Reports of an odd bug affecting downloaded files in Snow Leopard have been circulating Apple's discussion boards recently. As reported by TidBITS, the issue appears to be affecting all computers running Snow Leopard.

While different users have reported varying symptoms and differing circumstances, it essentially boils down to this: if you download a group of files, and then attempt to open the entire group of files at once (rather than opening each file individually), chances are either some or all of the selected files will not open.

My initial response to this was that it could possibly be one of those "it's not a bug, it's a feature" ordeals. We have already seen some indications that Apple is working on enhanced security and virus protection in Snow Leopard, so it stands to reason that the operating system may be simply trying to prevent what it thinks is malicious activity by imposing restrictions on what you can and can't do with a newly downloaded file.

Of course, that's just my theory, but I'm apparently not the only one who has explored that possibility -- a reader on the Mac OS X Hints forum discovered some hard evidence supporting that theory. In OS X, newly downloaded files are flagged with a "quarantine" attribute, which remains until the file is opened. If this attribute is set when the file is launched, and the file is an application, you would receive the typical "This application was downloaded from the Internet" confirmation before the application is allowed to continue launching. This is nothing new in Snow Leopard, but it would seem that the additional protections and scanning that were added to Snow Leopard most likely prevent opening multiple files so that each file can be individually checked before it is launched.

Whether or not this is a serious bug or a minor inconvenience depends entirely on your workflow. Personally, I find that I don't often open multiple files from Finder, as most of the applications I use have the ability to select multiple files from their Open dialog. I can easily see where this might pose significant problems, however. For example, if you do a lot of work with graphics, you might download a several photos from a client, highlight them and open them with a custom tool that automatically resizes and processes for you. With this bug in play, that task would become much more difficult if you had to open each file individually.

So what about you? Is this bug bugging you, or is it a non-issue? If you are affected, feel free to chime in with your experiences on the discussion boards, and be sure to let us know in the comments!

Quick Look is such an awesome feature of Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, making it really fun and easy to view files and folders from anywhere on your Mac. But what happens when you have a folder with multiple items and want to get a better idea of what's inside? Well, you could always just open the folder in Finder, but there's a cool modification you can make to get an even quicker view.


You can get this working on your Mac in a few simple steps:

1. Quit/Relaunch Finder using the Force Quit menu
2. Open Terminal
3. Paste (or type) the following command: defaults write com.apple.Finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1
4. Relaunch Finder

The contents of the folder will now be shown when you use Quick Look. In true Apple elegance, the files will even fade and cycle through the contents.

[via Mac OS X Hints]

We've mentioned Throwboy here on the site before -- they make handmade pillows, usually in the shape of Mac-related icons. And they just recently sent word about a brand new line of pillows: just in time for Halloween, they've branded the Finder and related icons with a little October 31st flavor. Sure, they're silly and pretty useless (really -- who buys a pillow for a one day-a-year holiday?), but just look at them! The FrankenFinder especially is pretty darn charming.

As usual, they're $29 each, or $100 for the whole set of four, which includes the Finderstein, Count Macula, Mac-o-lantern, and the great-looking Spooker. Shipping takes around 3-6 weeks, though if you order ASAP, they can probably make sure and get it to you before Halloween this year (and they're only available until 10/31 anyway, so pick yours up soon). Each pillow is 9" by 11" and made of comfy fleece, plus seriously, they're scarily cute.

One of the little frustrations in my everyday use of Leopard was the way it searched in folders. When in a Finder window, there was a handy-looking search box in the upper right-hand corner. I would place the cursor, type my query, and be annoyed by the fact that OS X searched my entire Mac.

Nooo. If I wanted to search the whole thing, I would have asked to search the whole thing.

Thank goodness Snow Leopard fixes this minor workflow speed bump. Now you can choose what you'd like to use as a default: Search This Mac or Search the Current Folder. You can even say "I'll have another" by choosing to Use the Previous Search Scope.

Unfortunately the default out-of-the-box action is still set to look everywhere on your Mac. But don't worry, it's easy to change.

1. Make sure Finder is your active app (either click on the Finder icon in the dock, click the desktop or a visible Finder window, or cmd-Tab to switch to the Finder).
2. Choose Preferences in the Finder menu. Or you can just use the Command-comma key combo to invoke Preferences.
3. In Finder Preferences, click on the Advanced tab.
4. Choose your desired search scope from the drop-down menu under the heading "When performing a search."
5. Close the Preferences and enjoy a search or two.

That's it. Just one example of the many little changes in Snow Leopard that make life with the OS easier and more efficient. I hope you find what you're looking for!

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."

Updated to clarify that the media browser option is in the Open dialog, not in Finder windows.

More Mac 101, our series of tips for new and novice Mac OS X users. Here's a tip that I was recently reminded of while choosing photos from a web browser for upload. Mac OS X Leopard's Finder has a handy media browser built into the open dialog box, not entirely unlike that found in the iLife suite.

