An easy way to change the default application for a file is to right click (Control+Click) a file and hold option while selecting an application from the “Always Open With” menu.

Please note this only changes the default application for that one file–not every file with this type. See our other post for assigning default applications.
I [...]

While I was trying to fix a different problem, I stumbled upon a keyboard shortcut that brings up the sound preference pane. Just hit Option+F5. From here, you can adjust the volume of your sound alerts, system output volume and microphone input volume.

There’s usually more than one way to complete a task, there’s the fast way, and the slow way. The slow way to crop a photo from the internet would be to save it to your Downloads folder, open it in preview, then crop it.
The fast way is to hit Shift+Command+4 and take a screenshot of [...]

The Dock is the primary method for launching applications in OS X. For me, Quicksilver replaces a lot of what I would normally do with the Dock, but I still find it to be an essential tool for my application needs.
By default, the Dock appears at the bottom of the screen. However, it can be [...]

Lately I’ve made it a habit to memorize many of the keyboard shortcuts for manipulating text. These shortcuts can generally be used across any Cocoa application and are great for increasing your productivity.
Download the Text Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet in PDF format.

Do you see any shortcuts that are missing?

After our last tip on quickly switching windows in Photoshop, you all suggested I do more. So I recently found three handy tips that saved me time.
Duplicating Slices with Option
Creating slices can be a pain to make over and over again, thankfully there’s a quicker way. Select a slice with Command+Click then Option+Click to duplicate [...]

Way back in 2005 I wrote about quick dictionary lookups using the keyboard. This quickly became one of my favorite tips–but I always had trouble remember the key combination. For some reason Command+Control+D was hard to remember.
You probably know you can also access the dictionary by highlighting a word, control+clicking and selecting “Look Up in [...]

If you find it frustrating you can’t switch between active windows in Photoshop by pressing Command+Tilde (Command+~), you’re not alone.
Thankfully there’s a few quick shortcuts nearby that accomplish the same thing:

Command+Shift+Tilde
Control+Tab
Control+Tilde

Are there many Photoshop users out there? More or less Photoshop tips?

Font Book is a great way to manage system and user fonts. But it’s also great for deciding which fonts to use.
First select Preview -> Custom or hit Command+3 to enable the custom preview.

Then on the far right pane, enter your text:

Now select the a font and press Up/Down on the keyboard arrows to scroll [...]

I often find myself copy-pasting out of online resources when I’m typing research papers. The issue with this is that I have to go back and reformat the text in order to achieve a homogenous font style. Nowadays, this problem is no more.
Reader Luke, recently submitted a tip informing me that [...]