More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

This is really two tips in one. The first is a fairly basic one that new Mac users might not know: you can drag any folder to the right-hand side your dock (to the right of the faint-white lines which separate the Trash from applications). When you first set up an account, the Applications, Documents, and Downloads folders are already there.

The second is a "news to me" tip: did you know that when you connect via screensharing to different Macs, a file is created in your home directory at ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/?

These files can be used to reconnect to those machines simply by clicking on them. This means that you can launch Screen Sharing without having to switch to Finder, locate the machine, and then click the "Screen Share..." button. If you screen share to a different Mac, the .vncloc file will automatically be added to that folder. Just drag the folder of Screen Sharing shortcuts to your dock to make it into an easily-accessible Stack.

Using the Finder does have one advantage: if a computer is not available (if it's powered off or asleep) it will automatically disappear from the "Shared" section in Finder. The files in the Screen Sharing folder will still be there, so if you are having trouble connecting, you might check Finder to make sure that it still "sees" the computer you are trying to reach.

Henrik Nyh also suggested putting VNC shortcuts in a Stack in the dock, and he adds the notion of picking some suitable icons for them. Check out his rundown here.

We've mentioned Dropzone before as a Friday Favorite, but I just happened across the app while I was trying to solve a problem.

I suspect many TUAW readers find themselves in the same situation that I am in: I use a desktop and a laptop. I often find myself wanting to move files between these two machines, so here's what I do: switch to Finder, click on the shared Mac I want, navigate to the folder I'm looking for, and then track down the file I want to copy there and drag it over. I could drag a folder from the other computer to my "Places" sidebar in Finder, but honestly, I just never do.

What I wanted was something quick and painless. I tried to whip something up using Automator and Folder Actions where it would copy/move files saved in one folder to the other machine, but even that would get messy. Most often I don't want to move the file, I just want to copy it. I could put the files in Dropbox, but some of these files are sizable (i.e. the 30+ MB iMovie update). To use Dropbox for this would take a long time.

Turns out that Dropzone offers the perfect solution: by enabling FTP on both Macs (System Preferences > Sharing > File Sharing, then click the "Options" button, and check the box "Share files and folders using FTP") I now have a drag & drop solution to copying files between computers. Simply drag the file to the Dropzone icon on the dock and then drop it onto one of the many "dropzones" which I have defined, and Dropzone does the rest. Two folders that I added almost immediately? The "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder in the iTunes folder and the Auto Import folder from inside my iPhoto Library (you will have to control-click your iPhoto library and choose "Show Package Contents" to find the "Auto Import" folder).

There are several plugins available to extend Dropzone to other services such as ImageShack, TwitPic, Flickr, and more. For Internet services, not only will the file get copied to where you want it to go, but the URL will be placed on the clipboard so you can paste the URL wherever you want it to go. I often FTP files to my website, and files Dropzone FTPs to a website can also support putting the URL on the clipboard.

There are several other nifty options, Dropzones for starting the screensaver, putting your Mac to sleep, or drag & drop printing a file to the default printer. You can also zip files (or zip and email them) and many other conveniences.

The biggest feature of all was one that I almost overlooked until I watched a screencast from macosxscreencasts.com about Dropzone. A built-in Dropzone called "Install Application" will allow you to drag a .dmg onto Dropzone and have the DMG mounted, the app installed to /Applications, the DMG moved to the recycle bin, and the app launched (it also works with applications which have been .zip'd instead of put into a disk image).

If you are anything like me, the "install a new app" process is several steps that you repeat a lot. Dropzone's handling of it is incredibly fast and works really well. If it opens a DMG it cannot handle (such as an installer), it will simply open the folder. Great, start stuff that saves you time and frustration. Remember how computers were supposed to make our lives easier? Dropzone does just that.

Drobo was a bit of a life-saver for me. Before Drobo I had about 13 different hard drives storing different kinds of data (music on one, video on another, pictures on another, etc). My Drobo let me bring those all together in a very cool way.

