Bitbob

Want to see my Dock? Sure you do!

The Dock is special. No menus to navigate, just click the icon and go. In Snow Leopard, the Dock becomes very special indeed thanks to its improved exposé features.

I’ve seen a few of these posts recently, but most are just basic lists. That’s no good. I want to let you know what I use and also why I use it.

• Finder – A lot of people tell me that Finder is lacking in… something. I don’t know what, I like it. The sidebar is especially useful. I often drag a project folder into the sidebar when I’m working on it, it is then available in all open/save dialogs which saves a lot of time. It’s definitely speedier in Snow Leopard, and I’ve noticed a few cute visual tweaks. Rename a file and it will slide to its new position. The new icon previews are interesting too, but 512×512 icons? Why would anybody want that?
• Mail – I can’t claim to be an expert on Mac email applications, I’ve never used anything other than Mail. I manage multiple accounts (at least 6), all but one of them pushed through Gmail via Google Apps. The other is my MobileMe account. There are issues with Outlook users. Mail sends unformatted emails by default, so Outlook users with default settings receive ugly Times, not our pretty sans serif font we set in Mail. This can be solved by setting a font and colour. I do this semi-autumatically (ooh, that sounds violent) with TextExpander.
• Safari – My day-to-day web browser. It’s fast — very fast — and my bookmarks are synced with MobileMe. I wheel out other browsers only when required for testing. With Mac OS X’s Services (again, improved in Snow Leopard) it becomes quite a powerful browser. It does require Glims to make it usable, really. No option to select Google UK as my search source without Glims is plain annoying.
• Adium – Being from the UK, AIM isn’t that popular with the people I know, meaning I need something other than iChat to communicate with Windows Live Messenger users. Adium is that something. It’s highly customisable and has a few advanced features such as chat encryption. The main benefit? Nudges don’t work!
• Tweetie – Twitter. You’ve heard of that, right? Tweetie is probably the best Mac application for general Tweeting. It isn’t going to be something Twitter power users will get along with, but it does have multiple account support and looks very pretty. The ability to sort incoming Tweets into groups is needed, but there’s been no word on when this might come. 2.0 is in the works at the moment, so we can only hope groups is at the top of the to-do list.
• Chill Pill – Now, I’m not entirely sure I should even be using this. I discovered it via Bodega and hit the download button. The website still states “coming soon”. Hm. Anyway, it’s an application that integrates Feverº with Mac OS X, providing handy shortcuts, dock badging and, most importantly, Growl notifications. It is missing 1Password support, which means I need to enter my password manually if I’ve cleared my cookies recently, but this isn’t a huge issue.
• Address Book – It’s where my contacts live. Syncing with MobileMe means I only need to update my contacts once and they’re the same on my Mac, iPhone and iPad/iTablet/iPod Huge (soon!). Also helps me track birthdays with iCal (very important).
• iCal – Again, MobileMe + iPhone + Macs = hassle-free calendaring. I stick everything in here, including my The Hit List to-dos. It’s simple, fast and who doesn’t love having the date in a cute Dock icon?
• iTunes – I use iTunes to buy music, listen to music and sync my iPhone and iPods. It’s main use for me, however, is podcasts. They’re great for keeping up to date with whatever might interest you. I especially like video podcasts. The App Store is great too. I couldn’t function without some apps I’ve found for the iPhone, like um, Ramp Champ. Everybody needs some Ramp Champ in their life.
• Pages – Pages is my document creation tool of choice. It’s simple, clean, quick and has a very nice full screen mode, eliminating distractions when you just need to write. It may seem a little quirky if you’re moving from Word, but once you get its “ways” nailed, you’re going to have some fun. I own Office 2008, but I only install it for the fonts, is that bad?
• Keynote – Do you give PowerPoint presentations? You do? Please leave. Leave, or promise you’ll take a look at Keynote for your next presentation. It is, and this isn’t an exaggeration, absolutely stunning. Actually, it might not be that wonderful really, but compared to that thing from Microsoft, Keynote is magical.
