You can easily resize any disk partition in Mac OS X using the included Disk Utility app, located in /Applications/Utilities, you can even resize a mounted volume but that’s not the best idea in the world. Before you go messing around and resizing your partitions, be sure to backup your data in case something goes wrong.

Since Mac OS X Leopard (and obviously Snow Leopard) you can grow or shrink HFS+ (Mac OS X) Partitions on the fly, with the resizing done live regardless of whether the drive is internal or an external drive.

[ tip idea and animated gif from CreativeTechs ]

Command-Tab in Mac OS X works really well as a quick application switcher and I use it all the time, but there’s more features available within the Command-Tab application switcher than just hitting Command+Tab itself. Once you’re in the application switcher you can try some of these other commands.

Command+Tab launches the application switcher, continue holding down Command and then try:

* tab – move selection to the right in the app list
* ` – move selection to the left
* h – hide the selected application
* q – quit the selected application
* mouse scrollwheel – move the selection back and forth
* left arrow – move selection to the left
* right arrow – move selection to the right
* up arrow – enter expose within the selected application
* down arrow – enter expose within the selected application

Memorize these tips to master the Mac application switcher and speed up your workflow! (Note: the expose features appear to be Snow Leopard only)

Not to brag or anything, but I love the fact that that unless I’ve run Software Update I rarely have to reboot my Mac, this might not be that exciting to most Mac users but as a relatively recent Windows convert, I find this particularly nice. So naturally with my Mac geekiness I find it fun to check the uptime and reboot history of my Mac and others, it’s easy to do and it’s actually functionally useful too for troubleshooting certain Mac problems. Here’s how to do both via the Command Line:

How to Check your Macs uptime

To check your Macs uptime, simply type ‘uptime’ in the Terminal. In the below example, we have a Mac that has been up for 21 hours and 40 minutes.
YourMac:~ user$ uptime
10:33 up 21:40, 4 users, load averages: 0.09 0.19 0.21

How to Check your Macs reboot history

To check the reboot history of your Mac, type ‘last reboot’ in the Terminal. This will provide you with the dates and times of the last few reboots the machine has gone through.
YourMac:~user$ last reboot
reboot ~ Tue Sep 22 12:52
reboot ~ Sun Aug 30 23:17
reboot ~ Sat Aug 29 01:12
reboot ~ Fri Aug 28 22:07

wtmp begins Fri Aug 28 22:07


Nice huh?

So you want a small lightweight portable Mac OS X machine, the closest thing Apple has in this area is the MacBook Air which is $1600 or more. No doubt about it, the MacBook Air is a great machine but I don’t want to spend anywhere near $1600 for another laptop when I already have a MacBook Pro. I’m thinking a small budget, like really small by Mac standards, how about $250 or less? Impossible you say? Wrong! It’s possible and I did it! Here’s how you can too. Be warned, this is not sanctioned by Apple, and it’s breaking the Mac OS X EULA agreement.

What You Will Need

* $200-$250, expenses vary based on your particular model, coupon code, and luck at the Dell Outlet
* 8gb USB key or external USB hard drive you don’t mind formatting
* Mac OS X 10.5 install DVD or image
* some patience

Finding a Cheap Dell Mini 10v for Hackintosh Purposes

So now you need to find the cheap Dell Mini 10v, the refurbs from Dell Outlet serve this purpose wonderfully. Combined with a discount code from the DellOutlet Twitter, and you have yourself a very affordable Hackintosh. My final price was $204 shipped!

Twitter: DellOutlet – follow DellOutlet on Twitter to get product discount codes, I got one for 15% off from here. They pop up once a week or so and have a limited duration.

Dell.com/Outlet – Mini 10v – check stock and sort by price, it’s a live search so you can constantly refresh it and see different stock from other people dumping their carts. I have seen a Mini 10v for as low as $219 BEFORE using the 15% coupon!

Hackintosh: Installing Mac OS X on the Dell Mini 10v

Gizmodo Guide to install Snow Leopard on the Dell Mini 10v – this is based on the information from MyDellMini forums but it’s made a bit easier to follow and has some nice pictures of progress. If you want to install Snow Leopard on your Mini 10v, this is a great guide to follow.

MyDellMini: Fool Proof No Hassle Mini 10v Install Guide – Fellow OS X Daily author Bill Ellis wrote about theHackintosh Dell Mini 10v several weeks ago, which is what first perked my interest in the topic. I followed the guide he suggested, it works, just follow the steps carefully and it will work for you too.

Upgrades, Troubleshooting, and more

MyDellMini – Install 2GB RAM Upgrade on Dell 10v – I followed the videos here to upgrade the memory. Ok I admit, the RAM upgrade was a total pain, but OS X smokes with 2gb of ram on the Mini 10v so if you’re technically competent and have the patience, it’s the best $19 you’ll have spent in a while. For what it’s worth, OS X runs just fine with only 1GB of RAM but you will see a noticeable speed bump with the 2GB upgrade.

MyDellMini Forums – this is a wildly helpful bunch of people that are quick to help and extremely knowledgeable on the topic, if you have any questions or run into problems at all, this is probably the best place to go.

MyDellMini Forums: Snow Leopard – Now that Snow Leopard is out I’d love to get it running on my little Hackintosh, but I’m going to wait until the process is a bit more streamlined before attempting this. If you follow the MyDellMini forums though, you’ll see many people have successfully installed it already, it’s just a bit complicated. I imagine the Hackintosh community will sort this out pretty soon, it’s a smart group.

