• Developer / Product Page: Helium Foot Software / MercuryMover 2.0
• Price: $20 (free upgrade from 1.x; 30 day trial available)

Earlier this year, I selected MercuryMover 1.1 as a Pick of the Week. This week, it's being selected again, because I've found version 2.0 to be a very nice upgrade over the original. There are two main features of 2.0 that I really like: you can define single keystrokes to set window size (width and height) and/or location (left and top of window), and there's a nice little info window that shows the current window's size and location. While the info window is nice, it's the shortcuts that I find really useful.

For instance, after activating MercuryMover (Control-Command-Up Arrow), you...

If you add alarms and reminders to your iCal events and are tired of putting in one day ("day before") or two days as the time period, iCal offers a feature to resolve this with a little math. Go into iCal's preference pane and look towards the bottom. Check the box that says "Add a default alarm to all new events and invitations." In the box below that, enter the minutes (15 by default).

To get an alarm the day before -- or two or three, etc. days before -- is to simply multiple 60*24 for a day, 60*48 for two days and so on. iCal will recognize that this is a day and by default make the reminder set to the day before.

By default, double-clicking a folder in the Mac OS X Finder opens the folder in the current window. You probably know that you can open a new window for a folder that appears in the current window by holding down the Command key before double-clicking. You might also know you can open the parent of the current folder in a new window with Command-Up Arrow -- but this will close the original folder, too.

To open the parent folder of the current window in a new window, while leaving the current window open, hold Command and Control, and then press the Up Arrow key on the keyboard.

I have always liked the result of this hint (and others like it in 10.4) that allowed me to customize the login window, but a quick search of the archive seems to show that no such hint exists for 10.5 (although I grant that I didn't try this one in 10.5). The existing hints for Workgroup Server don't address the login window specifically. However, I have figured out how to make all sorts of modifications to the login window by using Apple's free Server Admin Tools.

To modify your login window, follow the instructions in this hint to download and install the Server Admin Tools and open Workgroup Manager. (Note that the link I provided in the previous...

I have tried adding an HP LaserJet 6L printer via Printer Setup Utility many times, and I always got the USB device to show under the default browser, but I could not add the printer. So I went to More Printers (holding down the Option key), clicked Advanced, and tried selecting USB Printer. This brought up usb://, but I could not find address using System Profiler or USB Prober.

Anyway, my grandson comes in, and asks "what's that Unknown button right at the bottom of the Advanced panel?" So I click it, and it comes up with a URL: usb://Unknown/Unknown?serial=0. I tried this, using the Gutenprint HP 6L driver -- and it works perfectly, even waking the printer if necessary.

This works with OS X 10.4.11; hope it helps others -- I googled for help on this, but didn't find anything on the subject.