Let's say you're looking for a photo to upload to Flickr or similar service. With your browser open, select Open from the File menu to invoke the Open Dialog Box. On the left hand side, select Media. Now you can browse your iPhoto library and even scrub through Events if you have iLife '09 installed. From there, select the photo you want, click Open and you've got it.

There are also a couple of tricks available that aren't immediately obvious. First, control-click (or right-click on your mouse) any neutral space in the dialog box to bring up a contextual menu with the option to switch between icon view and list view. Once in list view, the contextual menu adds options to open a file in its parent app, reveal its location in the Finder and display information columns (name, size, kind, etc.).

Additionally, hitting the space bar with an item selected highlights it, similar to Quick Look. A photo is brought to the forefront and music and movie previews are played.

It's handy, often overlooked and a great way to ensure that you've got exactly the file you want.

Oh, Big Mean Folder Machine 1.5, we hardly knew ye! You joined the Mac world in October of 2008, and now you're gone, replaced by your new and younger sibling.
Big Mean Folder Machine 2.0, from publicspace.net, is the newest version of the great Mac file manipulation application. BMFM 2.0 continues the tradition of allowing you to split files from different folders into new folders based on a set of criteria, or merge files from multiple folders into a new folder while taking care of naming conflicts.

So what's new with 2? Publicspace.net has redesigned the user interface, built in an automatic update engine, and streamlined BMFM for better performance. The application also does an even better job of resolving file name conflicts. The Big Mean Folder Machine's droplet capability, which lets you take custom folder merges or splits and save them as for future use as standalone apps, has also been improved.

This is a free update for owners of previous versions of Big Mean Folder Machine, or you can purchase the program for €14.95 (about US$21.25) from publicspace.net. If you haven't used BMFM before and you're intrigued by what it can do, a free trial is available for download.

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

Over the past 25 years, icons may have become ubiquitous almost to the point of fading into the visual background; still, the little pictures that began in 32x32 black and white format have grown up quite nicely into the massive 512x512 icons we enjoy in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Although the list and column views are more utilitarian for most file management tasks, there are times when icon view is the way to go.

You can control whether or not a particular Finder window displays in Icon view via the View Menu ("as Icons," or ⌘-1), and then adjust the display size of the icons via the View Options inspector panel (⌘-J). You can get up to 128px square icons in Finder windows, which is plenty big, but what if you want to see all the graphical power of those fully operational battle icons?

One way to see the full-size icons is via Cover Flow -- simply switch your Finder window to "as Cover Flow" (via the toolbar button, the View menu, or with a quick ⌘-4) and you can scale your icons at will by adjusting the window size. If you prefer not to have that black background around your icon, however, what is there to do? Thanks to Rob Griffiths at Macworld & MacOSXHints, here's a great tip for getting the maximum size out of your icon previews in the Finder without resorting to Cover Flow.

To view icon previews up to 512x512, hit the Spotlight search field at the top right of the window; search for a null string (two quotation marks next to each other, no space in between, like so ""), then change the search target from This Mac to Current Folder and the search type from Contents to File Name. Switch to icon view and you'll see, at the bottom right corner of the window, a scaling slider. Push it to the right to maximize your icon size. It's just the thing for appreciating the fine detail on your bottle of unicorn tears. (If you're looking for the CHOCK LOCK and Rick Astley icons above, they're in the QuickPix 2008 pack from the Iconfactory.)

Rob also hazarded a guess that we might see a more accessible version of this feature in future Mac OS X versions. If you watched the Snow Leopard stealth preview video posted earlier, you know he may well be right.

Call it what you will, but "Spring Cleaning" is just as important on your Mac as it is in real life. From cleaning out old files to organizing music/movies/TV shows that you "threw" into iTunes over the past few months, spring cleaning is a necessary evil.

One way to find large files that might be eating up space on your Mac is with a smart folder; it's easy to set one up right from the Finder. To create a smart folder that will find large files on your hard drive, simply follow these directions:

1. Open a new Finder window and select File > New Smart Folder.
   
2. In the resulting window, select "Other" from the first drop-down menu (the default selection is "Kind), and search for the key word "size." If you wish this item to remain in the menu, select the "In menu" check box. Select the OK button once you select the "Size" item.
   
3. Select "is greater than" from the next drop-down menu.
4. Type in the size that you would like to search for files. I would suggest searching using 1 GB, but you can use any size you wish.
   

Finder will immediately begin searching your Mac for any files that match the description that we just specified. When you are ready to save your smart folder, select the "Save" button from the top right of the Finder window. You will then be asked to specify a save name and location. Now whenever you want to look for large files that might be hogging space on your system, just open this smart folder, and let the search begin!

