Changing The Color of Stickies
Stickies allows you to choose between the default yellow color, blue, pink, purple and grey.

1. Go to the Stickies menubar
2. Click ‘Color’ and select the color you want

The default sticky appearance

I selected blue as my color

Putting Images in Stickies
1. Find the image file you’d like in your sticky
2. Simply drag and drop the image into the sticky
3. You can adjust the location of the image with the ‘tab’ and spacebar keys

Having Translucent Stickies
You can also change the appearance of your stickies by making them translucent. Here’s how you do it.

1. With Stickies open, simply use the keystroke Command-Option-T

Having Important Stickies on top
1. Use the keystroke Command-Option-F to have your important stickies stay on top of other windows
Even Though Firefox is selected, the sticky is still shown

Get Info of Stickies
1. Simply hover the mouse over a sticky window

Saving Stickies
1. Click on the upper left corner of the window, or use the keystroke Command-W
2. Choose save and select your destination

Switching Between Stickies
1. Use the keystroke Command-~ to switch between your stickies

Bullet-Points in Stickies
1. Use the keystroke command Option-Tab

– Alexander Garovi

Capturing Certain Objects – [Command-Shift-4] + [Spacebar]
This keystroke allows you to capture individual objects such as windows and the dock. The object that is captured will be highlighted.

Full Screen Capture – [Command-Shift-3] or [Command-Shift-Control-3]
This keystroke simply captures everything on the screen. If you add control to the keystroke, the image will be sent to your clipboard.

Capturing in a Region – [Command-Shift-4] or [Command-Shift-Control-4]
Simply box in the region that you’d like to capture. [Command-Shift-Control-4] sends the image to your clipboard.

Timed Image Capturing (Using Grab) – [Command-Shift-Z]
Using the native OS X app, Grab, you can add a 10 second timer before the image is taken.

These keystrokes are helpful for capturing your desktop, windows, pictures etc.

– Alexander Garov

Twitterific is a menubar-based application that is relatively easy to use. One of the things I like most about Twitterific is its fantastic UI that sits above any other windows open, regardless of whichever window is selected. Twitterific can update your tweets at a minimum of 3 minutes, which can be quite slow. My biggest problem with Twitterific is the fact that there are constant “Twitter Errors” where the connection between Twitter and Twitterific times out. This can be very annoying and enough to drive one towards using an alternate client.

Twhirl is another twitter client that works well. It seems to update faster than Twitterific and not have nearly as many connection errors. However, the UI of Twhirl is not as attractive as Twitterific, not having a transparent appearance that sits above other windows. Twhirl also has a dock icon. The application is responsive and quite easy to use, available on both Windows XP and Vista.

The Twitter client battle comes down to this – do you want a great looking, menu-bar app that is easy to use, but takes a longer time to connect to Twitter, or do you want a simple application that updates faster and more frequently that is dock-based and doesn’t look as great. The choice is yours.

After comparing the two clients, I chose to stick with Twitterific. Despite the annoying error messages, I still prefer the UI of Twitterific over Twhirl and really like how it’s situated in the menu-bar.

– Alexander Garovi

MacLoc is a very simple application to use,  requiring just a few clicks to get working. When downloaded there are two MacLoc apps – One is the regular, dock based application and the other is MacLoc ME, the menubar-based icon. To activate MacLoc ME, simply click the menubar icon and select ‘Activate’.

After clicking on one of the MacLoc icons, you will logout. Your open applications will be right where you left them when you login. MacLoc is the perfect solution for busy environments, preventing others from using your Mac.

– Alexander Garovi

1. In system Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts

2. Click [+] and in the Application menu select Safari

3. In the section “Menu Title” add the existing bookmark’s name

4. Assign the bookmark’s hotkey

After assigning the hotkey, you should see the hotkey next to the bookmark’s name on the menubar.

Sadly this shortcut doesn’t work with FireFox, my browser of choice. I hope this is useful for you Safari users.

– Alexander Garovi

Disk Inventory X is a disk monitoring application that allows you to see how much space your applications and other files take up. A column and color-coded tree map display the hard-disk space distribution.  The app is very easy to use, with a simple UI making it easy to view the status of your hard-disk. At startup, the app allows you to scan the Macintosh HD or other volumes, enabling you to  monitor Bootcamp partitions. Once a volume is selected, Disk Inventory X takes a couple of minutes to gather up information depending on the size of the volume.

AppCleaner is one of my personal favorite disk monitoring apps for OS X. AppCleaner is a simple drag-and-drop application that allows you to completely delete unwanted apps. By completely delete, I mean delete the application as well as its library files. Simply dragging applications from the Applications folder into the trash does not completely delete the application, leaving library .plist files behind. I highly recommend AppCleaner to anyone who wants to free up some hard-disk space.

OmniDiskSweeper is a mass file deleting utility that helps you get rid of many unwanted files at a time. The layout is pretty similar to Disk Inventory X, sorting your files by size in columns. At startup, the application asks you to select a volume. Simply select the unwanted files and click the delete button on the bottom of the window.

