When you have extended information displayed under icons with the Finder from the ‘show item info’ Finder preference, you’ll occasionally run into an annoying truncation with used and available disk space. If you’re bothered enough by this to want to change it, here’s a solution that involves tweaking a system file:

* Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/
* Find and locate English.lpoj and open it
* Within this directory, locate the file ‘Localizable.strings’ and back it up in a safe place
* Now launch the ‘Localizable.strings’ file in a text editor
* Search for the following string: “IV9″ = “, ^0 free”; (it may be easiest to search for IV9)
* Remove the ‘free’ text following ^0 but keep everything else identical, the new string would look like this: "IV9" = ", ^0";
* Save the file and exit the text editor
* Kill the Finder and relaunch it, you can do this via the command line by typing killall Finder and it will automatically relaunch on it’s own
* Problem solved! The full size informaiton should now be visible.

This works because it makes the overall text displayed shorter by removing the five ‘ free’ characters (space + free), allowing for the full display of the more useful information (space used and space available). The display problems seems to be less of an issue in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but it’s always annoyed me in earlier versions of OS X.

This is part of a broader tip on MacTricksAndTips about changing virtually any default text within Mac OS X, I think it’s the most useful though by far, but if you feel like changing other default text check out their article on the matter.

[ via MacTricksAndTips ]

I came across this quote which I think summarizes quite well why the iPhone is such a great device:

“If there’s a single feature that elevates the iPhone from the rest of the pack, it’s the way that it urges and enables me to maximize the amount of time I spend thinking and doing and creating, each and every day. I’ve got ten minutes while I wait for a burger to arrive, three minutes at the post office while as a clerk explains the concept of a “forever stamp” to the unenlightened, six minutes waiting in the subway…it all adds up. I leave the house with my iPhone in my pocket, and I come home with new photos, new drawings, a few tiny things written, many pages of books read, and a better sense of the news of the day.

I accomplished (okay, “accomplished”) all of that in crumbs of time that otherwise would have gone to waste. I don’t get that sort of effect from other phones…”

I couldn’t agree more. What other device can you carry around in your pocket and do so much with so easily? The iPad is too big for a pocket, the iPod Touch isn’t connected enough, and any other cell phone doesn’t even come close. This is why the iPhone is so great.

[ Quote from Ihnatko via Marco ]

I’ve always been a fan of the Mac Mini, a powerful machine in truly tiny form factor. Here’s a particularly awesome Mac Mini setup, with dual displays being powered using both the Mini-DVI to DVI adapter and a Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter ports. I didn’t know you could drive dual monitors on a Mac Mini using that method, but here’s proof that you can!

[ via Flickr ]

By hitting a simple keystroke you can put Google Chrome into full screen mode. No, it doesn’t just resize your window, it actually takes the currently active web page and resizes it to fit the entire screen surface – no titlebar, no address bar, nothing, just a web page.

To enter into Chromes full screen mode, hit Command+Shift+F

You can exit full screen mode by hitting the keystroke again.

I’m kind of annoyed when I click a web link and it happens to be an iTunes Store link… iTunes then opens and it takes me out of my browser. I searched around for an easy solution and came across TheAppleBlog, they published a nice how-to guide on preventing iTunes from launching every time you click on an iTunes web link. Here’s their method for stopping this in Safari:

Prevent web links from launching iTunes with Safari

If you are using Safari 5, check out the NoMoreiTunes extension here to block iTunes store links directly within Safari 5.

For other versions of Safari, or if you don’t want to use extensions, carry on:

Changing Safari’s behavior with iTunes links is really easy within Snow Leopard, here’s how to do it:
* Create any text file on your desktop, name the file change.itms
* Confirm the file extension change (from text to itms)
* Get Info about the change.itms file by selecting it and hitting Command+i (or Right-click and select ‘Get Info’)
* Hit the arrow next to ‘Open with:’ and you’ll see iTunes.app is selected as the default, this is what you want to change
* Click the pull down menu and select ‘Other’ and then navigate to Safari, enable ‘All Applications’, then click ‘Add’ and “Change All”
* “Change All” is important because it will change the behavior of all clicked itms (iTunes Music Store) links to launch within Safari rather than iTunes

That’s it! You may need to relaunch Safari to experience the changed behavior, but it worked fine for me when I opened a new Safari window.

