A Few Handpicked Tips For Mac Beginners

Enhance Your QuickLook With Plugins
This oft-forgotten feature allows you to preview files without ever having to open up an application, and it’s only a space bar click away. A team in Japan has released what appears to be the first external plug-ins for QuickLook, and they really add some awesome functionality to this already useful new tool.

Download Folder.qlgenerator and uncompress it. With the folder uncompressed, you should see a couple of files inside, including a Readme, and the actual Folder.qlgenerator file.
Head over to your root ~/Library and then find the folder entitled QuickLook. Now, simply drop the Folder.qlgenerator and Zip.qlgenerator into that folder.

Try and QuickLook a folder and you should see a new screen that shows the contents of that folder and not just the one large icon that QuickLook displays by default. If it doesn’t happen right away, either give it a minute, or try opening a Terminal window (located in /Applications/Utilities) and typing killall Finder.

You can just invoke QuickLook with a .zip file selected and it will show you a list of the files that are within it too.

Play Any Video Format File On Your Mac
There are 3 very important applications that every Mac user should download. These applications will allow you to play almost every video file on your mac, and make you a happier, more entertained person.
To play any video format on QuickTime you need the following applications.

1) Download Perian-it adds the following codecs:
AVI, FLV (Flash Video), MKV, “MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio [...] AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3

2) Download Flip4Mac WMV -After the download, it will install the components on your computer. It plays all your WMV format files on mac.

3) Download VLC -This is the “swiss army” knife of video players, and can handle most video formats out there. This is my go-to if my Perian-Flip4Mac-Quicktime system doesn’t work . VLC is free, and can be downloaded from videolan.org

Hopefully these 3 items will get your video files playing.

Clear Finder's "Open With" Menu
Have you ever right-clicked and selected “Open With” on an MP3 to open it with your favorite player only to be bombarded with a list of applications you thought you removed ages ago? Maybe even some you never knew existed? There is also the problem of duplicates.

Everything is stored in a single file located in your preferences folder. Take the following steps to delete this file so the list can get a fresh rebuild

• Go to your ~/Users/Library/Preferences folder
• Find “com.apple.LaunchServices.plist” file and trash it (you can back it up if you want)

There you have it. The next time you right-click on an item and select “Open With” in the Finder, only current applications will be listed. Some items may return if the application that controls them adds itself back to the list. You can delete the file again if you are having problems.

Courtesy MacApper

Technorati Tags: QuickLook Plugins, Play All Video Format, Perian, VLC, Flip4Mac WMV , Mac OS X Backup, Mac OS X for Beginners, Mac OS X Beginners Tips, Mac OS X Ticks, Macintosh OS X Tools, MacOs X leopard, MacOs X Terminal, OS X Tools , Macintosh OS, MacOs X 10.5, MacOS X Software, MacOS X Hints, Free MacOS X, OSX Desktop, Macintosh consulting, MacOS X Apps, Leopard Tricks, OS X Leopard