All-things-Mac web site Mac OS X Hints discusses how to automatically Quick Look certain files as soon as they’re downloaded to your Downloads folder. The best approach from the thread involves setting your browser to automatically open certain file types (like your PDF or Word documents) with the Quick Look Droplet, a simple application that launches a Quick Look preview of whatever file it opens. Of course you could just set your browser to automatically open downloaded files with their default applications, but if you don’t want to load up heavy software like Microsoft Word just to peek at the file’s contents, this Quick Look Droplet might be a worthwhile solution. 10.5: Automatically Quick Look certain downloaded files [Mac OS X Hints]
Mac OS X Leopard only: Free, open source application Secrets rolls every hidden feature of Leopard into an easy-to-use preference pane in your System Preferences. Developed by the author of the much-beloved Quicksilver, you can browse Secrets by application to see what tweaks are available for the apps you have installed. There’s a ton to look into with Secrets, but the one secret that blew my mind off the bat was the “Arrows link to library instead of store” tweak in iTunes, which may be the most useful thing I’ve ever done to iTunes (and I’ve covered the best iTunes add-ons). Secrets is free, Mac OS X only. If you give it a try, share your favourite Secrets in the comments.
Macworld’s running a fantastic “Leopard Survival Guide” series, covering little-known Mac tips of all sorts, like how to customise the welcome text in a new Terminal window: Open Terminal and enter cd /etc, press return, and then type sudo pico motd. That second command launches a text editor and loads a new file called motd (Message Of The Day). Type whatever you like for a message (for instance, “Welcome to the land where text is king”), press control-X (for Exit), press Y (for Yes, to save changes), and then press return (to accept the file name, which will be shown as motd). From now on, new Terminal windows will display your new greeting, right below the date and time of the last login.
Don’t miss the rest of the series, which also covers the Dock and Stacks to Spaces, Expose and the Dashboard. Leopard Survival Guide: System Preferences, Terminal [Macworld]
Mac OS X Leopard only: Dig into advanced user settings on your Mac by Ctrl+clicking on an account name in the System Preferences>Accounts area. There you can change Leopard’s default login shell, the account’s home directory or short name, and other important, scary, things that are just daring you to mess with them. (Actually, don’t, unless you really know what you’re doing.) As for shell options? Mac OS Hints explains: In the resulting Advanced Options screen, either type in the path to your preferred shell, or choose among the various shells already installed in /bin: bash, tcsh, sh, csh, zsh, or ksh.
Do you prefer an alternative shell on your Mac? Why? Tell us in the comments. Change your login shell in Leopard [macosxhints.com]
Mac OS X Leopard only: If you’ve got a FireWire drive hooked up to your Mac, chances are Leopard’s dead simple backup utility, Time Machine, has you backing up your data—and that’s a huge step forward if you weren’t backing up at all pre-Leopard. But Time Machine is only one piece of a full backup scheme. Macworld runs down what Time Machine can do (effortless, regular, intervention-less local backups) and what it can’t (system clones and online backup). If you want to complete your backup scheme, use an online service (Mozy Home Unlimited is the best 5 bucks I spend per month) and once in awhile, mirror your entire system to a bootable drive. That way if your FireWire drive gets stolen or dies, or your whole system crashes, you’ll be up and running instantaneously. What other backup services do you use in addition to Time Machine? Tell us in the comments. Is Time Machine all you need? [Macworld]
Mac OS X only: Yesterday’s software update added several subtle options all over Leopard for Mac users, especially for Stacks—to see them, simply Cmd+click on a Stack. We’ve posted before how to overlay icons on your Dock’s Stacks for easy visual identification, but now under “Display as” you can choose “Folder” instead to see the folder icon. (Easier, but I still like the drawer icons better.) Instead of your Mac deciding how the Stack should be viewed (as a grid or list), you can choose under “Display as.” Even more exciting, the “List” view isn’t that arcing fan any more—it’s a throwback to Tiger’s hierarchical file list which lets you navigate down into subfolders. Getting to Know the New Stacks [MacTips.org]
Apple officially pushed out the 10.5.2 update to Leopard today, a release filled with the promise of numerous bug fixes and stability improvements. We’re talking improvements with your AirPorts, Back to my Mac, Dashboard, Stacks, iCal, iChat, Finder, Mail, Time Machine, and oh-so-much-more. Hated the menu bar transparency from the get-go? Apple has felt your pain, and you can now disable transparency without third party apps. For a full rundown of changes, fixes, and improvements, check out the update details from Apple.
Mac OS X only: The latest version of our favorite system cloning/backup utility for Mac, SuperDuper, is now fully Leopard compatible. What do you need a third party backup utility for when you’re rockin’ Time Machine, you ask? Good question, friend. While Time Machine is incredible for incremental file backups that happen in the background, without intervention, SuperDuper’s strength is its ability to clone your entire Mac onto a bootable backup, which Time Machine does not do—well, not as easily as SuperDuper does.
Mac OS X Leopard only: You wouldn’t think that Leopard’s new Quick Look feature would work anywhere but from Finder, but you’d be wrong. From the command line in Terminal, you can invoke Quick Look to preview the contents of a file. Tips web site Mac OS X Hints details how: the command is qlmanage -p somefile where somefile is your document. As Mac OS X Hints recommends, setting up an alias (qlf, perhaps?) is a good way to save your typing fingers when reusing this technique. Use Quick Look from Terminal [Mac OS X Hints]
Leopard only: A lesser-hyped feature in Mac 10.5 is Web Clips—the ability to turn a section of any web page into a Dashboard widget. We’re not huge fans of gadgets and widgets around here, but Dashboard Web Clips can be a big timesaver, because it lets you check several pages you might otherwise manually refresh throughout the day in one keystroke, no browser required.
