By default, iTunes displays the approximate playing time of the selected playlist in the bottom status bar – along with the number of songs and file size of the list of songs (See image below). 
This is fine most of the time. But what about when you’re trying to find the perfect combination of songs to use as a soundtrack for your home movie, etc.? How long exactly is 5.9 hours? 
Click the info in the status bar with your mouse and the status display switches from relative to exact time (as seen above).
Category: Mac & OS X
Fixing various power issues on MacBook/MacBook Pro
If you find your MacBook or MacBook Pro having various power issues such as:
- backlighting
- hard disk spin down
- sleep or wake issues
- battery issues
- trackpad control
the first thing you should try doing (after simply restarting your computer to see if that fixes it) is resetting the System Management Controller (SMC). The SMC is a chip on the logic board which is responsible for power management of the computer. Issues can and do pop up that render the settings in the SMC unusable, resulting in problems with the above mentioned items. Many times, resetting the SMC is all that is necessary to fix the problems. To reset the System Management Controller on the MacBook or MacBook Pro, do the following:
- Turn the computer off
- Disconnect the AC Adapter and remove the computer’s battery
- Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds, then release it
- Reconnect the battery and AC adapter
- Press the power button to restart the computer
The process is similar for MacBook Air users, as well as users of older Apple laptops which use the Power Management Unit (PMU) rather than the SMC. You can view this Apple support document for more info.
Free Christmas Mail stationery pack
iPresentee offers free Christmas Mail Stationery templates designed especially for the Christmas holiday to use with OSX’s Mail application. The Christmas Stationery package includes ten wonderful templates: Santa Claus Letter, New Year’s Day, Christmas Wreath, Merry Christmas, Gift, Snowman, Christmas Letter, Christmas Socks, Santa Claus and Christmas Tree. Christmas is on its way and there’s a good cheer everywhere. The Christmas Mail Stationery templates comes with an installer to make sure the templates end up in the right place and would be displayed in Apple Mail New Message Stationery menu automatically. Mail Stationery templates requires any Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.5 with bundled Mail application.
Adjust the volume of the Mac startup chime
Ever wish you could mute the startup sound your Mac makes when it boots up? At the very least, perhaps you want to turn the volume down a bit on the startup chime? 
You’ll want to take a look at StartupSound.prefPane, from Arcana Research. The system prefs pane does two things, it either mutes the sound, or allows you to adjust the volume. That’s it. Thankfully, it does those two simple tasks perfectly, and absolutely FREE! You can download StartupSound.prefPane here. Be sure to grab the latest version if you use an Intel Mac.
Create desktop printers for faster PDF printing
If you generally print a lot of PDF files at a time, it can be tedious to open each file individually and deal with the print dialog box for each file. Thankfully, OSX provides you with a faster way. Open the Print & Fax preference pane from OSX’s System Preferences icon in your Dock and select the printer you’d like to use to print the PDF files. Once the printer is selected, drag it to your desktop, which will create a Desktop Printer.
Creating a desktop printer in OS X
Save time with Firefox 3 keyboard shortcuts
Firefox keyboard shortcuts
| Navigation | |
| Back | Cmd + [ Cmd + Left Arrow Delete |
| Forward | Cmd + ] Cmd + Right Arrow Shift + Delete |
| Home | Option + Home |
| Reload Page | Cmd + R F5 |
| Reload (override cache) | Cmd + Shift + R |
| Stop Loading Page | Cmd + . Esc |
| Current Page | |
| Go to Bottom of Page | End Cmd + Down Arrow |
| Go to Top of Page | Home Cmd + Up Arrow |
| Move to Next Frame | F6 |
| Move to Previous Frame | Shift + F6 |
| Page Info | Cmd + I |
| Page Source | Cmd + U |
| Cmd + P | |
| Save Page As | Cmd + S |
| Zoom In | Cmd + + (plus key) |
| Zoom Out | Cmd + – (minus key) |
| Zoom Reset to 100% | Cmd + 0 (zero key) |
| Search | |
| Find | Cmd + F |
| Find Again | Cmd + G F3 |
| Find as You Type Link | ‘ (apostrophe key) |
| Find as You Type Text | / |
| Find Previous | Shift + F3 |
| Web Search | Cmd + K |
| Windows & Tabs | |
| Close Tab | Cmd + W |
| Close Window | Cmd + Shift + W |
| Move Tab Left (when tab is focused) |
Cmd + Left Arrow Cmd + Up Arrow |
| Move Tab Right (when tab is focused) |
Cmd + Right Arrow Cmd + Down Arrow |
| Move Tab to Beginning (when tab is focused) |
Cmd + Home |
| Move Tab to End (when tab is focused) |
Cmd + End |
| New Tab | Cmd + T |
| New Window | Cmd + N |
| Next Tab | Ctrl + Tab Cmd + Opt + Right Arrow Cmd + } Ctrl + Page Down |
| Previous Tab | Ctrl + Shift + Tab Cmd + Opt + Left Arrow Cmd + { Ctrl + Page Up |
| Open Address in New Tab (from Location Bar or Search Bar) |
Opt + Return |
