10 Best Mac Tips of 2007

The end of the year is quickly drawing to an end. It’s been a great year to be a Mac user with Leopard and the iPhone both debuting in 2007. This entry takes a look back at the top 10 mac tips of 2007. Most of these are from MacTips, some of them aren’t–they’re all great tips however.

10. Speed up Mail.app

Mail.app can get bloated with too many messages. SpeedMail is the easy way to trim down the index so it starts faster. If you don’t want to use an application, the following terminal command accomplishes the same thing: sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum subjects;

[Via Drastically Speed up Mail.app]

9. Remove Crash Reports

Crash reports help Apple and developers debug crash issues. It’s good practice to actually send these because they help make better software. That being said, some users will never send these. If you’re one of these users, you might as well disable crash reports with the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

[Via Get Rid of those Pesky Crash Reports Today!]

8. Widgets on your desktop

For some users it may make sense to "detach" widgets from the Dashboard and leave them above all windows. This can be accomplished easily with StayWidget or the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES; killall Dock

[Via Down Widget! Stay... Good Widget!]

7. Display Window Titles in Exposé with Keyboard

One of the hidden features in Leopard is displaying titles in Exposé. This can be accomplished by holding the Option key while hovering over a window. This is extremely useful for distinguishing windows from one another.

[Via Display Window Titles in Exposé with the Keyboard]

6. Access Dock with Keyboard

Mac users vote with their docks. If you use an application a lot, it will probably be in your dock. It makes sense then, to have a fast way to access your dock for saving even more time. A quick way to do this is by pressing Control+F3. Note if you have volume or brightness assigned to F3, you will need to press Fn+Control+F3.

Quickly select the icon you want by moving side to side with the arrow keys or typing the first letters of the application.

[Via Get Easy Keyboard Access to Dock]

5. Remove Printer Icon From Dock after Printing

One of the little annoyances with Leopard is not automatically removing the print icon after printing is complete. This featured is tucked away in the contextual menu of the icon. Simply Control click the print icon and select "Auto Quit."

[Via Auto remove printer icon from Dock after print]

4. Replace Login Background Image

One of the best ways to personalize your Mac is by changing the login background. This instantly sets it apart and gives you something more appealing to look at while logging in. Leopard user can replace the following image with the desired background:

/System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg Don’t worry Tiger users, you can customize your background with the following command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture '/Path/To/Picture.jpg'

[Via Replace Login Screen Background in Leopard]

3. Customize Leopard Visually

This tip actually contains a few tips, but they all fall under hacking Leopard to be more visually appealing.

Change the dock from 3D to 2D:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

Add a recent items stack to the dock:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

Turn the translucent menu bar gray, change 0 to 1 for white:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer 'EnvironmentVariables' -dict 'CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE' 0

Add gradient effect to stacks on mouse over:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean YES

Customize your dock color with Dock Color or dock image with Leopard Docks.

Folder and stack icons determine their icon by the first item inside their folders. An easy way to change the icon is by adding spaces to your desired image, so it comes up first when alphabetized.

[Via Add or Change Folder Icons to Stacks and Terminal Commands for Hidden Settings in Leopard]

2. Add Functionality to Quick Look with Plugins

Quick Look is one of the best features introduced in Leopard. The following plugins make it even more useful. To get these plugins working, re-launch Finder after placing them in: ~/Library/QuickLook/ There is a full list of Quick Look plugins if you’re interested, here are our favorites:

Folder Quick Look Plugin: Quickly view the contents of a folder.

Zip Archive Quick Look Plugin: View the contents of a zip archive.

Flash Quick Look Plugin: View any flash file in Quick Look. This requires Perian.

[Via Folder Quick Look Plugin, Flash Quick Look Plugin and Zip Archive Plugin]

1. Remotely Access your Mac through your iPhone

This was the single coolest tip of the year for me and the biggest reason for my lust over the iPhone. With Telekinesis you can access your Mac through your iPhone anywhere in the world. There is a video below demonstrating this:

[Via Telekinesis: Remote Access Your Mac Through iPhone]

That’s it for our 10 best Mac tips of 2007. What do you think is missing from the list? What were your personal favorite tips of 2007? Below are a few runners up that didn’t quite make the top 10:

• Manipulate Clipboard from the Command Line
• Enabled the Safari Debug Menu
• Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks

Hope everyone enjoyed the list. Here at MacTips we’re doing some very exciting things. We have more writers than ever and lots of ideas for directions to take the site. Have a Happy Holidays everyone!