Mac things

So I've learned a couple tricks for mac recently. None of them warrant a full post, but together... well brace yourself.

The Boss is coming!
Okay, so there are times for being sneaky.  We all know it. It's always when you're shopping for your wife's Birthday present,  you're goofing off in class, or your IMing about your boss, when the person of interest walks by and looks at your computer. Well The great people at apple have thought ahead for you! Just hit Control+Shift+Eject for an instant black screen. Just FYI, things go back to normal as soon as you move your cursor, so I would recommend playing it cool till the situation resolves itself.

Oh no I closed that tab!
Safari has a cool tool in it that I only heard of recently. If you closed a tab by accident, don't panic! Just ⌘+Z that thing, and safari will bring it back!

Mail Shortcuts:
It is a horribly annoying thing to have to hit the buttons to send, reply, reply all or forward in mail. Unfortunately the shortcuts are not intuitive. So here are they are. If you don't know then, memorize them, then send gift cards to say thanks:

Send - Command+Shift+D
Reply - Command+R
Reply All - Command+Shift+R
Forward - Command+Shift+F

Mail like you're on an iPhone
Some people have really come to love the whole thread view that Mail for iPhone uses. Personally, I hate it, but that's just me. If you happen to be a fan, simply click on View in mail, and hit "Organize by Thread." Then you're $2000 computer can feel like a $500 phone.

Screen shots + Full window captures.
We all know that Command+Shift+4 will let you draw an area to capture as a screen shot. What I recently learned is that if you hit spacebar after releasing Command+Shift+4, it switched it so it captures the entire window you select.

What does that word mean again?
In most OSX programs you can look up the meaning of a word simply by highlight it, then hitting Command+Control+D. For some of you I just reduced the amount you use Google by half. You're welcome.


Geeking out.
    Most people can skip right over this, but if you're a super geek this one is for you. Go download Geek Tool from the app store. This lets you overlay your desktop background with all kinds of goodness such as system logs, activity reports, and other things that help you live like a true genius. It even interfaces with some Linux software for those of you who only dabble in OSX for something fun to try between ruling the internet.

Login Items
    Remember that one time in high school when you told Skype it was okay to load on start up? Yeah... fast forward a couple years and rebooting your computer has turned into a game of trying to force quit Skype before it has time to start sucking up all your RAM. Well, luckily this is one mistake you can undo. Go to System Preferences > Accounts. Click on your name, and above your picture to the right you will see a button that says Login Items. Click there, and turn those unwanted programs off! Just make sure not to turn off anything you don't understand.

Quitting a program without being in the program
Wanna switch between programs? Everyone knows you hit Command+Tab and it brings up a list of all the programs on your computer. While holding down Command, you can hit tab again and again to scroll through the programs. BUT I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW that while a program is highlighted, you can hit Q to quit the program or H to hide it and all of it's windows from sight. This has revolutionize my shut down process.

Finally, Switching between windows within a program
If you're like me you often have multiple windows of the same program open. You can switch between them by hitting Command+` (that is the button above Tab).


Alright that is enough for now. I'll post more later. LLAP