Leopard Tricks Tips and Tools

This one is new to me although it may have existed for some time. You need a mice with a wheel to achieve this trick. Go into Keyboard and Mice system preferences and click the zoom option at the bottom of the window. You have the choice of a key modifier (Control by default). Then, whenever you press the Control key, you can zoom in and out of the screen using the mice wheel. This is impressive and quite useful when you have a big screen to read on the fly those tiny characters.

written by Patrick Gonzalez \\ tags: Leopard, zoom

Here’s another neat Photobooth trick.

Take a “4-up” picture (which takes four pics one after the other like burst mode, as described in a previous post). then select the picture in the selector at the bottom of Photobooth. Then go File -> Export. choose a “filename.gif” and hit OK. The 4-frame burst photo will export as an animated gif which you can use as your iChat avatar, or on a web page! neat. Apparently this also works with video files in Photobooth, however I’ve not had much luck with it working. Perhaps someone can help with that one…

written by James \\ tags: Leopard, photobooth

Nick over at macrumors offered me this spaces trick:

“While in the Spaces screen, holding down Shift while dragging a window to a different space will cause it to keep its position on the screen.”

I tried it, and it’s cool!

written by James \\ tags: Leopard, Spaces

When you’ve several applications open and you want drag a file to a window, for example putting a JPEG into a Pages layout, and the application’s windows are not in view, Leopard has a solution.

Dragging the file to application’s icon in the dock would try to make the application open the file, but if you hold the space bar down while you drag to the icon, it pops the application’s window to the front and now you can drop that file right into place.

 There is another way of doing this, and one that can be used in Tiger, and that is to drag the file and then use a ’show all application windows’ exposé shortcut (drag corner or key press) and then drag onto the window and hold there.
But now it’s much easier. Of course.

written by WhizzKid

Last week, I spoke about using Time Machine’s “Exclusion” functionality to make sure unwanted files were deleted/ignored during backups. But what do you do if you come across a file that’s already been backed up and you want it gone forever?

Luckily, Time Machine has anticipated this need–though it might not seem obvious right away. Let’s say you come across a file on your drive, and you want it gone completely, backups and all. Here’s how:

First of all, open the folder/directory where the file is located. Trash the current “version” of the file as you normally would. Next, while you’re still in the window, click on the Time Machine icon in your dock to enter Time Machine “mode.”

Click back once to the previous backup version of that window, and you’ll see the file you just deleted. Click once on the file to highlight it, then go up to the actions (”gear”) pull down menu, and select “delete all backups.” Voila! That annoying file wont bother you again.

Obviously, you’ll want to use this function with care, since there’s no turning back once you’ve deleted something in this manner. That being said, it’s a great little feature that might not be obvious when first using Time Machine.

written by rockmsockm \\ tags: Leopard, time machine

This is cool fun, there’s a new “burst mode” button in photobooth that snaps off four shots every second or so to create a little “action” photo. I had to give it a try! also check out the previous post about the additional iChat/Photobooth effects you can download!

written by James \\ tags: burst mode, photobooth

This tip is really useless but it looks really cool. This works with tiger, leopard and panther.

What this tip does is changes the whole look of your screen. All the colors turn opposite. For example : black would be white, and blue would be orange. Like negative. You can always change the color back to normal.

All you have to do to make your mac’s color change to inverted is hold down: the apple key, the option/alt key, and the control key (cmd-opt-ctrl-8). Then with those held down, you tap the letter 8 on the top of the letter I. Not the key pad 8 on top of 5!!!! It wont work if you use the keypad 8. You must use the 8 on top of the letters not numbers.

Remember: hold the apple key, control key, and alt key (all the to the left of the space bar) then while still holding them down you hit the 8 key. If you don’t like it or think its retarded just press the key combo again to restore it back to original colors. This is really cool. Try it. Please comment if u like it!  -Chris J.

written by Cj3693 \\ tags: invert screen colours, Leopard

If you’re are as picky about the login screen as you are you’re desktop and want to change it from the default Aurora image then navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices and change the DefaultDesktop.jpg file.

Remember to make a backup of the original and that you’re new file also needs to be called DefaultDesktop.jpg

written by Sim \\ tags: login screen