuration screen pops up and I drop the app onto the list.

If I drop it on a visible menu then it's obviously added to that menu; if I drop it in the Invisible Items list then I can assign a key combination, or a key combination combined with a screen corner, or simply a screen corner on its own to launch that app. And not just apps can be accessed.

I can drop folders or drives to make pop up lists of their contents, or Safari bookmarks, or Contacts lists, or iTunes songs, or preference panes...

Footnote: Quite apart from all the functionality features; it's probably worth the download just for all of the hooks that it has into iTunes...

CandyBar
Tweak Your System Icons

CandyBar is an incredibly easy tool to use; it presents you with a display of all the icons used by your system and applications. If you don't like any of the standard icons you simply drag and drop replacement icons on top of them. CandyBar then either restarts the Dock or the Finder, and from now on you always see the replacements.

Click to view some replacement icons...

There are dozens of sites where you can find replacement icons; whole sets of replacement system icons are also available in files called icontainers. When you download an icontainer you simply double-click it for the whole process to be done automatically.

CandyBar costs $12.95 which is great value considering the flawless way it enables you to get OSX looking just the way YOU like it.

Witch
A Better App Switcher

There's already a very attractive switcher built in to OSX; using Command-Tab it show icons for all the currently running apps, and you can use it to switch to, or close them.

Witch is different in that you can choose to see and cycle between only those apps that are not hidden. You can also cycle between several open windows within one app.

Click for larger version...

What else?

You can zoom, minimize, close and hide windows from within Witch, and finally, you have total control of its appearance.

A must-have!

Sogudi
Supercharge the Address Bar

No screenshots this time, as this app is so subtle you won't know it's there. Safari already has a feature whereby you can type a word into the address bar and the browser will add www and .com and then try and look it up. This is quite handy for obvious sites like "apple" or "cnn."

With a little bit of preparation on your part, Sogudi expands on that feature. It adds a preference panel to Safari's menu where you can add URLs and one-word shortcuts to those URLs. Once it's set up, it's just a case of Command-L to focus on the address bar, then type the word and hit Enter to go there.

Sogudi comes with a few shortcuts already set up, and here is where it gets interesting: many of the shortcuts include variables. As an example, if I type in movie deep impact it will go to the Internet Movie Data Base, and search for Deep Impact. Pretty cool, huh?

There are lots of other lookup services you can set up, like metric conversion, local weather, currency rates; you name it. Sogudi can also shortcut javascript for switching your browser window size or even emailing selected text.

Menu Master
Shortcuts, How You Like Them

Menu Master is a background utility that lets you quickly (and I mean quickly) modify the keyboard shortcuts that are associated with menu items. Here's how it works: Pull down a menu and hold the pointer over the item you want to change. Enter the keyboard shortcut that you want to use from now on.

That's it. The shortcut is now changed. Really, that's—it!

Ever since I got my Mac I've been trying in vain to find a way to dial the Internet and hang up using a single key; with Menu Master I made key combinations that were the same for both tasks and then made a Butler keystroke macro to invoke the key combination using just the asterisk key on the numeric keypad.

I involved Butler because Menu Master won't allow single-key shortcuts.

Tap one key to connect. Tap the same key to disconnect. This is (don't laugh) thrilling for me.

There's a preference pane for Menu Master where you can get an overview of the menus you've changed, and restore menus to their original state.

FolderGlance
Drilling Down Was Never Easier

Back in my PC-using days I used to store virtually everything in folders within the StartMenu system folder; that way I could access everything via the menus that cascaded from the Start button. Now, using FolderGlance I have the same easy access functionality, but with far more customization.

FolderGlance installs as a preference pane.

Click for larger version...

The primary function of FolderGlance is to let you right-click on a folder and then browse its contents directly from the context menu without actually opening the folder. A second use is to right-click anywhere within a finder window or from the Desktop to navigate within folders that you have designated to be added to the context menu.

Click for larger version...

But wait, there's a lot more!

• If you first select a file, then navigate through the menus to a folder, you can choose to move the file to that folder
• You can navigate to a file, and then grab it
• You can select a file and then choose an application to launch it
• You can adjust the speed and size of all context menus!

To summarize: This is another application that integrates so seamlessly with your day-to-day habits that it's more like a highly polished OS point release than a mere hack.

Highly recommended.

TinyAlarm
Can you say, Unobtrusive?...

I really love this app. It's got all those Oh, I get it... That's really clever... hallmarks that I like to see before having something take up space in my menu bar on a permanent basis. It first appears as an empty alarm clock. Clicking the clock reveals several alarm times covering the next couple of hours...

You can choose one of the presets, or you can bring up this analog clock with which you can drag the minute hand around to set the time you prefer; holding down the Option key refines the action to minute by minute. You can also use the arrow keys.

As it counts down to the alarm there's a graphical representation of the remaining time in the clock face that resides in the menu bar; at zero the alarm clock either sounds, or sounds and flashes until you either dismiss it or snooze it for another five minutes.

And that's it. Like I say: Subtle, unobtrusive, and classy.

Tofu
Grab and Read Text

There are a lot of online columns that I like to read; only I prefer to read them uncluttered. That is, without all of the surrounding ads and images and other clutter you typically find on an online commercial publication.

So I use Tofu. When I installed Tofu it added View in Tofu (Control-Option-U) to the Services menu. So I select the text of the column and press the key combination and Tofu pops up in my favorite font and my favorite colors.

Click for larger version...

If you jumped to the image you will have seen that:

• The text is nicely indented on all sides
• The text is fully justified
• The scrollbar is less obtrusively at the bottom

If I select text and images and copy and paste into Tofu, the images are there in the new page as well. The final feature that makes this a great app is its memory: when I re-open a Tofu file, it's remembered where I left off!

ClearDock
Modify Your Dock

ClearDock is another Application Enhancer module.

It gives you the capability to modify the appearance of the Dock. You can change the background color, the border color and the color of the triangles. You can even make the background of the Dock disappear altogether.

Below are examples of the Dock unmodified, with the colors changed and with the background invisible...