Tip Tap on the mousepad (part2).

You can do amazing things with your trackpad: one of the most used/useful/smart things is surely the Scrolling: neither using those boring "elevators" on the sides of windows, nor using the small arrow to pull or push down the text in your page or finding the small zone of your trackpad that will allow you scroll your screen:
You can simply put two fingers (if one is already there, just put the other one down) and move them (just one or both, how you find best) up and down, or right and left, and the window/photo, ... will magically scroll in your direction ! Trying this feature will make you addicted to that.... believe me.

Tip Tap on the mousepad (part1).

So You come from the Windows world and still haven't get rid of that old right-click habit, is it ? me neither. Even if in Macosx the right click is not so often used, it's nevertheless sometimes cool to have it accesible somewhere:
a) in all systems you can RIGHT-CLICK/SECONDARY CLICK by clicking while holdind the CTRL key on the keyboard.
b) if you're using the trackpads on laptops you can also do that by tapping with two fingers (toghether) or holding two fingers on it and hitting the button. this must be enabled in system preferences > trackpad > secondary click.

Target mode?

There is a VERY simple way to access the internal drive of you mac without using a screwdriver: when you startup your mac, keep the "T" key pressed until the yellow firewire (jumping) logo appears. At that moment you can use a firewire cable (unless you own a macbook air) to connect your computer to another one that has firewire: then your original mac will appear as an extenal disk. Warning, all files will be accessible and writable at this stage; if you needed some more protection google for "open firmware set password".

Some place safe.

You've sometimes needed a safe place to store some sensible information, could it be for work's purpouse or for some swiss bank account's password, isn't it ? There is a simple way to do it with some standard tools provided by MacOSX: "Disk utility". Fire it up and then choose "new image" than choose your (maximum) size, choose partition disk type, sparse disk image format and encryption enbled. This will create a password-protected usb-stick like drive when you double click on the "youdisk.sparseimage" file you just had created. (note: disk file will only occupy the space according to the files inside and not the maximum defined sparseimage size).

What about a nice slideshow ?

You certainly have the need to quickly show some photos/picture to someone or even yourself. I won't detail the "official" software used to manage pictures like the nice iphoto or the professional aperture, but I'd rather describe the quick way:

PREVIEW: you can select all the files you want to see, then right click and OPEN. Preview will open all the files in one window (switch between the pics with the up/down arrows), then use the VIEW menu and choose SLIDESHOW (COMMAND + SHIFT + F), a full screen overlay will appear and slideshow will start. If you move the mouse, some buttons will appear and even allow to see a "thumbnail" view of all the pics. Nice touch, ...Try it out.

QUICKLOOK: In Leopard (macosx 10.5) you can also use the functional "quicklook": select the same files (or only one) you want to see, the hit SPACE. A semi-transparent overlay will appear, then use the up/down arrows to cycle the pics, you can even put that in full screen or use the very same useful thumbnail view.

Easter Egg: using Quicklook viewing you can also press the ALT key and scroll the mouse ROLLER to zoom in, unpress ALT and pan around using the scroll wheel.

Rename tha files.

There is always the need to rename something in your everyday's life: it can be the latest file you've downloaded that has some cryptic name, the picture of your latest trip that you want more self-explanatory or the updated home expense sheet you have to change the date. So here 's some nice tips that are a bit more evolute than the F2 command available in windows.

• to rename a file you (after having it selected) just hit ENTER (yes, the big one) and you'll see a light-blue overlay over the text, then you just type the new name.
  
• From leopard on, the extension will be preserved (not in light-blue editeable) , which is nice. You might also overwrite it by mistake, you'll then be prompted for the new extension, but you still can choose (default) to hold the older one.
• During the light-blue phase you can also use the arrows to set the cursor position directly at the beginning or the end of the text to be edited.
  

Where the **** is the DELETE key?

You must first now that there are two different type of deleting-key: there is the BACKSPACE that allows to delete the characters before the cursor, and there is also the DELETE key that erases the ones after the cursor. In PC's keyboards you'll find both, but in Mac's there is only the Backspace one. Don't be afraid: you still can do the DELETE action by pressing FN + BACKSPACE. Enjoy !