It’s a common symptom among new Mac users to be really ecstatic about their new MacBook, praise the speed and functionality, then after a month or so start seeing some flaws; much like in any relationship, where your passionate blind love from the first weeks starts to fade, giving way to more realistic assessments.
Some hard-core Linux geeks will probably miss their configuration files, kernel hacking and source code install. Windows users might miss their favorite software(Picasa, Winamp or Total Commander). I didn’t miss my Windows machine one bit, partly because I got used to other essential Mac software, partly because I use my Windows software from within Windows virtual machines, and mostly because I realized the Mac offers me all the productivity tools I ever wished for, out of the box or for free.

This article lists several essential but frequently forgotten configuration tips that make the most of your Mac. A future article will cover some vitally important FREE (or really inexpensive) Mac OSX software for your daily chores.

Faithful readers might have already read these tips here, on HackTheDay, but I do hope they’ll learn a few new things as well.

Use the 7 geek tricks for a fresh OSX install

The most important of them are:

1. Always download your latest updates
2. activate the keyboard shortcuts, Enable Full Keyboard Access, and try to learn the most important shortcuts: don’t miss the complex Screenshot shortcuts, the Keyboard Navigation ones (you’ll want to remember Ctrl+F2 to access the menubar, Command+comma to invoke the preferences screen for the current app, Command+Q to quit the current app) or Command+` to tab through the current’s application opened windows
3. activate “Use F1-F12 keys to control software features.”
4. activate the two-fingers secondary click

Deactivate the Mac startup chime by using the free StartupSound.prefPane application

I know, this falls into the category of vital OSX apps, but it’s so darn important that you’ll want to use it right ahead.

Open folders in a new Finder window

One of the many things novice Mac users don’t know is that in Finder, all it takes is to keep Option key pressed while double-clicking on a folder. Also, in case you didn’t know, the Undo command (Command+Z) also works in Finder, when deleting, undeleting or renaming files. Now.. does Windows know how to do this? Yeah, I thought so…

Activate your Expose Active Corners and shortcut keys

Here’s my setup: I rarely use Command+Tab to switch apps, the reflex of moving my mouse to the corner got under my skin. It’s way faster and gives you the full overview of what happens on your screen.

In Expose, quickly see the names of the opened windows

Just press Alt(Option) key while in Expose mode. See any change?

Use Spotlight to launch Apps

Spotlight comes included by default, as opposed to Quicksilver, Butler or other application launchers. You do need a bit of tweaking to successfully use it as such: first of all, change the order the results are displayed, unchecking as many file types as possible(the fewer, the more responsive Spotlight is) and changing the order to match your behavior.
Here’s my Spotlight settings:

Customize the time display in the menu bar

The above link show you how.
While you’re at the menu bar, feel free to remove any unwanted icons by pressing Alt(Option) while dragging them out.

Get comfortable with Automator and Terminal

If you’re a Linux geek, Terminal will rise to your expectations.. if only you know how to properly set it up to make it look as cool as you need.
I configured it to have a transparent background so I can see what happens in my other apps, to display ANSI colors and, off course, to use these settings as default for every new window. The fact that it allows for multi tabs is a welcomed addition. Here’s my Matrix-like setup:

As for Automator… this is one of the most powerful tools on your mac, and probably the most underrated one. Most Mac users never even opened it. I, for one, have used it to define a Multiple file rename Finder plugin, that I use now and then to rename, in 3 seconds, hundreds of selected files - a task that would have taken many annoying minutes, otherwise. Curious on how I did this? Keep tuned for a future episode.

In the meantime, you might want to take a peek under your OSX hood - there might be more amazing gems you didn’t know it has…

Quick question: what is the One and only most essential tool for any productivity fan?

You guessed it - the calendar.

There are many reasons why you’d want to use Google Calendar for your time management: first of all, it’s free; second, it’s online(you can access it from everywhere). Third, it has SMS alerts, which is probably the single feature I use most. The one major downside of Google Calendar has is… being an online tool; a less than perfect user interface, less than instantaneous responsiveness. Luckily, this all is in the past as of today:

Google announced CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple’s iCal(version 3.x - on Mac OS X v10.5+ ). In layman’s terms, this means seamless bidirectional synchronization of calendar events. No more awkward emails, no more missed meetings(actually.. this isn’t such a good news, as we all know it - meetings are productivity killers).