| Undo Close Tab | Cmd + Shift + T |
| Select Tab ( 1 to 8 ) | Cmd + # ( 1 to 8 ) |
| Select Last Tab | Cmd + 9 |
| Tools | |
| Bookmark All Tabs | Cmd + Shift + D |
| Bookmark This Page | Cmd + D |
| Bookmarks | Cmd + B |
| Downloads | Cmd + J |
| History | Cmd + Shift + H |
| Clear Private Data | Cmd + Shift + Del |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Select Location Bar | Cmd + L F6 |
| Select or Manage Search Engines (when Search Bar is focused) |
Opt + Up Arrow Opt + Down Arrow |
| Full Screen Browsing | F11 |
| Delete Selected Autocomplete Entry | Shift + Delete |
| Mouse Shortcuts | |
| Back | Opt + Scroll Down |
| Forward | Opt + Scroll Up |
| Scroll Line-by-Line | Cmd + Scroll |
| New Tab | Double Click on Tab Bar |
Quickly convert your .eps or .ai files to PDF without Illustrator
If you need to send a copy of your Adobe Illustrator .eps logo to a client or someone without the ability to use .eps files, you probably want to send them a PDF. Don’t waste time firing-up Adobe Illustrator, Apple has made it easy with Preview (check your application folder). Preview is obscenely fast at opening PDFs, .jpgs, .eps and even .ai files. Open your .eps or .ai file in Preview and save the file. Preview will automatically choose PDF as the file format. The great thing about doing this is that the resulting PDF file can still be opened and edited in Adobe Illustrator.
Stuffit Deluxe 2009 takes advantage of Leopard features
Years ago, back in the days before OSX, file compression on the Mac meant using applications like DiskDoubler and Aladdin Stuffit. Stuffit was a staple of every Mac computer. Many applications required the Expander app just to install, and virtually any file you downloaded off the Internet for the Mac was compressed using the Stuffit format. You could make the argument that it was the single most popular non-Apple application on the Mac for years. Aladdin (later known as Allume) sold Stuffit to Smith Micro Software in 2005, at which time it was still the dominant file compression method on the Mac OS. Flash-forward to present day and we now have file compression built-in to the OS, via BOMArchiveHelper’s .zip format. So you might be wondering why you would need anything more. Read on to find out why. (more…)
Full screen Quick Look keyboard shortcut
One of my favorite features of Leopard (OSX 10.5) is Quick Look. Normally, selecting a file in the Finder and hitting the Spacebar invokes a small Quick Look window with a preview of your file. If you need a larger view of the file, you normally have to drag the corner to make the Quick Look window larger. But hitting Command + Option + Y will automatically open your Quick Look preview in full screen mode.
Extensis releases Suitcase Fusion 2
Extensis has released the newest version of our single-user font manager for Mac OS X, Suitcase Fusion 2. This release contains a whole slew of new features that we’re sure that you’ll find helpful and fun to use. Fusion 2 is compatible with the recently released Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Quark XPress 8. 
The following are the most prominent new features in Suitcase Fusion 2.
Modern technology
- Built for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
- Based on the Universal Type Client code base.
- The Suitcase Fusion Core™ keeps fonts active even when the Suitcase Fusion 2 is not running.
Auto-activation
- Auto-activation plug-in installation is now a breeze with the Plug-in install options built into Suitcase Fusion 2.
- To ensure a trouble-free workflow, the auto-activation plug-ins contain new features, including the ability to create document sets as well as check document fonts.
- Selective global auto-activation allows you to select which applications to have Suitcase Fusion 2 automatically activate fonts.
- Updated auto-activation plug-ins now include an XTension for QuarkXPress 8 and plug-ins for Adobe InDesign and Illustrator CS4.
Font organization
- Improved search options allow you to quickly locate fonts using very granular font information.
- Smart Sets dynamically filter and display fonts based on your own custom settings.
- Font libraries allow you to organize fonts the way that you want.
- A portable Font Vault allows you to quickly backup your entire font collection, easily switch to an entirely different database, and even move your Font Vault to another drive.
System font management
- Improved system font management features help you avoid font conflicts and other problems with system fonts.
- Easy identification helps you disable unnecessary fonts in your system folders.
Previewing fonts
- Enhanced font preview options, including automatic encoding detection for most Roman and non-Roman languages.
- Floating previews allow you to preview fonts as transparent document overlays.
- Easily customized previews allow you to quickly display preview text as you want it.
- Glyph View Window allows you to inspect the glyphs of a selected font and compare them to any other font in Suitcase Fusion 2.
Font corruption checking and repair
- Enhanced font corruption detection and repair.
For more info, check out the Extensis website.