I just stumbled across a new-to-me feature of the Drobo Dashboard (the Mac application used to control your Drobo) which allows me to do two things I enjoy:

1. Free up space on my menu bar
2. Utilize space on my Dock better

While I was looking for something else, I clicked on the Drobo Dashboard menu, and saw the options shown in the picture. Actually when I saw it the line which reads "Show Menu Bar Icon" said "Hide Menu Bar Icon."

So I clicked on it, because I love getting things off my menu bar, and I rarely looked at the Drobo menu bar icon. What I did not realize was that when you hide the menu bar icon, the Dock icon for Drobo changes from a static Drobo logo a pie chart you see in the image here (4th from the bottom, in case that isn't clear).

As you can see, I have about 22% of my Drobo available. (I assume at that color will turn yellow when I get below 15% available space, or red if I get below 5% free space, as those are the colors and thresholds that I believe Drobo uses for "low" and "critical" levels, respectively.)

I haven't used the Drobo Dashboard for awhile so I am not sure how "new" this feature is, but it is a welcome option. The Dock icon is much easier to read than the menu bar version, and it frees up valuable real estate in the menu bar. I could not find a way to turn off both the menu bar and the dock display -- you have to choose one or the other.

Also, if you have not looked at "DroboCopy" it's worth checking out as well. It is a simple backup system to dupe a folder from your hard drive to the Drobo. It is fairly rudimentary, but rudimentary backups are better than none. Personally I use Apple's own Backup.app to automatically backup my iCal and Address Book information to my Drobo every day, in case it gets corrupted using MobileMe syncing. You can use Apple's Backup app even if you don't use Mobile Me.

The more we use Snow Leopard the more niceties we uncover. This week I found a simple little check box that has made my life infinitely more awesome. Yes, my entire life.

First, a bit of background. When Mac OS 10.0 was released in September of 2001, we all went crazy with the genie effect, watching windows slip in and out of the newly-introduced Dock with silky smoothness.* Window after window slid into place.

The problem was this: minimized windows moved neighboring icons aside, making everything a bit smaller and harder to identify. Eventually the whole mess became unusable. Sure, you could mouse over or check the identifying icon but ancient eyes like mine aren't meant for such strain.

Snow Leopard has come to the rescue. Now you can minimize windows "behind" their parent app's icon. Here's how. First. launch System Preferences and click "Dock." Then, select "Minimize windows into application icon." As Jeff Goldblum said, "There's no step three." Now, minimized windows scoot behind your Dock icons and there's no more crowding.

*OK, jaggy, halting smoothness. Still, it was cool. Mostly.

Let's face it; the Mac OS X Dock is pretty boring. I mean, other than the little glowing blue LED underneath active applications that a lot of people can't see anyway, it's just a boring, opaque white reflective shelf. Wouldn't you like to add some excitement to it?

Well, you still can't relive the glory of your high school athletic prowess and put that dusty third-place trophy for shot-put on the shelf, but you can make the Dock look nicer with Dock Library. It's a shareware application from Dative Studios that enables quick switching of your Dock styles. TUAW covered this little application in 2008, but we have a lot of new readers who may not be aware of how Dock Library works.

Dock Library doesn't come with a bunch of built-in styles; for those, you need to go to sites such as LeopardDocks.com or LeopardDocks.net, both of which have a variety of free Dock templates ranging from the commonplace to the absurd.

After installing Dock Library, I chose the nice "Coffee Table Rounded" Dock design (see below), which looks like beautifully finished wood and has rounded corners. What's really nice is that those blue LEDs really show up under my active applications now, and that Dock Library works with Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard with no issues.
I'm curious to find out what bizarre or cool Dock templates our readers would like to see -- your ideas might be just the thing to stimulate some creative designer to submit a new template to the LeopardDocks sites. Leave your comments below.

