Mac 101: The wonderful magical Shift key

... and double clicking an icon in the finder.

Try selecting 20-30 folders in a finder window list view, then hold down shift and double-click them. O___O

Yup. Even the little white/blue button on the top right of every finder window that hides the sidebar animates. It's a little nauseating actually.

I have also seen it work when you shift drag something and drop it on an invalid location. It slowly drifts back to it's original location. I think it probably is the underlying animation system being effected by this, which would mean anything using that system would be slowed.

Yay! This is the first thing of mine posted! Thanks, TUAW!

You can use shift+option+[volume keys] to increase or decrease volume in quarter-increments.

I've noticed it also works in Mail's message composition window, when you click the menu button just to the left of the info fields (the icon looks like three horizontal lines) and select "Customize". You can literally see the extra fields "unsqueezing" from between the others as they shift down to make room.

Also, pretty much ANY animation you see in Exposé, Spaces or Dashboard is affected by the Shift key. This includes stuff like widgets shifting from icon to full widget form as you drag them out; the ripple effect when you drop them; the "sucking" animation when you close them; and the rotation of the "+" button into an "×" button when you slide open the widget shelf. One that doesn't seem to work is flipping widgets over.

I don't know how much of Time Machine can be slowed with the Shift key, as I've never had the opportunity to use it. (I know, I'm bad, I just can't afford the extra hard drive right now.)

It also works in chrome, when closing or opening a tab,

It also works when changing the volume (via F11/F12) which will suppress the beep to indicate the new volume.

It also works with Spaces.

The shift key also works when invoking Dashboard.