TechBlog

After reading my colleague, Aaron Hecker’s Tip of the Week posts, I thought it might be useful to provide some tips for our Mac population. As we are seeing more and more students bringing in Mac’s, and I should note with few less problems than Windows on the support side, it would be nice if I shared some useful productivity tips using the built-in Finder.

Typically within Finder, you are either locating documents, applications, or moving documents around. As you might be aware, you can always toggle between your productivity Finder views by:

• Command-1 (icon view)
• Command-2 (list view)
• Command-3 (column view)
• Command-4 (cover flow)

Each having their own purpose. I am typically working with Apple-3 (Column view) and using my arrow keys to cruise along, navigating to and from my documents. This is pretty basic stuff. However, there are a handful of really useful Finder tools that might assist in your day-to-day productivity.

1. Showing the Path bar. Enable this by clicking on View - Show Path Bar. Notice in the bottom area of the finder window you get the full path to where you are. This is really helpful if you are in a List or icon view, and need to move around. Double-clicking on any of the items in the bottom take you to that location.

2. Adding items your toolbar. Granted, the Mac has the dock, as well as the left-hand side of your Finder to add your favorite applications, or documents that you consistently need to go to, however did you also know that you can drap a folder, application, or document to the top of the toolbar, wait a second until the plus symbol shows up, and release. You can use the Command-drag to remove it from the toolbar.

3. Proxy Icons. See that tiny icon at the top of every Finder window?. Control-click on it to show a pop-up menu displaying its folder hierarchy. Select a folder to get there. If you hold down the command key while selecting a folder, it will open up in a new Finder window.

4. Dragging Files. Here is a nifty little way to move files around. If you drag a file over a folder, and pause a second, that folder will open p and show its contents. Drag the file over another folder in that window, and that folder will also open. Using this “spring-loaded” feature allows you to move files deep into your folder hierarchy without having to open new windows. Pressing the spacebar while holding a file over a folder will immediately open the window, and pressing the escape key will cancel the move.

Here’s a handy trick which everyone should learn. To quickly cycle through all the windows you have on your computer, hold the Alt key and press Tab. You’ll notice it’ll bring up a windows showing you what’s open. By default, Alt + Tab will go to the window you had open prior to your current window. Holding Alt and tapping tab multiple times allows you to scroll through the list of open programs and select the one you want.If you have Aero enabled in Vista, you’ll get an even cooler view of the open apps.

For Mac users, the keycombination is Command/Apple + Tab. While this will switch between windows for you and is quite handy, so are the F9-F12 keys on your Mac. Hitting those will arrange the windows and give you a preview of what’s going on in each of them. Experiment to see which key does what.

Switching between windows this way can really increase your productivity. It’s also useful if a dialog box opened behind a window and you can’t find it because it has no spot on the taskbar.

Have a broken key on your keyboard? How about two? Three? More? Maybe it’s time to address the issue rather than continue to work around it. If you happen to have the dislocated key and all the plastic bits underneath, you might be able to snap it back on with a little handy fingerwork. If you need help, see your local techie.

If you don’t have the  old key or the clips are broken, you can get a baggie of laptop keys from eBay for less than $10 which will work on many laptops - perhaps even yours. If you don’t want to mess around with that, buy a complete replacement for about $20-30. It’s usually as simple as removing 3 screws and replacing the keyboard. Stop putting up with the hassle of reaching for the other shift key or hitting the little nub under your missing spacebar. Just replace it!