[via Download Squad and Sizlopedia]

Last night I received an email from a friend who was irate. He's been using his iPod touch as a portable video solution with a dock and video out cable. The iPod and the cable got along famously until he updated to iPhone OS 3.0.1 OS 3.0 [sorry, there isn't a 3.0.1 for the iPod touch]. Now, the iPod refuses to recognize it. Same cable, same dock, same iPod.

We looked around and found that he's not alone. There's a thread on Apple's Discussion Boards reporting the same thing. It's affecting both the iPod touch and the iPhone. Apparently 3.0 is specifically designed to reject 3rd party cables, strictly on the premise that they fail the "Made by Apple" test. One poster on the discussion board notes that the original Apple Component AV cable and dock work fine. Sure, you could restore and downgrade, but that seems silly.

Of course, no company has a responsibility to support 3rd party devices, so my friend is out of luck. But we're sympathetic. If you're affected by this issue, all we can say is it's probably time to pony up for a cable from Apple.

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac users.

The Dock was introduced with Mac OS 10.0 in March of 2001. Switchers typically think of it as equivalent to the Windows Task Bar, and that's not an unfounded comparison. Both can launch applications, open directories and share information. But the Dock differs from the Task Bar in a number of ways. If you're new to the Mac, this post will get you acquainted with one of Mac OS X's prominent features.

First, let's look at the Dock's preference pane. Launch System Preferences and click (wait for it) Dock. Here, two sliders let you adjust the Dock's size and magnification level. That is to say, the degree to which docked icons "expand" as you mouse over them. They can get pretty darn large, so be sure that's what you want before dragging that slider all the way to the right.

You'll notice that you can adjust the Dock's position on the screen. The position of the Dock is the subject of great debate among Mac nerds, but I'll spare you the details by saying this: Some like it on the bottom, some like it on the left and some like it on the right. If you're running 10.5 or later, you'll notice that the Dock's appearance changes dramatically when moved from the bottom to the sides.

The so-called "Genie Effect" lets your windows appear to be rapidly "sucked" into the Dock when you click the yellow minimize button. That's strictly for looks, and you can disable it by selecting "Scale." If you're running an older Mac (like a PPC G4), selecting Scale will slightly reduce the graphics burden on your older machine. Fun tip: Hold down the Shift key while minimizing a window for some slow-mo action.

TUAW receives a lot of app submissions for review, both for Mac and iPhone. But it's unusual when a developer sends us individual press releases for a relatively large number of apps.

Steven Degutis is the brain behind a company called Thoughtful Tree. In his words, "I'm an indie Mac developer who writes apps that make my job easier and smoother, and then if I think they're useful enough, I share them with everyone via my company Thoughtful Tree Software. That's just how I roll."

Looks like Stack for Jailbreak has some new improvements. For those of you unfamiliar with the application, Stack adds a quick-launch menu directly to your iPhone dock, letting you expand your dock space to hold all your favorite apps. With it you can add 16 items (using grid view) or 5 items (in fan view) for easy access in each stack. And stacks are not just limited to the dock. You can add stacks anywhere in the home screen as well.

As this video shows, you can now rename your stacks as well as use drag and drop editing. So you can create a 'Games' stack, an 'Internet' stack, and so forth. Removing items from a stack is just as easy as adding them. Just drag them out from the stack for an Apple-standard "puff of smoke" animation.

Stack, which is developed by iPhone expert Steven Troughton-Smith is donor-ware. Although not ready for public release, he has regularly been seeding early alpha builds to people who have donated to the project. But as you can see, it's making great progress.

Stack is a jailbreak-only product as Apple does not permit this kind of OS-based enhancement in App Store. That's a pity, because the relative difficulty and fear of jailbreaking keeps this kind of groundbreaking software away from the general public. It's an enhancement that Apple really should have built into the iPhone -- and hopefully someday will.

For your early-afternoon entertainment, I have the story of Mike Giepert, who happened one day to spell something clever with the icons in his dock.

His website, in fact, has a whole raft of these sets, including those submitted by his readers, to spell everything from "vamp" to "agoraphobic."