What about stopping iTunes links in Chrome and Firefox?
In Chrome you simply add a domain block to itunes.apple.com within Javascript Exceptions and they stop. In FireFox you make a few changes in the about:config advanced preference area, you can see how to do both of these in detail at TheAppleBlog: How to stop iTunes web links.

Code completion is one of the more useful features when you’re developing since it allows you to write code faster. While Code completion should be activated by default in newer versions of Xcode, it’s easy to enable and use if it isn’t. You can also improve the usability of Xcode’s code completion with a great third party plugin, skip to the bottom of the article for that.

Enable code completion in Xcode

* Within Xcode, go to Preferences
* Click on the “Code Sense” icon
* Look for the “Code Completion” section and select ‘Immediate’ from the “Automatically Suggest” drop down menu
* Click “OK”

Using Code completion in Xcode

Once enabled, Xcode will now offer code completion based on what you have typed and offer suggestions for completing the syntax.
* You accept the code suggestion by pressing the Tab key or Return
* You can see a full list of completion suggestions by hitting the Escape key

It’s interesting to note that Apple says Code completion is disabled by default, but in newer versions of Xcode it seems to be enabled by default instead.

Improve Xcode code completion with Auto Assistant plugin

Code completion isn’t perfect in Xcode, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions from third parties. A very helpful Xcode plugin for developers is called Xcode Auto Assistant, and it offers the ability to popup the completion list automatically, all the time, when a character it recognizes is entered. The behavior then becomes closer to how things like Coda, BBedit, Espresso, etc handle code completion. The plugin is a lot more consistent than what Apple offers by default, although I wouldn’t be surprised if this is changed soon with an update to Xcode. Until Apple adjusts the behavior, you can download the plugin from Google Code here.

After you download the Auto Assistant plugin, you’ll need to drop the plugin into the following directory:
~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins If /Plug-ins/ does not exist, just create the directory. Relaunch Xcode and the plugin is installed and works immediately.

You can connect to any wireless network from the command line by using the networksetup command as follows:
sudo networksetup -setairportnetwork en1 SSID PASSWORD

So in a practical example, let’s say we are connecting to a network named ‘Wireless’ and the password is set to ‘macsrule’ as so:
sudo networksetup -setairportnetwork en1 Wireless macsrule

As far as I know this is Snow Leopard only, but it may work on older versions of Mac OS X as well. You can read more about the networksetup command line tool on it’s Apple.com Manual Page

Who would have guessed that by adding a little bit of velcro to your iPad it would become so versatile? The video is a bit goofy, but I have to admit using some velcro to mount an iPad onto your car dash or wall is a brilliantly cheap and easy way to get your iPad anywhere. Of course the downside is that your iPad will have velcro stuck to the back of it when it’s removed.

If you want to do this yourself, you can buy velcro strips on Amazon for around $9.

The popular first-person shooter/action game Half-Life 2 is now available for Mac OS X. At the moment it costs $6.99, which is 30% off the regular $10 price. The expansions of Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two are also available to download for $5.99 each.

System requirements for running Half Life 2 on your Mac are pretty similar to other Steam games:
* Mac OS X 10.5.8 or 10.6.3 or later
* 1GB of RAM
* NVidia GeForce 8, ATI X1600, or better
* Mouse, keyboard, internet connection

You can check out Half-Life 2 at the Steam store and download it from the Steam client. If you’re a fan of the Half-Life 2 series and Team Fortress 2, it’s worth getting the Orange Box set which includes the expansions and Portal, although TF2 isn’t released for the Mac yet (Steam says “Coming soon”).

You can instantly open anything in fullscreen Quick Look mode by selecting the item and then hitting the Command+Option+Y keys. If you select multiple files and enter into fullscreen mode, it’s easy to navigate between them by using the arrow keys. You can then exit full screen mode by hitting the escape key.

As a few commenters pointed out, you can also just hit Option+Spacebar to get the same effect.