Beyond this tip, if you are looking for utilities that can help you keep your storage lean and free of bloated, legacy files, you may want to check out GrandPerspective, WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper.

Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW: the place where we try to answer all of your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're taking questions about tracking your total iTunes purchases, forcing processes to quit, doing a clean install of OSX and more.

As always, we welcome your suggestions for this week and questions for next time. Please leave your contributions in the comments for this post. When asking questions, please include which Mac and which version of OS X you're running. If you don't specify, we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac.

Dima asks:

I would like a way to require a password when the computer wakes from sleep, but not to require a password for just the screensaver. Is there a way for me to accomplish this?

The only way I know of to accomplish this would be to modify the plist file for the screensaver via the Terminal. However, unless this is really important to you, I would not advise doing it. If you want to do it, proceed at your own risk.

Either way, here's the command to enter in the Terminal if you want to try it.

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 0

This will set it so the computer only asks for a password after waking from sleep and not after the screensaver.

Frank asks:

In my finder window, next to my drive's name, there's a number in parentheses. it used to be a (2), but recently it changed to a (3). What does this number mean?

Ever wonder what files your Mac is hiding from you? Maybe not, but once in a while there's a need to peek at the stuff OS X keeps you from viewing. Finder does a nice job of hiding the "guts" of some folders, you see, but there are occasions (troubleshooting, setting up a web server, looking for some folders, etc.) when you'll need to view and/or edit these files or folders. Enter hiddenfiles, a simple and unobtrusive widget that'll show those hidden files and folders.

Sure, you can use Onyx or Terminal and do some command line work. But it's much easier to drop into Dashboard, hit "Show" on the blue button and have Finder relaunch, showing all invisible files. I had to click on Finder in the Dock to actually launch it again, but when I did there were those lovely .DS_Store files, staring me down. I use this to remove the hidden _files off my daughter's PC-friendly MP3 player. That way she doesn't have to scroll through resource-fork versions of her songs.

The widget is free and available from developer Matthew Hansen's page.

Last week I told you about easily switching directories (folders) while in an open/save dialog. This was great when you knew where a folder was located in a specific place, and you could drag + drop it on the dialog. But what if you want to type in a directory path (i.e. ~/Desktop)?

While in an open/save dialog, pressing Command + Shift + G will allow you to type in a directory path. For instance, if I wanted to open my Documents directory for my user, I would type ~/Documents. The tilde (~) tells the computer to look in the current user's home directory.

Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section.

More Mac 101, our series of tips for new Mac OS X users. Have you ever tried to open or save a file, and you want to quickly change from the directory (folder) you are browsing to another directory? It might be simpler than you think, and it doesn't require you to go searching for the directory from the dialog box!

When in an open/save dialog, drag a folder from any Finder window (including the Desktop) to the dialog. The open/save dialog will instantly show that directory. You can then type in a file name to save as, or locate the file to open. Using this method to change directories can often save time; it's also one of the Mac OS X features that can be confusing for switchers, as the Windows XP & Vista behavior is quite different (dragging items to a dialog will copy them to the displayed directory, instead of changing the target).

Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section!

We've all been there; we've all had that sickening feeling that comes from seeing "Macintosh HD" with less than 1 GB of available space. If you're staring at your Finder wondering where you can find some additional space without having to swap out the hard drive or buying a new Mac altogether Computerworld is here to help. They have an article up on the many ways it is possible to get rid of unnecessary files in Leopard as well as disable features you may not be using all in an effort to slim down and speed up your Mac while you wait for Snow Leopard.

Many of the tips involve using software that we have previously mentioned, some of which are free and others are not. The list of tools used include such gems as Xslimmer for removing PowerPC compatibility, Monolingual for stripping out languages that are non-native to you, as well as DiskInventoryX for getting a graphical representation of where all your hard drive space went. The article also discusses improving performance by disabling 3D effects that use up GPU cycles for those users who prefer fast to pretty as well as increasing the amount of RAM installed in your system.

While Snow Leopard may still be some time away the tips provided are a great collection of steps that can be completed to help any Mac squeeze out some better performance and additional hard drive space. If you have any tips that aren't mentioned add them to the comments!

Finder icon courtesy of FHKE's Flickr stream

When you open a Finder window and start browsing to a folder, do you lose track of the path to that folder? If you do, the Terminal command below will enable path view in the Finder -- this means that you will see the directory path to the current folder you are browsing in the title bar, instead of only seeing the name of the current directory.

To make directory paths visible atop Finder windows, open Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities/) and type the following command:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Once you run the above command, you will also need to restart the Finder, so you can either type "killall Finder" and hit return, or use the Force Quit option under the Apple menu to relaunch it. The Finder will restart, and you will start seeing the paths to directories in the title bar.

Update: As some have pointed out in the comments below, this Terminal command will only work with Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5).
Ups

Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Terminal Tips section!