Welcome to another edition of Mac 101, TUAW's series for beginners. Today, we show you how to get more bang for your desktop real-estate buck with Finder icon labels.

Have you ever wanted to know how large a picture on your Desktop was, but didn't want to open it (or even just hit ⌘I to get info)? Or instantly know how many items were in a folder? Mac OS X lets you display that information right under (or next to) the icon itself.

How? Easy! Click on your Desktop, and choose Show View Options from the View menu (or just hit ⌘J.) Then, click the radio button next to Show item info. Voíla! Instant metadata for your Desktop files and folders. For pictures, the Finder will show their width and height in pixels.

You can also adjust the position of the labels associated with the icons on your desktop. Instead of having the file and folder names beneath your icons, why not have a change and put them to the right? Just click either Right (or Bottom, if you prefer the default) under Label position.

For other awesome beginner tips, visit our Mac 101 category.

Are you a Terminal geek (or wannabe, but not the pop star type)? If so, did you know that you can burn discs right from the Terminal window with a simple command and a drag/drop? Just enter the following command followed by the path to a folder or disk image:


Don't type the "filehere" -- that's where you put the path to the file/folder that you wish to burn. You can either type the location manually or drag and drop the file onto the Terminal window. But that's not all you can do with drutil; you can also eject media from the optical drive by typing "drutil eject." To see all of the available drutil options, just type in drutil for a quick list or man drutil for a full description.

Apple has updated their My Info site to allow more Apple ID editing goodness. It's been a while since I've taken a crack at changing any of this information, but last I remember, it wasn't possible to change the actual email correspondence address of one's Apple ID. The My Info site offers a slim, effective UI for adjusting your contact and shipping info, as well as setting your Apple communication preferences (do you want email/mail/phone calls, etc.). Too bad there isn't a new option called "alert me the next time you're about to rev one of your products 15 days after I buy the old 'n busted model."

Thanks Brandon M

When my machine was a rickety little 800 MHz iBook, crusted with too many hacks, apps and utilities, I just gave up on Widgets. Dashboard was a system hog on an already dog-slow machine, and I just killed it off.

My MacBook Pro is another story. While I've eschewed the volume of Widgets a true power-user may install, I have my fair share. Of course, until we're able to safely and securely swap our sets of Widgets around, I just keep a certain set loaded. Yes, I've tried MultiDash, primarily to swap around when I plug in to my 24" external monitor. I would have included a link to the MultiDash page, but going there today either crashed Firefox or made Safari eat up processor. Gotta love that...Anyway, as a Widget, it was too wonky for production use, so here's what I've settled on for daily use:

• Apple's own calendar, weather, iTunes, calculator, and search Widgets (Dictionary, White Pages, Yellow Pages, and Address Book). The unit converter is tucked behind the sticky note
• Google search-- pretty much never use it since Google is built-in to every browser but Flock, although sometimes I use the Blogger one too
  
• Radar-in-Motion-- massive kudos to the poor developer who makes this, as NOAA keeps changing the protocols, formats, etc. I love this thing, but I love weather.
• WeatherBug-- this one has a bunch more features, but ironically doesn't work as well as R-i-M
• iClipLite-- what would I do without this? Very handy for storing form letters, the very ones I use every day
• iStat nano-- surely everyone is using this or its older sibling by now, right? Often I use it to check my IP address, but I really wish I could have it quit bugging me about updates, that is really annoying
• Slothcam-- I have it always tuned to the TGIFriday's camera in Times Square, great for people-watching! (You will see me on there once in a while too)
• Web Translator widget (uses Google)-- handy for quick language lookups, as my Spanish vocab stinks sometimes
• Airport Radar-- handy for checking signal strength
• PackageTracker-- from Monkey Labs, where they make a terrible TV Tracker... only terrible because every week they want me to update it, but it never gets faster or better, yet PackageTracker never bugs me about it
• iCalEvents-- super-fantastic for glancing at my hard schedule for the day
• Backpack widget-- from Chipt.com, this Widget has saved me so many times it is scary. If you are a serious GTD nut, you must have a Backpack widget for simple ticklers, and this does the job better than almost anything. Plus, I can access my Backpack reminders from anywhere via web, so I have a constant backup. Combined with floating reminders via Growl, and you can really tame your to-do list.
  
• an obligatory digg widget-- because I'm addicted, I'll admit (where's that Netscape widget?)
• Veronica Belmont-- she's not a Widget, but a spunky tech pundit for CNet
• and of course, I have a TUAW widget!

So what's in your Dashboard?