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.

A new widget has found its way onto my Dashboard: QuickCal. It makes adding iCal events as easy as typing a natural-language string such as "lunch with Aditi at noon tomorrow." The widget parses the text as you type and shows what it finds below the entry area, letting you know if it understands your syntax. It also adds reminders automatically, based on your preferences for all events, events more than a week away, and events more than a month away.

QuickCal seems to need the subject (title) of the event to be at the beginning of the string. Anything following the "at" or "on" clause is usually discarded. Since we're talking about "natural" language, this usually works out fine. It's not QuickCal's fault, but the only drawback for me is that my Dashboard takes far too long to start up, so any Widget I use has to carry that extra baggage on first load. I stopped running Dashboard Kickstart recently in an effort to speed up my wake time, but I may go back to it.

I've also really enjoyed FlexCal, an app which provides a hotkey-triggered HUD for entering iCal events and todos. In my opinion, anything which keeps me from having to load iCal and deal with the multi-step process of entering a new event is worth the money. Of course, both QuickCal and FlexCal are free, so there's no room for complaint. Be sure to make a generous donation if you dig one, the other, or both.

Up until recently, the Image Upload widget from Model Concept wasn't exactly working as designed. We described in detail a process for fixing the widget, however it was not particularly easy. The developer responsible for the widget, Tom Stoelwinder, contacted me to say that he had fixed the widget and officially released version 1.1.1.

If you were interested in the functionality of the Image Upload widget and considered the process to modify it too daunting, you can now grab the updated version here which features the fix we covered. Thanks, Tom!

The Image Upload widget featured here is a freeware widget by Model Concept which allows you to upload an image to ImageShack simply by dropping it onto the widget. The result is that the URL is auto-magically saved to your clipboard. The overall experience is pretty slick; it supports audio and Growl notifications as well as URL shortening with help from TinyURL ... at least it used to. Read on for my journey from widget woes to uploading bliss.

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."

You may already use one of several different Dashboard widgets for listening to BBC radio programmes over the net; but the team at BBC Labs has just released a new one that offers something a bit different.

It's part of a wider project called Radio Pop that turns radio listening into a social activity. As long as you're listening to your BBC programmes via the Radio Pop player (available in-browser or, as I said at the start, as a widget), you can "Pop" your favourites - in other words, flag them.

Your Radio Pop profile page shows what you've been listening to. Your Pops show the things you liked most, and give you quick access to programme information pages. Right now it's limited to live radio streams, but plans are underway to add the BBC's Listen Again output as well, which will make it much more interesting. (Developers: there's an API for you to play with, too.)

Since I'm in the UK, I haven't been able to confirm that this works elsewhere; YMMV. One additional requirement for making it work is a copy of Real Player, which the BBC uses for all its radio streams. Download it via the links on this BBC help page and you'll get a version that doesn't come laden with ads.

If you are the type of person that sees Dashboard as an application that just wastes space in your Dock (and an icon on your keyboard), then why not disable it? It is very easy to disable Dashboard; just type in the following command in Terminal.app (Applications > Utilities):

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

You must restart the Dock in order for this hack to work, so type "killall Dock" into Terminal and press enter -- the Dock should restart. To enable Dashboard again, just type in the above command, replacing "YES" at the end with a "NO." Now when you try to launch Dashboard, nothing will happen; this will save you some system resources.

If you found this tip useful, take a look at TUAW's Mac 101 and Terminal Tips sections.

Is your Dashboard cluttered with tons of widgets that you don't want to see any longer? You can easily hide widgets from your Dashboard by holding down the option key while mousing over top of your widget and clicking the "x" button that shows up.

Clicking the "x" button does not, however, delete the widget -- it will only hide it. To delete a widget, click the "+" button in the bottom left corner (or hit the command and + key combo) then select the "Manage Widgets..." button. From this widget manager, you will be able to click the red minus button beside the widget to completely remove it from your Mac. The deleted widget will show up in the OS X trash can.

We know that several of our readers do the type of work that requires them to track their own billable hours. For those of you using Freshbooks, here's a handy Dashboard widget.

The Time Tracker Widget includes a timer (of course) plus menus to choose the project you're working on as well as the particular task (meeting, research, etc.). Finally, add any pertinent notes in the Notes field.

When you're finished working, click "Submit Hours" to upload your hours to your Freshbooks account. Easy! Note that you must have API access enabled in your Freshbook settings.

If you make any kind of extensive use of the OS X Dashboard, you probably close as many widgets as you open. Usually, that means hitting the plus sign at the lower left of the screen to reveal the widget bar, clicking the "X" on the widget you want to remove, and then closing the widget bar. Seems like there should be a faster way, right? Tipster Nass has a solution for you.

Next time you want to close a widget, just hold down the option key (?) while your mouse is over it. You'll see the "X" button on the current widget and can close all the widgets you want without ever having to open the widget bar. Sure, it's only a couple of seconds saved, but if you shuffle widgets as often as I do, that could add up to entire minutes being added back on to your life.

This being Mac 101, I'll also mention that ?-= will pop up the widget bar instantly without having to reach for the mouse, and ?-[left arrow] and ?-[right arrow] will scroll the bar. But you already knew that, having diligently read every page of the OS X help file, right?

Thanks, Nass!

If you are addicted to Digg like we are, then the Digg.com widget from Hasan Alayli might be just right for you. This very simple Dashboard widget allows you to quickly browse the most dugg stories on Digg. On the creator's website, he says that it is developed using the Digg API and the AJAXSLT javascript library.

Digg.com widget is available as freeware from the creator's website or from the Dashboard widget section of Apple's website.

There are two good ways to control Time Machine; you can control it through the Dock and, as of 10.5.2, via the menu bar. Now you can control Time Machine through Dashboard. Time Machine Launcher is a dashboard widget that allows you to force a Time Machine backup, or disable/enable Time Machine on the fly. More control is always good! You can download this widget for free (donations are accepted) from the developers' website.

This Lifehacker comment thread made me go researching on what I might use for Webclips, but save for the front page of my favorite blog (TUAW, duh), I couldn't think of anything I'd really want to keep on my Dashboard 24/7. I did like the idea of putting Woot.com (and Shirt.woot, which I've been looking at a lot lately) on there, but as a few of the commenters say, webclipping (can I verb that?) the entire page makes things a little too big.

Fortunately, David Elliot piped up about the Woot.com widget, which easily and quickly lets you monitor the Woot sites from your dashboard, with a minimum of space taken up. And now I've got two instances of it running on my Dashboard, one for regular Woot and one for the Shirt version. I especially like that it includes Growl notification, too -- if I happen to be working around midnight and a really good deal pops up, I won't miss it.

Of course, you may not want to have something popping up on your Dashboard all the time tempting you to spend money. But if you're already following the Woot empire (and to tell the truth, I almost never buy anything-- I just like looking), the widget is an easy and simple way to stay up to date.

RadioSherpa has released an Apple Dashboard widget that streams radio stations from Boston, New York and San Francisco (they promise more are on the way), including several HD2 stations. It's pretty cool, and even displays the name of the current song in real-time before you load the stream.

Note that you've got to install the VLC web browser plug-in to get this to work, so keep that in mind.

Here's something for everyone who uses Tumblr. Version 3 of the Tumblr Dashboard widget is available with some cool new features. It can publish posts, links, quotes, and web photos. Also, it puts a dash (-) in front of the source on a quote, which looks nice on your post.

I've tried it out and it works well. I'd like to be able to drag and drop photos into the body field, though. Maybe next time.

[Via Dave Chartier]