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Filed under: Mac 101

Mac 101: Learn more about your files at a glance

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on May 18th, 2009

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.

Tags: desktop, icon, info, label, metadata, position

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Steve Jobs, Apple, Ask TUAW

Let's face it: Steve will have to step down sooner or later, too

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 19th, 2006

With Gates' bombshell announcement last week that he will be stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft in 2008 to spend more time with his Gates and Melinda Foundation charity org, I finally came to wonder: how much longer does Steve have at Apple? Both companies were started around the same time and have helped shape the industry as we see it today. That has to be exhausting work, especially for someone like Jobs whose design and management obsessions are now the stuff of legends. Steve already stepped down from his other company, Pixar, so he could spend more time at Apple - but I'm wondering how long that's going to last, and what it means for Apple's future.

Plenty of articles are analyzing the impact of Gates leaving Microsoft, as it's a slightly different situation. Bill is their Senior Software Architect, not the CEO - that's Ballmer, and he'll apparently be staying on and doing the same, shall we say, 'bang-up job' he's been doing since he took that throne. But Steve Jobs is Apple's CEO, and famous for the amount of control he exacts over bringing his the company's visions to life. So what would a two-week's notice from Steve mean to Apple and its burgeoning market?

Honestly, I don't know, and since I am but a lowly blogger, I'll leave it up to those six-figure analysts who 'are people who know people' to pen those pieces. But before those analysts start earning their keep, TUAW wants to hear your thoughts, dear readers: what do you think it will mean for the future of Apple and their products when Steve needs to call it a day?

Tags: bill gates, BillGates, CEO, discuss, discussion, gates, jobs, poll, position, retire, steve jobs, SteveJobs, survey

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools

Spice up iChat with Chax

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Feb 9th, 2006


Chax is one of those addons that makes you go "ahhh, at least someone's listening." This is a powerful, feature-packed and altogther necessary preferences plugin for iChat. The developer's site offers a lengthy list of features this fantastic plugin brings to the table, but for now, here's a short rundown to get your mouses clicking:
  • Save and restore window positions for individual screen names (To Kent Sutherland, the developer: I cannot thank you enough for this. The fact that iChat doesn't already do this is just plain silly.)
  • Display Address Book nicknames instead of full names
  • Option to auto-accept text chats, skipping new message notification window
  • Option to open images sent through direct connect directly in Preview (thank you!!)
  • Unread message notification in the dock
  • Change the delay of or disable auto-away (thank you!!)
  • New message windows cascade properly instead of always appearing on top of each other
  • Built-in log viewer
There are over 25 features that Chax enables, all wrapped up in its own clean, easy to use preference pane that is simply added to iChat's preferences. Kent also offers a list of upcoming features on his site, but I'd like to echo one of his requests: please don't ask him for tabbed chatting. Developers like him are (usually) under enough pressure as it is, which brings me to a request of my own: this plugin is free, but please consider donating if you wind up appreciating it even half as much as I do. Great stuff like this really deserves some love, and PayPal for some reason doesn't do hugs yet.

[via MacOSXHints]

Tags: addon, Chax, features, iChat, options, plugin, position, preferences, windows

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