A simple time saving tip that I’ve found useful is to quit open Applications without switching to them first. I’ve got two time saving ways to accomplish that task, first through Mac OS X’s built in Application switcher (Command + Tab) and secondly the Mac OS X Dock.

The Application switcher built into OS X and accessible through Command + Tab, this allows you to quickly switch between open Applications. By striking Command + Tab once and holding down the Command key you’ll see something like the screenshot above with icons for each running Application on your Mac. Pressing Tab again will cycle forward through the list while Shift + Tab will go backwards. A nifty trick is to hit the Q key while you have an Application highlighted in the Application switcher; you’ll notice that the icon fades out, the Application has just quit.

Using Mac OS X’s Dock is also an easy shortcut for quitting Applications. Right-click an open Application and choose Quit from the menu. If you’ve got an Application that has locked up and is not responding right-clicking the Application’s Dock icon will reveal a Force Quit option (much easier than opening the Force Quit window).

As of today, OS X 411 now allows anyone to register for an account and submit articles to be published on the main blog. Anything you write that clears review will be published for the whole Mac community to see.

It’s simple to sign up, choose a username and supply an email address, we’ll then send you a temporary password for you to login with. Once your account is made you’ll be able to write and submit articles for our editors to review. For more on this process, visit OS X 411’s write an article page.

If you have news, tips, tricks or a how-to that has something to do with Apple’s Mac OS X, share it with the world: get it published on OS X 411.

More: Write an Article or Register for an Account.

LicenseKeeper from Outer Level is one of those programs that everyone who has more than one purchased program can use. LicenseKeeper is a product key/license key manager, it stores lots of information on each license added to its database, you can attach emails and other documents plus information about an application’s developer.

LicenseKeeper will keep track of all your licenses in an easy to use application. When you first launch LicenseKeeper you’ll be greeted with the option to check for updates and send anonymous information to the publisher. To add a new application there are two ways, create it manually or import the application’s .app file to LicenseKeeper. If you use the second option LicenseKeeper will automatically add the version number, application icon and developer information. All this can be added or modified manually, and of course you’ll have to add the license key to the application record.

Outer Level has a trial version of LicenseKeeper available with a limitation on the number of entries you can have kept by LicenseKeeper, if you choose to buy a copy for yourself LicenseKeeper will set you back $19.95 USD from Outer Level’s store. If you’re like me and keep a plain text file with all your license keys, LicenseKeeper is an effective way to organize your license keys in a searchable database with some added bonuses like information about an application’s developer if the need for support arises.

Read more: LicenseKeeper from Outer Level.

Exposé, the application window switching and hiding feature built into OS X  is something you either love or hate. But this article on Exposé is not about its flaws, but instead a cool hidden feature that easily lets you cycle through the open windows of applications open on your Mac.

How to use it: Start Exposé (All Applications or Application Windows) and while its displaying all your open windows hit Tab. Each time you hit Tab, Exposé will cycle from one open application to another, basically switching which application’s windows it’s displaying. If you’re in All Applications mode this will switch Exposé to Application Windows mode, and each subsequent press of Tab will move you to the next application (Shift + Tab to go backwards). Even if there are no applications open with more than one window, this will still cycle through highlighting one window at a time. Pressing Enter will exit Exposé and bring the the selected window/application to the front (Escape also works). A screen shot of this Exposé feature in action can be seen below as well as two videos at the end of this post.

There is no mention of this feature in System Preferences, it seems like one of those things that you’ve got to find for yourself. By default you can enter the Application Windows mode with F10, but this allows easy access to Application Windows from All Applications as well as another nice way to switch applications from Exposé.

I’ve got two videos of this in action, the first shows this trick with single-window applications only while the second shows multi-windowed applications mixed in with single-window applications.

• Expose Tab Trick (Single-Window) 1.1MB
• Exposé Tab Trick (Multi-Window) 3.6MB

I’ve noticed most people drag an external disk to the Trash in order to unmount/eject a drive from their Mac. Thats not the only way to safely eject a disk from your system though… I can’t claim this tip saves any time, but its one I use quite often when I’ve got several application windows open, this tip is how to eject a disk through the Finder window (instead of the Desktop and the Trash located on the Dock).

