Disable Top Sites on Safari - Mac OS X & Windows.

New windows and tabs in Safari by default display a 3×4 grid of Top Sites, which shows the web sites you visit the most often. Sometimes it will display sites you don’t want showing up, and it can also slow down Safari on older computers. If you would like to possibly speed up Safari and avoid any potential embarrassment try disabling Top Sites from appearing in new windows and tabs:

Open Safari menu and go-to Preferences (Command + ,).

Under the “General” tab look for “New windows open with:” and choose any option other than Top Sites.

Below that you'll find “New tabs open with:” and choose “Empty Page” or again any option other than Top Sites.

Close Preferences.

Open a new tab or window to confirm the change. You can always get Top Sites back by selecting it again in the same preference panel.

Show and Hide Hidden Files on Mac OS X Easily.

Mac OS X hides files for many reasons but if you ever want to see them, one way is with a Terminal command like this:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Another way is on Open & Save dialog boxes you can press Command + . (dot). If however you would like to be able to hide and show Hidden Files simply, with one click you might want to check-out InvisibliX.

InvisibliX is a little free app that, on first launch, will ask you to accept it’s licence, once you do so, a Drop window will appear. You can drag any file or folder into this window and see it’s name, kind and whether it is hidden or locked, you can also set it to be hidden or locked.

If you want the single click Show/Hide functionality simple open InvisibliX preferences (Command + ,) and check "Activate InvisibliX Menu" you should now see a new menu-bar icon:

Once you click "Show Invisible Files" Finder will quickly refresh and you will now see your hidden files, to hide you files again simply click "Hide Invisible Files" and now after another Finder refresh your files will be hidden again.

Download InvisibliX Free Here.

Change the Speed of the Dock - Mac OSX.

If you use a the Auto-Hide dock option you might find this post helpful, you can speed up the Docks animations and completely remove the Auto-Hide delay, immediately showing your Dock. 

A quick-Tip that is sure to save you time.

Easily Customize Mac OS X Lion - TinkerTool.

If you like customizing and changing advanced and hidden OS X features and settings, TinkerTool is for you.

TinkerTool has 12 categories Finder, Dock, General, Desktop, Applications, Fonts, Font Smoothing, Login Items, Safari, iTunes, QuickTime X, and Resume, each section has a handful of options ranging from small tweaks too large system changes. You can always return to default and undo all the changes you make, meaning you wont accidentally break something.

TinkerTool is a free download, the latest version has a ton of OS X Lion specific tweaks and customizations, everything is enabled through the apps simple UI, it’s by far the easiest and most convenient way to access many of the hidden features of Mac OS X.

Download TinkerTool from the Developer for free here.

Remove Window Shadows from Mac OS X.

If you've ever wanted to remove shadows from windows, and menus in Mac OS X, you can with a free tool called ShadowKiller.

Just launch the app, and all windows will appear shadowless. You can get the shadows back by just relaunching the app. If you want to have the window shadows always disabled, you’ll need to add ShadowKiller into Login Items. (System Preferences > Users & Groups)

Download Shadowkiller for free from Unsanity

Before:

After:

This disables window and menu shadows but not when taking screen captures however, you can disable the shadow in screenshots with a simple command just copy and paste the code below into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

Then restart SystemUIServer:

killall SystemUIServer

Now when you take a screenshot now shadow will be shown.

If you want to revert back and have shadows on window screen captures again, copy and past the code below:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool false

And again kill SystemUIServer for changes to take effect:

killall SystemUIServer

Hide The Spotlight Icon on your Menu-Bar Mac OS X Lion.

If like me you've chosen to stop using Spotlight in favor of other alternatives like Alfred, or Quicksilver, you might want to hide the spotlight icon on your menu-bar to reduce menu-bar clutter, the good thing is. you can do so without disabling the search abilities from functioning in the Finder or with other apps that rely on the Spotlight indexing.

Hide the Spotlight Menu Icon in OS X Lion

This does not disable Spotlight, it only hides the icon on the menubar.

Launch the Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/ and copy and paste the following code:

sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search

Next, you've to kill SystemUIServer to refresh the menubar and have the change take effect:

killall SystemUIServer

Icon should now be hidden like the image below:

Show the Spotlight Menu Again

If you ever hide yourself wanting the Spotlight icon back, it's simple just enter the following code:

sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search

And again, kill SystemUIServer:

killall SystemUIServer

The Spotlight menu will be visible again:

Finder Quick Tip - Use Back & Forward Buttons to Show History - Mac OS X Lion.

If you've ever been going through multiple Finder folders and would like a quicker way to go back to te folder you starteed on this tip should help you.

After you’ve visited a few folders, click and hold on the Back button to display a drop-down menu of your past folders. The Forward button works the same way, but shows the history going forward, although the forward directories generally only exist after you have gone backward.

If you went directly to a single folder in the Finder, the Back button will show nothing. In this case, hitting Command + Up Arrow will always go to the parent directory of the current folder.