These applications can really be useful if you’re running low on disk space. They can be found in the “Free Apps” page. I Hope this is helpful.

– Alexander Garovi

1. Open Dictionary.app and go to Preferences

2. In Preferences there is a list of sources. Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Wikipedia, then exit Preferences

Now a Wikipedia tab should be visible, next to the Dictionary and Thesaurus Tabs (If thesaurus is an active source in your dictionary).

3. Simply search in the search bar and the result we be from Wikipedia.

– Alexander Garovi

1. Dragging Widgets Onto the Desktop
This Terminal command lets you place Dashboard widgets on your Desktop. In order to take effect the dock must be re-launched. To relaunch the Dock, type “Killall Dock” in Terminal. Click on the widget and press F12 to return to the desktop (If F12 is the volume adjustment key, press “fn-F12″).

To disable the command, keep the mouse button pressed down, press F12, and let go of the mouse. The Widget will be sent back to Dashboard.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

2. Make Hidden Applications Transparent
This command makes it easier to see which applications are hidden on your dock. You must relaunch the dock for this command to take effect: type “Killall Dock” in Terminal. Type “NO” at the end of the command to disable it.

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

3. Deactivate Dashboard
The Dock must be relaunched for this to work. Type in “Killall Dock” in Terminal to relaunch the Dock.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

4. Show Hidden Finder Files
To disable this command, replace “TRUE” at the end of the command with “FALSE”

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

5. Use The Screen Saver As The Wallpaper
Sets your selected screen saver as the Desktop background. To disable the command, press Command-Period.

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

6. 2D Dock
Changes the 3D dock to a flat 2D one. The Dock must be reset, by pressing “Killall Dock” in Terminal.

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

7. Increase Dock Magnification
Increases the size of magnified Dock icons. WARNING: Don’t go past 512.

defaults write com.apple.dock largesize -int 512

8. History Limit For Safari
Sets history limit to a certain amount of entries or to a certain age.

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryItemLimit 2000
AND / OR
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitHistoryAgeInDaysLimit 30

8. Removing The Spotlight Icon
To disable this command, replace the “0″ in the command with “755″.

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

9. Show Both Ends Of The Scrollbar
To reset, use the Appearance pane in System Preferences.

defaults write “Apple Global Domain” AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth

10. All Mail Displayed As Plain Text
To disable this command, replace “TRUE” with “FALSE”

11. Path View In Finder
This hack is extremely useful, letting you view the path of the folder your looking at.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

12. Quit Finder

defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES
killall Finder

13. Have Dock On The Left
To disable this command, replace “start” with “middle”.

defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string start

14. Have Dock On The Right

defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string end

15. White Menu Bar
This hack requires you to type your password and a system reboot

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer ‘EnvironmentVariables’ -dict ‘CI_NO_BACKGROUND_IMAGE’ 1

To go back to default, use this command:

sudo defaults delete /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer ‘EnvironmentVariables’

16. Grey Menu Bar

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

To Go back to default, use this command:

sudo defaults delete /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer ‘EnvironmentVariables’

17. Enable Time Machine On Unsupported Drives
It is unsupported, so use with caution

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

18. Increase Desktop Icon sizes
This hack let’s you increase your icon size up to 512 pixels x 512 pixels.

defaults write com.apple.finder DesktopViewOptions -dict IconSize -integer 512
killall Finder

19. Bigger Dock
Don’t go any larger than 256. In System Preferences, you can reduce its size.

defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 256

20. Change Time delay Of Dragging Windows Into Different Spaces
The default time delay is .75

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.5

21. Replace Safari Loading Bar With A Pie Chart (Safari 3)
This Safari hack eliminates the blue bar that is situated in the address bar. To deactivate this command, replace “TRUE” with “FALSE”

22. Force Quitting Processes Using Terminal
To quit processes using Terminal, you must know the Process ID (PID) of the app you want to quit. PIDs can be found in Activity monitor. Once you know the PID of the app, simply type “kill PID [NUMBER HERE].

kill PID 204

23. Star Wars Episode IV
This is definitely worth your time

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

24. Change The Format Of Screen Shot Images
In Terminal, replace “jpg” in the code below with whatever format you want – png, gif etc. For this change to take effect, you must log out and in again or restart your system.

25. Make Time Machine Backups More Frequent
Sometimes I want my Time Machine to do backups more frequently. With this hack, you can do so. The default time is 3600 seconds – one hour. Simply replace that amount of time with the amount of time you want in seconds.

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 3600

– Alexander Garovi

1. Open Terminal
2. Type in emacs and press enter
3. Press Esc-X and you’ll see M-x at the bottom of the screen
4. Type Tetris and press enter

And there you go – Tetris will now open in Terminal. Use the arrow keys to move the blocks around and spacebar to drop them. You can exit by pressing Control-X – Control-C, or by just quitting Terminal.

– Alexander Garovi

1. Open Terminal and type emacs then Esc-X
Enter any of the following words to play these games

Pong

Snake

Dunnet – An adventure text-based game

Doctor – Terminal becomes a Doctor you can talk to

Life – Text screen saver

Zone – Strange text manipulator

– Alexander Garovi