Final Thoughts on Hackintosh

Considering how vibrant the Hackintosh community is, particularly focused on Netbooks, I think it points to a hole in Apple’s current product line: a cheap, lightweight, super-portable Mac. Until Apple fills this niche with something (the rumored Mac Tablet, or whatever), I’ll bet the Hackintosh community continues to grow, especially when people are pinching pennies in a recessionary economy. Hopefully Apple steps up and delivers, an Official Mac Netbook or equivalent would be awesome and I would buy one!

Apple certainly means well with the Software Updates, but sometimes I get update notifications I just don’t care about, or just don’t want to install. You can stop Software Update from pestering you about these particular packages by selecting the package in the Software Update screen, then navigating to the ‘Update’ menu and selecting “Ignore Update” (see screenshot below). If you accidentally ignore a package you do want, or you change your mind later, no problem – simply go to the Software Updates main menu and select “Reset Ignored Updates”

The Hackintosh community is rather controversial but increasingly popular, and some of the most appealing Hackintosh machines are those based around Netbooks, tiny lightweight laptops that fill a niche Apple has yet to dabble in. The Dell Mini 9 has long been the cream of the Hackintosh Netbook crop, but it looks like the Dell Mini 10v is giving it a run for it’s money, the internals are largely the same but it has a 10″ screen. (Note that the Dell Mini 10 and 10v are completely different units with different hardware, the 10v is Hackintosh compatible, the 10 is not). It’s worth noting that installing Mac OS X on something other than Apple hardware is against the Apple OS X EULA, so the legitimacy of the entire Hackintosh movement is dubious at best, but morals aside…

If you want to run Mac OS X 10.6.2 on a Dell Mini 10v and want to pay around $200 USD, check out our guide for a cheap hackintosh netbook

Installation is pretty simple, check out these how-to guides on MyDellMini.com, which guarantees a fool proof, no hassle, everything working Mac OS X 10.5.8 or even Mac OS X 10.6.2 installation on the Dell Mini 10v:

MyDellMini: Fool proof no hassle Mini 10v Hackintosh guide

It’ll be interesting to see how Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard runs on these Hackintosh machines… time will soon tell!

Updated 2/25/2010: You can now easily install Snow Leopard 10.6 on the Dell Mini 10v, we have linked the easiest guide on MyDellMini forums for your convenience.

MyDellMini: How to Install 10.6 on a Mini 10v

Creating your own cheap Mac Hackintosh out of a PC Netbook is pretty popular right now, so I compiled a list of various how-to guides mostly for myself but figured I would share it with our readers as well. The guides rank from reasonably easy (Dell Mini 9) to an arduous hack, and it’s technically against Apple’s OS X EULA agreement, so whether or not it’s worth proceeding with making one of these frankenstein Macs is entirely up to you.

Gizmodo: How to Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9

MyDellMini: Fool proof no hassle Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh guide

MSiWind Forums: How to Install Mac OS X on an MSI Wind

InsanelyMac: Install OS X on an Acer Aspire One

Stuart Shelton: How to install Mac OS X on a Samsung NC10

S10Lenovo: Install Mac OS X on a Lenovo S10

MyHPMini: Install Mac OS X on an HP Mini 1000

Enik: Install Mac OS X 10.5.6 on an EEE 1000h

It’s worth mentioning that BoingBoing has a pretty good OSX/Netbook compatibility chart but much of the info looks out of date (from December of 2008) so it’s worth doing some of your own due diligence before relying 100% on the chart.

Update: A reader has sent this in, saying that these files work for installing Snow Leopard on a Dell Mini 10v but we have not been able to test it… this link was pulled from the MyDellMini Forums. Not for novice users, proceed with caution!

Here’s a great tip that creates a nice hover effect when your mouse goes over an application (or folder) within a Leopard stack. Why this isn’t enabled by default in Leopard is beyond me, because it makes navigating within stacks a whole lot easier. Don’t miss out, here’s how to activate it:

Launch the Terminal and type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes

then, you’ll have to restart the Dock by issuing the following command:
killall Dock

To disable the hover highlights, type:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean no

Quick Look is likely the only feature in Leopard 10.5 that I actually notice and something I would certainly miss if I went back to 10.4, it’s just too useful. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a decent post listing 10 useful Quick Look usage tips, some are built right in and won’t require modification, while others will require 3rd party plugins to use. Here’s the full list, minus the detail:

1. Identify files on remote machines.
2. Preview the contents of Zip files (plug-in required).
3. Preview the contents of a folder (plug-in required).
4. Examine snippets of code with syntax highlighting intact.
6. Prep your iWork documents for use with Quick Look.
7. Enhance TextMate.
8. Preview fonts.
9. Quick Look and Cover Flow.
10. Send images to iPhoto.

If these sound appealing, read more at TUAW: 10 ways to get the most out of Quick Look

The appearance of the new Dock in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has caused somewhat of an uproar in the Mac community, some of whom even claim it looks like it belongs in Windows Vista. If you’re totally insulted by the new 3D dock, or if you just prefer the old Dock appearance, it’s very easy to change and you don’t need to be a super Mac genius to figure it out. Simply launch your terminal and type the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

then you will want to kill the Dock to relaunch it without the glass effect:
killall Dock

to get the reflective 3D Dock back, simply type the following:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

again, you will want to kill the Dock to relaunch it. Enjoy!