Here’s a step by step walkthrough in setting up Google Calendar synchronization:

1. First, you download on your OSX 10.5 mac the setup tool, called Calaboration. It’s in zip format, so you’ll want to unarchive it. Go ahead and run it, entering your Google login credentials, then click Sign In.

2. Select which of the Google Calendars you want to add to your iCal.
3. If you haven’t already added your Google email(login) to Address Book, you’ll want to do this, or else “You won’t be able to invite or email guests to Google Calendar events within iCal if your address is not in your Address Book.”

4. Your Google Calendar will now appear in iCal’s list of calendars, and iCal will sync any changes to and from Google Calendar.

Event information will refresh every 5 minutes; if you want to change this interval, you can do it in the iCal > Preferences > Accounts menu, from the ‘Refresh calendars’ drop-down. You can also refresh calendars manually, by pressing the Apple and R keys at the same time.

This is it. Easy and efficient, much like most of Google’s online tools.
Happy productivity everyone. And remember to keep yourselves out of meetings.

What I did was to follow TUAW’s tutorial, but here’s a quick summary, just in case you’re in a hurry:
1. in System Preferences, International, Formats submenu. Select Customize date, then chose the format you want, and COPY it (select all, Cmd+C).

2. Press Ok, then from the same window, Customize for the Times part. Move the cursor before the time format, press Cmd+V(Paste). Press OK.

Easy peasy.

What do you think? Doesn’t it look cleaner and .. better?

However, just like so many things in my life, turning a nicely put “method” into a productive habit is… almost impossible for me - my attention span lasts at most a couple of weeks, as if I were related to the common goldfish.

The one method that’d work for me… generally, would be one where I could write down my projects and goals, somehow mark my progress (I’m in constant need for confirmation and gratification, just to keep me going), automatically have it under my eyes on a regular basis (I kept forgetting to open up the GTD software I’ve been trying for the last couple of years), help me prioritize between different tasks and, most importantly, be really easy to use(no complicated setup, hierarchies or folders).

There is a lot of software out there that meets this criteria, offline or online. The one I use for the time being is TaskFive. Gorgeous, really easy to use, pretty effective.

What it is not:

This is not the classic GTD tool. Not even a remote relative of GTD software you might know of.

What it is:

TaskFive.com is mostly an online task management tool for an individual or for a team(company).
Unlike GTD or other similar task management tools, it looks and behaves mostly like an online timetable for the current week. You can allocate tasks for today, tomorrow or any other day(although you only get to see one week at a time), but you can’t allocate more than 5 tasks for a given day.
This is what I like about it, actually: a quota of 5 tasks for a day is big enough to be useful, yet small enough to force you to prioritize; otherwise, the whole purpose of GTD would be lost and you’d get tens of overwhelming, minor, insignificant tasks.
Another reason why it works so far for me is because it’s really easy to use and set up. After creating a user account, there’s no extra setup necessary; no labels, folders, no recurring alarm setup. Nothing redundant or unimportant.

The need for instant gratification and progress tracking is achieved by checking out the items of today’s (or any other day’s) list. Reaching the weekend after having checked all your 5*5 tasks for the past week is pretty rewarding.

What I think is really the killer feature of the app is that it’s targeted at companies, not individuals. While an individual can use it like a simple task / gtd tool, the project manager can use it as a simple team project management that works. A company can add more users to the same page, so that they(and their manager) can see their individual progress during the week. Some reports are available, as well as SMS notifications(though I didn’t quite get what they are supposed to do). It’s worth mentioning that the company account costs(quite a bit actually - €9 per user after 2 users).

To close up, I really like this: the UI looks and feels great, the app is simple yet beautiful and effective, and having it bookmarked as my starting page helped me get more organized and feel more productive for the last week or so. Knowing that such a product was developed in less than 5 days using Ruby on Rails is the final cherry on the cake.

So, here’s a couple of productivity-related links received from my readers during the last year or so, togetger with a bit of link love :

• 45 mobile resources for the road warrior
• A simple GTD online tool - Task Writer
• Time management teleseminars from time experts
• GTD agenda - another nice looking GTD online tool
• Eluma - “It’s like iTunes, but for your web stuff instead of your music, a free desktop-downloadable personal productivity tool”
• GTDInbox, a Firefox addon for Gmail that “transforms Gmail into a powerhouse of productivity”

Enjoy your productive day, and keep in touch : I’m back, baby!

