Make ZIP in one Click

One of my favorite Mac OS X features is the ability to create ZIP compressed files from within the OS (basically, this shrinks the file size, ideal for files you’re going to email — smaller file sizes mean faster file transfers). To create a compressed file, either Control-click on the file and choose Create Archive (which is Apple-speak for “make a compressed ZIP file”). Or you can click on a file, then go to the Action menu (the button that looks like a gear up in the Finder window’s toolbar), and choose Create Archive from there. Either way, it quickly creates a new file, with the file extension “.zip.” This is the compressed file. You can also compress several different files (like three, for example) into one single archive file — just Command-click (or Shift-click contiguous files) on all the files you want included, then choose Create Archive of X Items from the Action menu. A file will be created named “Archive.zip” (that’s it!). By the way, if someone sends you a ZIP file, don’t sweat it — just double-click it and Tiger will automatically decompress it.

Add Hover Effect to Stacks

via osxleopardhints.com

To add a nice hover effect to the icons in the stacks pop up enter the following code into your terminal ( applications/utilities/terminal.app)

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

To Remove this Stacks hover effect enter the following terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean NO killall Dock

Here’s a preview of the magic at work.It’s also important to note that this only shows when you navigate your stack pop up by keyboard.

Snag Popular Mac Shareware On-the-Cheap at MacHeist

Mac only: Web site MacHeist's second annual shareware bundle sale, which offers nearly $500 worth of software for the relatively low price of $49, is underway. This year's bundle includes popular Mac shareware like previously mentioned Cha-Ching, AppZapper, TaskPaper, and other killer apps like 1Password. Our focus is almost always on freeware around these parts because—frankly—no one likes paying for software. That said, sometimes you just can't find a freeware version of a killer piece of shareware, and that's when deals like MacHeist come into play. Right now the bundle comes with 12 apps with another soon to be unlocked. The MacHeist sale ends in two days.

via Lifehacker.com

Top 15 Leopard Hints

by Michael Yurechko via appletell.com

It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month (in no particular order).

Collect all windows in one Space When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion.

Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look If you are browsing PDFs or images in Quick look mode, there is a fast and easy way to zoom in. Simply option-click the window and it will zoom in, and shift-option click and it will zoom out. Alternatively, you can hit Cmd = to zoom in, or Cmd - to zoom out.

Enable the Path Bar in the Finder Go to the view menu in the Finder and click View Path Bar to see the hierarchy of where your file is. You can also control-click or right-click on any of the folders in the path bar, and perform actions on them.

Quickly send a window to a Space Leopard supports “bumping” your windows to other Spaces. Simply drag your window to the edge of your screen, and wait a second. The window will fly over to the adjacent space.

Address Book Effects Now Address Book has the ability to add effects much like Photobooth. Simply click the edit button for one of your contacts, click the pictures, and then click the little “swirl” style button. This allows you to apply many different effects to your photos.

Quickly access System Profiler When diagnosing someone’s mac, you want to get to System Profiler as fast as you can. A little shortcut is to hold down the “option” key on the keyboard while pressing the Apple in the menu bar. The ‘About This Mac’ will turn to ‘System Profiler...”.

Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’

Then simply do a KillAll Dock command to reset your Dock, and your new stack will be there. Right-click it to set what you want it to have recent-things of.

Auto Remove Printer after Print One of my pet peeves with Leopard is that the Printer will not automatically quit after it prints. Well, all you have to do is right click on the printer icon in the dock, and hit the “Auto-Quit” option. This will automatically quit the printer after a print job is complete.

Disable Spotlight from the menu bar If you want to get rid of Spotlight from the menu bar, simply open terminal and run:

sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

To re-enable it you just have to run:

sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

Permanently Delete files from Time Machine Backups While navigating Time Machine, go to the present view, and click the little gear icon in the toolbar of the Finder while you have the file you want to delete selected. Simply click the option to Delete all Time Machine backups of this file, and the file will be gone forever.

Quickly enable or disable sharing for a folder If you want to quickly share a particular folder with someone on your local network, click the folder, and hit Cmd-I to bring up the “Get Info” window. From there, simply checkmark the “Share Folder” button, and others will be able to access it over the network.