Each ejectable disk has a small eject icon next to it in the left sidebar of Finder, this is highlighted in the image above (click on it to enlarge). A simple click on this eject icon will unmount the disk from your system and allow for removal without data loss (providing it ejected without an error). You’ll know its been ejected from your Mac when the disk disappears.

There are other ways of ejecting a drive from your system, using Disk Utility is one, and another method is by selecting a disk in Finder and using Command + E (while a drive is selected).

Hello OS X 411 readers! Since your last visit to OS X 411 you may have noticed a few changes, namely the site design. OS X 411 now has a new theme styled like Leopard’s Aurora (or sky) background which has been used widely throughout the Mac community to represent Leopard.

There will also be several other changes to the site in the next few weeks, namely a user-based system for writing articles so you and other readers can write and let your voices be heard by the Mac community. The details on this have not yet been worked out but it should work through Wordpress’ administration panel with editors having the final say on any article.

Stay tuned as the above mentioned items have taken a good deal of time to work out and have (unfortunately) taken time away from writing articles for OS X 411.

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking your Mac’s Dock is to large or to small this tip will help you change the size as well as a few other Dock options quickly and easily without opening System Preferences.

 

To do this trick, locate the “cross walk” looking area between your Applications and your Stacks and the Trash area. Once you hover over it you’ll notice the cursor changes to a resize looking pointer, drag up or down to set a new size or right click (Control + Click) to bring up a menu like the one pictured below.

 

The popup menu provides quick access to options like enabling or disabling Dock Hiding and Magnification in addition to the location (left, bottom or right) of the dock and the minimize effect used when minimizing an application window. At the very bottom of the menu is an option to launch the Dock preference pane in System Preferences.

By default Finder does not list the sizes of all items on your hard drive when viewing folders and files. If you’re curious about the size of an item and Finder simply places an -- in the Size column give this a try.

Bring up the View Options for the current folder you’re looking at, do this by either using Cmd+J, View > Show View Options or by right-clicking in a blank part of the Finder window and choosing Show View Options from the menu. Once there you’ll see a window like the one below, check the Calculate all sizes checkbox and close the window.

For an additional bonus, click the Use as Defaults button to apply this change to all subfolders. For one reason or another Finder does not remember this setting after logging out and back in, I would assume thats to minimize the work the CPU and hard drives need to do while browsing your files to make the OS snappier. If you only care about the size of a single file or folder, Quick Look will give this info to you with less effort, additionally the Get Info option under the File menu (also available by right-clicking the file/folder) will tell you a little more.

FolderTeint is an application for the mac written by Thomas Zoechling and does one thing: changes the appearance of Leopard’s folder icons. FolderTeint is a free application and as its creator suggests, it fixes Leopard’s icons for many users (a visual fix/improvement).

The obvious question is what does FolderTeint do? Well that’s simple, it allows you to change the color of all (or select) folder icons. FolderTeint does this through a simple user interface: select the folders then modify the contrast, saturation, brightness and color of your mac’s folder icons. Once you’re done apply the changes then logout and back in to see your gorgeous new set of icons. FolderTeint does not change the custom image on each icon (like the hammer on Developer), instead it changes the color and tint of the icon.

For those who don’t like Apple’s colorful nature, FolderTeint will defiantly fix Leopard’s folder icons for you if you prefer Graphite instead of Blue for your system appearance setting then download and try FolderTeint. On the other hand, if you prefer a colorful desktop make your icons brighter and more colorful, the ideas are endless. I use FolderTeint to make my icons a dark black.

Because FolderTeint modifies Leopards icons, any application that uses the default icon set in Leopard will be updated, though indirectly, to your new icon color. A great example of this is Apple’s Mail.

More: FolderTeint from Thomas Zoechling.

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This morning when I woke my MacBook Air from sleep I found a nice prompt asking me to upgrade from .Mac to MobileMe, being a good Apple fan I followed its instructions (well not really instructions, just a software update). The update included iTunes 7.7 as well as a MobileMe preference pane.

The MobileMe update added a new preferences pane to System Preferences, the new icon is titled MobileMe and replaces the .Mac icon. Most of the settings are identical inside of the preference pane except it cannot communicate with the MobileMe servers as of 8:40 eastern on the 10th of July 2008. The iDisk is still titled iDisk unless Apple updates it to a new name sometime soon and the same sync-able items are still listed under Sync (no new ones yet).

Check software update for your copy of MobileMe today.