Now, why would you do this? Maybe, like me, you have a fresh Leopard install and you NEVER use MobileMe, and you want to declutter the menu bar. Easy, ain’t it?

Learn to be in the here and now, and experience life as it’s happening, and appreciate the world for the beauty that it is, right now. Practice makes perfect with this crucial skill.

Maybe happiness isn’t something you should aim for. Maybe happiness isn’t something you need to work at.

Maybe happiness is just like sunglasses.

Happiness is a state of mind. You shouldn’t leave in the pursuit of happiness. Instead, happiness is all around you.

It’s in the simple things, in the delicious taste of a fresh fruit, in the silent peace of countryside evenings. In the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, in the curly smoke floating out of a cigarette, in the smile of your loved one, the voice of your kids. Reaching happiness is just a matter of changing your point of view: change the way you look at the world.

Instead of focusing at the future, desperately waiting for it, just focus on the present and the beauty it gives. Instead of craving for the past pleasures, enjoy the current ones.

What are you waiting for? Put on your happiness sunglasses and enjoy your holiday!

Easier done than said, actually. Just take a peek at this nice chart attempt:

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Open up a Google Docs spreadsheet
2. Fill in some data: the first column contains the labels, the second contains the data
3. Click on the “Create a Map, Chart or Table…” link
4. Select the chart type, data range and extra options
5. From the drop down menu that appears when you click on the arrow on top of the gadget, select “Publish Gadget”
6. Copy the html code that appears in any webpage you want.
   Like this:
   <script src="http://spreadsheets.google.com/gpub?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffr2uemo5-a.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fifr%3Fup__table_query_url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fspreadsheets.google.com%252Ftq%253Frange%253DB3%25253AC7%2526key%253DpDdwu6GMFeYb3vIf_e3SARw%2526gid%253D0%2526pub%253D1%26up_title%3D24%2520hours%26up_chartTitle%3D24%2520hours%26up_legend%3D0%26up_3d%3D1%26up__table_query_refresh_interval%3D0%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252Fig%252Fmodules%252Fpie-chart.xml&height=514&width=450"></script>

Enjoy:

One of the “custom” search engines I had installed was called Flickr Tags. Ironically, though, using it was always a burden. Most of the times I didn’t want to simply search Flickr; what I wanted instead was to search Flickr for Creative Commons images(ones I could put on my blog, for instance), sorted by interestingness (to keep the lame ones out). One way to do this would have been to simply search Mycroft Project for a better one. One other way, though, was to just create my own custom search engine, and this proved to be much simpler than expected (the proof is the little plugin over on mycroft.mozdev.org called Flickr Creative Commons Interesting).

For tutorial purposes, I’ll show you how to build, step by step, a Firefox Search Engine for Twitter contacts.

For this:

1. We’ll need a favicon for the project. Let’s go to http://twitter.com/favicon.ico and save it on our computer.
2. Go to http://mycroft.mozdev.org/submitos.html. Check the “Full Instructions” checkbox if you need verbose indications, or just continue.
3. Choose the icon as the Twitter favicon you previously saved.
4. Fill in the project name, your email, the project description..
5. Now for the nice part: The Search URL:
   
   When I used the search feature on Twitter (see screenshot), I saw that the page url gets changed to include the searched terms. I’ll just copy the url in the Search URL: field, replacing my searched terms by {searchTerms}. Therefore, a url like http://twitter.com/tw/search/users?q=george gets changed into http://twitter.com/tw/search/users?q={searchTerms}. Easy as PI!
6. Fill in the remaining fields: the plugin category, language, default page(Search Form URL:), comment.
   
7. Click on Generate Plugin

That’s it, you’re done. You’ll see a link to your plugins list. Clicking on the plugin’s name will prompt you to add it in the Firefox Search Engines bar.

It took me less than 2 minutes, and I got my custom search engine. You can do it as well. What’s best, by carefully looking at other parameters a search form sends you can, for instance, change the sort order, fine grain the search results and more.

If you ever find yourself using an online search form time and time again, you should consider using(or even creating) a Firefox custom search engine that could save you many hours in the future.