• Numbers – You know that uncle you have who thinks he’s the head of the family? Thinks he’s wonderful and everybody loves and needs him? And you know that other uncle you have who is actually quite nice, but doesn’t drive a fast car or own a pet unicorn like the show-off? Well that’s kind of like Excel and Numbers. Numbers is friendly, helpful and looks pretty. It might not do everything Excel does, but if you need Excel, you’re probably working in an office and ready to take voluntary redundancy at any time. You can buy a Mac and iWork ‘09 with your redundancy cheque.
• Coda – At its most basic, Coda is a text editor. Unleash its full potential, however, and Coda is a one-stop-shop web development tool. It does pretty much everything. Site management, live previews, FTP, a visual CSS editor and Terminal built right into the app. One of my favourite features is Books. You can add any searchable reference to Coda and browse within the app, getting code hints from your resource of choice. It isn’t the cheapest thing around at $99, but if you develop websites, you need Coda.
• Photoshop – I need this. It’s expensive, it doesn’t work properly with Spaces or Exposé and without it I couldn’t get anything done. Wonderful. Despite all this, I still love it a little. The results you can get are just not possible with any other application. Don’t let Photoshop know, but occasionally I’ll just fire up Pixelmator instead.
• Balsamiq Mockups – This is an Adobe AIR application. Still reading? Okay. It’s a $79 Adobe AIR application. You’re still reading!? Well good, because it’s worth every penny. Balsamiq Mockups is, as you might have guessed, a mockup application for software, iPhone and web developers. It provides a very cute hand-drawn style, ensuring that there can be no confusion between a mockup/wireframe and a final version. It really pays for itself in the time you’ll save by using it. Really, it’s faster than using a pen and paper. Drag elements onto a canvas, edit their properties, done. I didn’t like the icon so went and stole one from another application.
• Forklift – Forklift is a great file management app. For those who don’t like Finder, this could function as a replacement, or at least a good companion. I use it mainly for FTP, batch renaming and app deletion. Its split-pane view is especially useful for moving files around quickly. As it has recently seen a price drop ($19.95) it is definitely worth picking. Apparently it doesn’t work too well with Snow Leopard yet. I uploaded this blog without any problems, so I’m not so sure where the issues are.
• LittleSnapper – This is where I collect design ideas and inspiration. It’s as easy as hitting a keyboard shortcut, selecting the stuff I want to capture and letting it scurry off to my LittleSnapper library. I sort my library at the end of every day of snapping to ensure I don’t forget why I collected something. It doesn’t usually sit in my Dock, it’s there because it’s just been installed so I thought I’d mention it. I’ll hide the icon now.
• The Hit List – I did use Things, but The Hit List pins Things to the floor and screams obscenities in its face. The Hit List is just so natural. It is lacking an iPhone app, but this is on the way, apparently. Once the iPhone app is here, I’d say The Hit List could be very close to perfect.
• VoodooPad – I use VoodooPad as my ideas and notes collection app. It works like a desktop wiki, interlinking pages automatically. Images can be embedded right inside the pages and re-opened again in Preview, ready for editing and exporting. I have a huge file for blog post ideas, and form the first drafts in there. I can also carry my VoodooPad documents around with my on my iPhone.
• Applications, Documents and Downloads Stacks – I like having quick access to Documents and Downloads. Applications was thrown down there by OS X after the Snow Leopard installation. It’s still there because it’s now more usable than before thanks to scrolling Stacks.

Dock size?

I’m quite… strange. A perfectionist, perhaps. I like my Dock to be a certain size, and dragging to resize the Dock just isn’t good enough. If you’re like me, you can use the following to ensure your Dock is the perfect height.

Open Terminal and enter the following, replacing “45″ with the size you’d prefer.

defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 45

Then kill the Dock.

killall Dock

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