Create Application Alias to the Finder Window

To drag an application alias to the toolbar, hold down the Command key and drag your applications up one at a time. It works much like adding icons to your dock, the other items will slide out of the way, and a small green plus sign will appear on your cursor.

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/add_application_aliases_to_finder_windows.html

Copy and Delete at the Same Time

If you’re archiving a file to disk (let’s say to an external FireWire drive for example), you can drag the icon of the file you want to archive directly to that drive and the Mac will write a copy to that drive. However, your original file still lives on your current hard drive. If you want to have that file deleted from your drive as soon as it’s copied to another drive, just hold the Command key as you drag your icon, and the Mac will do two tasks for you — copy the file to the new drive and delete the original from your drive.

http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/copydelete.html

Excel in-cell graphing

Found this at: http://www.juiceanalytics.com/weblog/?p=236

The bar graphs are built using the Excel REPT function which lets you repeat text a certain number of times. REPT looks like this:

=REPT(text,number_of_times)

For instance, REPT(”X”,10) gives you “XXXXXXXXXX”. REPT can also repeat a phrase; REPT(”Oh my goodness! “,3) gives “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! ” (my daughter’s an Annie fan).

For in-cell bar charts, the trick is to repeat a single bar “|”. When formatted in 8 point Arial font, single bars look like bar graphs. Here’s the formula behind the bars:

Also, they followed with this http://www.juiceanalytics.com/weblog/?p=239

Henk was first out of the gate with a great suggestion that two columns could be used to show positive and negative values. What he’s thinking of looks like this:

How to burn ISO disc images

1. Insert a blank disc.
2. Start Disk Utility.
3. From the File menu, choose Open Disk Image and select the ISO to be burned.
4. In the list of volumes, you will now see an item representing the ISO file. Select it.
5. Click the Burn button and follow the instructions.

Delete Files Forever

Choose “Secure Empty Trash” from the Finder menu.

Watch YouTube on Your iPod

1. Go to a YouTube video page, wait for it to load, and open Safari’s Activity window.

2. Double-click the URL of the video file – it’s the largest one – to download it.

3. Rename the file something better than QaQw9V4Upj4 – say, Skateboarding Bulldog.

4. Drag and drop it into the free iSquint converter (www.isquint.org) and – presto! – an iPod-optimized video file for your iTunes library.

Screen Capture

Got this tip from My Journey to Macintosh:

I knew that I could take a screenshot of the whole screen with Shift + Command + 3 and that I could grab a lasso with Shift + Command + 4 but I didn’t know how to just grab the contents of one window. Anyway, it turns out if you press Shift + Command + 4 and then hit Space, your cursor turns to a camera icon and you can grab just the contents of one window.

Fix iTunes tracks with low volume

Got this from a site:

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/39

"I have some tracks in iTunes that may have been recorded incorrectly. Their sound is extremely low and soft, requiring me to turn up my speakers whenever the tracks play. Is there something I can do?

Yes there is something you can do - iTunes has a feature built just for this very situation. Click on the offending track and press Ctrl+I (or Cmd+I if you’re on a Mac). When the song properties window appears, click on the “Options” tab and then slide the volume adjustment to the right. Test out your track’s new volume level and if necessary, go back and re-adjust the slider. When you click OK, iTunes will save the volume adjustment level and your previously troublesome track will playback at a more acceptabe volume."

OSX Tips

To close applications:
Hold down the command button and press Q (only works with the open application)
or
hold down the command button, press TAB to the application you want to close and hit Q

For those coming from Windows,
CTRL + ALT + DEL is command button + option + esc
right click on the keyboard is ctrl

To get a lot on information on your Mac
apple > About This Mac > More Info...

To set desktop shortcuts using Expose
apple > System Preferences > Dashboard & Expose

To see what items are starting during login (Login Items)
apple > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items