iSwitchd

I started the week with 3 essential applications for people who switched to Mac, I’m ending it with 5 useful tips I’ve learned since I switched.

There are lots of things you can do on your Mac that you’re probably not aware of, and even more when you’ve just switched. Some keyboard shortcuts help me being more productive every day, so I thought it’d be nice to share, if you don’t know them already.

5. Photo Booth shortcuts
Ok, these ones won’t increase your productivity, but they’re useful. Pressing SHIFT while taking a picture disables the flash, and pressing ALT disables the countdown. You can combine them to disable both.

4. Take screenshots in a breeze
You can take screenshots by pressing Command+Shift+3. A file is then instantly placed on your desktop.
But much better, if you want to capture only a portion of your screen, pressing Command+Shift+4 changes the cursor to an arrow that you just drag to make your selection. This is VERY convenient, I use this shortcut almost everyday.
Also, while having that cursor, if you press the Spacebar, it changes to a camera so that you can take a screenshot of an entire window.

3. Easily open the Preferences for any application
If you want to change the settings in the current application, hit Command+, and the Preferences will show up. This shortcut works in almost every Mac application (Adobe programs use different shortcuts).
I’m impressed by that consistent shortcut across all applications, it’s extremely convenient.

2. Efficiently manage opened applications’ windows
In case you don’t know, OS X includes a very smart feature called Exposé. By pressing F9, it shows all open windows on the screen so it’s easy to get the focus back on a hidden one. F10 has the same function as F9 but only for the application that is currently focused on. F11 moves all the windows on the sides of the screen so you can see the desktop.
And Leopard introduced Spaces, that brings as much as 16 desktops. What can you do with that much? I’d say 4 is usually enough. Basically you can leave one application in one space, while working on another program in another space. This avoids windows clutter. F8 shows all the spaces, so you can drag windows between them.

1. Use Spotlight to launch apps and open your files
Here you have my number 1 tip : use Spotlight. This Leopard tool is so convenient that I barely open Finder windows to search for the files I want to open. I strongly recommend you read this post I wrote 2 weeks ago: Use Spotlight to find your stuff