OS X: Organize Your Desktop by Hiding Apps

How do you declutter your Mac desktop of all those open applications? Well of course you can minimize them, like you would in Windows, but that adds them to the doc which just creates another clutter problem.



The Mac way to do this is to hide the applications. This works similar to the way Windows 7 minimizes apps when you click on an app on the taskbar. Hiding an app makes it disappear from the desktop, but it remains running in the dock. You can hide your current application or hide all the other running applications. This can be done from the menu, the keyboard, or with the mouse.



Menu Method

From the currently running application, click on the application name (e.g., if Chrome has the focus, "Chrome" will appear in the application menu). Half way down the menu, the following options are available.

• Hide AppNameHere


• Hide Others


• Show All

The options are pretty self explanatory.



Keyboard Method

Command-H - Hides the current app

Option-Command-H - Hide the other applications



Mouse Method

Option-Click Dock Icon - Hides the app selected by the click on the Dock.

Option-Command-Click Dock Icon - Hides the Other Apps and not the app just clicked on.



Note: Command = AppleKey on a Mac keyboard. (This is not the Control key.)

Apple iPhone EarPhone Controls - Cheat Sheet

I recently got the fancy Apple earphones for my iPhone GS. Along with the microphone, the earphones include a volume control. But wait ... there's more!!!!



In addition to volume control, you can now skip, fast forward, and rewind all from your headphones. No need to get your iPhone or iPod out of your pocket. Unfortunately, the command listing comes in a thick little booklet that contains about 20 language translations. Not very portable or useful. Therefore, I created the following english cheat sheet and posted it on this site. The page includes a link which allows you to store the cheat sheet offline in a bookmark. Enjoy!



iPhone/iPod Earphone Commands

MacTip: Taking Screenshots with Mac OS X

Mac OS X includes a number of key combinations which allow you to take screen shots. The available options are as follows:

Key Combination	Result
Command+Shift+3	Capture entire screen and save as a file on the desktop.
Command+Control+Shift+3	Capture entire screen and copy to the clipboard.
Command+Shift+4	Capture dragged area and save as a file on the desktop.
Command+Control+Shift+4	Capture dragged area and copy to the clipboard.
Command+Shift+4 then Space bar	Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save as a file on the desktop.
Command+Control+Shift+4 then Space bar	Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to the clipboard.

With OS X Leopard, the files are saved as PNG files. With the clipboard option, you can save the image to a graphics tool, or use Preview and select File -> New Image from Clipboard.

MacTip: Switch Between Windows within Applications or Between Applications

Q: On my Mac, using a keyboard how do I switch between windows within an application or between applications?



A: Use Expose. By default Mac OS X assigns three function keys to assist you in managing windows.



F11 - Hide all open windows.

F10 - Show all open windows of the application with focus.

F9 - Show all the open windows of all applications currently running.



Once the function key has been pressed, you can use the arrow keys to select the window of your choice.



If you have a multi-button mouse, you can also assign mouse buttons to perform the same function as the function keys.