Unlearn words from the Dictionary Words that you have added to the system dictionary such as “Yurechko” can be unlearned easily in Leopard. All you have to do is right-click on the word that you want to unlearn, and click the unlearn button. This only works in some applications.

Use Expanded print Dialog by default Leopard comes with a very handy expanded Print View which allows you to see previews of what you are printing (very handy for printing websites), however, you always have to click the little arrow button to view it. It you want this expanded view to be the default, simply open Terminal and run:

defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

If you want to set it for all users, run:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

Switch to lowercase labels in the Finder’s sidebar Many people don’t like the capital letters in the Finder sidebar. In order to change these to lowercase, navigate to

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/

Duplicate the LocalizableCore.strings file for backup, and then edit lines 50 to 53 to make them lowercase.

“SD5” = “Devices”; “SD6” = “Shared”; “SD7” = “Search for”; “SD8” = “Places”;

Save the file and the open the Terminal and type: ‘killall Finder’

See detailed Airport information Leopard’s wifi capabilities have been dramatically improved. Now, it is even easier to get more information about the access point you are connected to. By option-clicking on the wifi menu bar item, you can see the MAC address, channel, signal strength (RSSI), and even the transmit rate. very handy for mobile users.

Upgrade Your Hackintosh to OS X 10.5.1

via Lifehacker.com

First... Did It Work?

Yes, updating to 10.5.1 worked (and continues to work) very well, and if you're installing Leopard with my previous guide, it only adds a couple of extra steps. However, I did run into a snag which I'll detail later.

Upgrade Your Hackintosh

Assuming you've just installed Leopard on your own Hackintosh using our guide, you've built your PC, installed and patched Leopard, and it's running like a gem. To upgrade, here's what you'll need to do:

1. Install the 10.5.1 Update: Open Software Update, download, and install 10.5.1 just as you normally would on any other Mac.
2. Fire up your Leopard install DVD and Patch: After you apply the update, your Hackintosh won't initially boot—instead it will probably continually restart after your BIOS load. That's okay—you just need to re-patch your system the same way you did the first time you installed. So drop the Leopard install DVD in your Hackintosh and boot into the installer (remember, when you're prompted to press any key to start the installation or press F8 for options, hit F8, enter -v -x at the prompt and hit Enter. Then wait (the DVD boot up takes at least 5-10 minutes).

   Once it boots up, open Terminal from the Utilities menu in the menu bar. Hopefully you've still got your trusty USB stick on hand with your Leopard patch files (the one you used in the original install). If you don't, just grab the files and follow the instructions in the original guide to prepare the patch files on your USB stick. Assuming your USB stick is prepared and you've named it LeopardPatch (the name isn't required, you'll just need to adjust the directions appropriately to the name of your USB stick), just run the following two commands:

   cd /Volumes/LeopardPatch
./9a581PostPatch.sh

3. Restart and Enjoy: Once the patch completes, answer "yes" to reboot your computer. When it restarts, you should boot right back into Leopard with 10.5.1 running.

So What's the Snag?

I tried this method in two different fashions. First I installed Leopard from scratch using my previous guide and then I immediately upgraded and applied the patch. Worked as smooth as butter.

After verifying that that method worked, I applied the update and patch to the installation I'd been running for the previous couple of weeks. For some reason, when I did, the patch didn't seem to take. The workaround: I just booted up my working 10.5.1 (the one that I updated and patched immediately) and used OS X's Migration Assistant utility to migrate all of the user data from my non-booting drive to my new installation, which meant I didn't have to go through any of the rigmarole of a fresh install. However, it does mean that I needed two hard drives so I could install and update the fresh Leopard separately, which may be much more of a pain than you're willing to face.

Isn't There a Better Way?

Honestly, yes, there is. It's called PC EFI, a patch that emulates the boot process of a "real" Mac so that the operating system can actually use the unmodified (i.e., unpatched), stock versions of the kernel. What does that mean to Hackintosh users?

Basically it means that you should generally be able to upgrade your system with impunity and never have to go through this sort of patching process when you upgrade. The problem: Despite several efforts, I wasn't apple to get PC EFI running successfully on my Hackintosh. That doesn't mean it can't be done—it just means I haven't been able to figure it out yet. When I do, you can be sure I'll post an update for how to do it.

If you're interested in looking into PC EFI, you can keep track of the latest developments here.