What can you come up with? Feel free to take your own screenshots, add them to our TUAW Flickr Pool and leave a comment!

The Mac OS X Dock is a great UI invention, but it doesn't have all the functionality that it could have. That's why one developer is looking to expand the functionality and make it even better with an application that he calls "Dropzone."

Dropzone is a small application that you can install on your Mac, and as the app name suggests, drag stuff onto. When you drop a file on the icon, you will get a list of options depending on what type of file you just dropped. For instance, you could drop a picture onto the icon and get an option to email, send to Flickr, or upload to an FTP server.

Different applications can "register" to work with Dropzone by using a simple API, the documentation for which can be found on the Aptonic website. The more applications that decide to work with Dropzone, the better (developers, did you hear that?). There is currently no shipping date set for this handy little Dock tool, but you can check out a teaser video on the Aptonic website, and also apply to be a part of the beta program.

Gedeon Maheux has an post about how an icon is designed from the aptly-named Iconfactory (specifically the Frenzic app icon), and while I don't have any design skills to speak of at all, it's an interesting look into how those little snippets of art are made.

Icons are increasingly important, especially on the iPhone and OSX, as Apple leverages icons more and more in their interfaces, from the Dock to CoverFlow to the iPhone's home screen. He sounds a little sheepish that they obsess over icons, but why shouldn't they -- every time you decide whether or not to buy or use an app (some might say the most important part of an application's lifeline), you're likely looking right at the icon.

There are a few things to take away here: they designed the icon not by itself, but right alongside all the other icons on an average iPhone screen -- in context, where people would see it. And they walked a thin line: while they wanted it to stand out as something you'd chose even among the apps you've already purchased, they didn't want it to be so bright or flashy that it broke the UI. Truth be told, Frenzic's icon still looks a little bright to me, but the lesson is good: the UI comes first.

Ged closes with a sentiment I've agreed with for a while: while there's a disturbing trend of adding "On Sale" or "New!" to icons in the App Store (not to call anyone out, but ahem) that doesn't serve the developers or their customers. An icon, just like your app, should be subtle and simple and beautiful. After all, isn't that why we're all using Macs in the first place?

We're in the middle of gift guide season right now, but here's a gift that would fit great on any Mac user's list: Throwboy has designed a set of throw pillows after some of the Dock's most famous icons, including iTunes, iPhoto, Dashboard, and the Finder. They're 100% fleece, hand-crafted, and look cuddly as all get out.

Sure, a computer icon might seem like a strange thing to squeeze, but hasn't Finder been there for you in the worst of moments before? No reason that shouldn't remain the case outside the computer as well. You can pick up a pillow (for yourself or anyone else this holiday season) for $29 each, or $149 for the whole set. They ship in about 3-6 weeks, so there's no guarantee you'll get it by Christmas, unfortunately, but as their order page says "handmade takes a while."

I seriously hate the way that Leopard's spring-loaded download pane works. So this morning, I asked our team if there were a way to get around it. "Of course," said Brett, and he pointed me to this Mac OS X Hints page, warning me that it was a kludge.

Kludge it may be, but it was a kludge that worked just fine. I didn't quite follow the directions in that post, though, and I thought I'd share my approach because it worked a lot more easily for me.

First, I opened Terminal and changed directories to ~/Library/Preferences. I made a backup copy of com.apple.dock.plist (probably completely unnecessary, in retrospect) and converted the original version to XML from binary: plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.dock.plist.

Next, I opened the preferences property list in TextEdit and did a global search/replace on directory-tile, changing all instances to directory. I saved and then did a killall Dock.

When my dock returned, it returned with the normal, happy, uncomplicated folders you see here. When clicked, they open normal, happy, uncomplicated file browsers. Yay. Thanks, Brett, and thanks Mac OS X Hints.

Also thanks to TUAW readers Brandon, who points out that you can Command-click the folder and Rich who suggests adding folder aliases rather than the folder itself.