How to contribute a tip (or start a thread)…

Blogs, of course, are set up to let the author be the main voice and others do the commenting. If you want to contribute a tip, or comment on something Mac-ish that’s not in reply to something already said, do it as a comment on this post.

I’ll convert it to its own post (with whatever name you use for it) so it can be a standalone item.

~Sharon Zardetto

PS: Recent gap due to medical adventures, but I’m back for April, I’ll go missing in mid-May, and then back again!

TIP: Open multiple Safari bookmarks with a single click (auto-click folders)

When you create a folder for bookmarks in the Bookmarks window (Command-Option-B to open it), and put that folder on the bookmarks bar (by dragging it into the Bookmarks Bar collection), you get drop-down menu on the bookmarks bar listing those bookmarks. Change it to an “auto-click” folder, and instead you get a button that, when clicked, opens every bookmark in the folder, each in its own tab in the current window.

TIP: Retrieve a disappeared Spotlight menu

Okay, first: I know “disappeared” is not an adjective – but it conveyed my meaning, didn’t it? Next: I use the Spotlight menu more than the average bear. And, almost weekly it will up and disappear from my menu bar. I don’t know why it leaves, but here’s how to get it back:

TIP: Cycle through Finder-window toolbar display options

The Finder’s Customize Toolbar dialog sheet (that’s what it’s called when it slides out of the title bar!) – open it with View > Customize Toolbar – provides two adjustments for how your toolbar icons look.

TIP: Spacebar Scrolling

In Safari and Preview, you can scroll the window simply by pressing the spacebar; Shift-spacebar scrolls in the opposite direction.

TIP: Force-Add a Site to Top Sites in Safari 4

Safari 4’s choice for Top Sites may miss ones that you’d like included (maybe one you haven’t been to in awhile got bumped out of the lineup because you hadn’t pinned it). You don’t have to wait for it to show up on its own:

TIP: Get Mac’s Serial Number

Check your Mac’s serial number without turning the laptop upside down or contorting yourself to see behind an iMac screen or… well, you get the idea (also, no squinting at tiny numbers).

COMMENTARY: Macs dissed by NCIS

So, I’m watching one of my very enjoyable TV shows, NCIS, (”very enjoyable” is far above “well, there’s nothing else on,” and a bit below “gotta watch it”), and resident geek Agent McGee unpacks a box from home, stuff from his childhood, and pulls out… a Mac/SE. Sort of.

TIP: Prevent Spotlight from searching the Trash

The whole point of the Trash is getting rid of things you don’t want anymore, and even if you empty it only every few months, it’s unlikely you want a Spotlight search to include its contents. But excluding the Trash from Spotlight indexing is not an obvious procedure, because it’s an invisible folder in the Finder-which would seem to make it pretty hard to drag it to the Spotlight preference pane’s Privacy (exclusion) list. However, it’s not difficult at all:

TIP: Change the Duplicate Shortcut

You’re looking at a Finder window and want to view the Desktop level (because your Desktop’s a mess and it’s easier to view a list in the window than those icons scattered all over). Out of long-ingrained habit, you press Command-D to look at the Desktop-and find you’ve triggered the Duplicate command, coping whatever was selected in your window (your entire hard drive?).

TIP: In Mail, view both Received and Sent messages in a thread

When you turn on “threads” in Mail, messages with the same subject are grouped together so you can review the thread of an email correspondence – or, at least you can review one side of the conversation in your Inbox, because end of the conversation – your replies – are in your Sent box and aren’t included in the Inbox thread.