Static Stack Icon

Stacks have gotten their share of bad press. Many users aren’t happy with the dynamic icon that changes on the stack as its contents change. One solution is to sort the stack by modification date and post-date the icon file you always want to see on the face of your stack in the dock.

Murphy is using a set of icons found through a post on TUAW. These particular icons come post-dated to 2010, which makes it a safe bet your selection will be the most recently modified file in your stack.  Watch the screencast to see how Murphy made his stack.

If you have a different file you want to use the touch command can be employed to update the modification date. All of this information can be found at the same place Murphy found the icons. Here’s an example of how you would use the touch command:

touch -mt 202001010101.01 " name of icon file "

The above command assumes you’re in the directory the file resides in. Note the string of numbers is actually a time and date.

Murphy uses a stack to launch applications he uses frequently, but not frequently enough to reside on the Dock. Sometimes he launches from Terminal too. And the Leopard changes to Spotlight make it a more convenient app launcher too.

So - what do you think? Is there any hope for Stacks?

Get Info Updates in Leopard

The Get Info panel in Leopard’s Finder has some exciting new features. If you wanted to transfer an icon from one file to another in Tiger you had to open a Get Info panel for each file and copy-paste it. Now you can just drag the file to the destination file’s Get Info panel.

The panel also has a proxy icon in its title bar, so you can make a move, copy, or make an alias, right from the panel. Do you think that’s one of the 300 features?

The image for this post is one of the old, lame Get Info panels from Tiger. Notice the total lack of proxy icon.

Did you know you can drag files to the Preview icon in the panel too? You can add files to a folder by dragging them into the folder’s preview in the Finder Get Info panel.

Haven’t upgraded yet? I bet you will after seeing the screencast.

Finding Disk Space Hogs

Your Mac has thousands of files tucked inside. Which files are taking up tons of space? It’s not always obvious as you peruse your home folder in the Finder.

You could make a Smart Folder and tell it to show you files over a certain size. Or you could open the Inspector and click all over the place looking for a folder stuffed with nine hundred raw image files. But there’s another way.

Donation-ware Disk Inventory X is a handy little application for quickly spotting the space hogs on your Mac. The program creates a graphical representation - called a treemap - of your disk (disks) with larger files displayed as large color-coded blocks. Large folders are also readily apparent, with their contents shown as tiny little blocks.

The interface is well-designed - making it easy to hop around the large occupants on your drives. A path is displayed showing the location of a selected block. A floating window can provide detailed information about each file. Disk Inventory X also has options to reveal files in Finder or delete them through a handy control-click menu.

It’s not the only way to manage your disk space - but it’s fast and well-designed. If you need to find some quick candidates for deletion Disk Inventory X could be the tool you’re looking for.

Excel Pivot Tables

Admittedly, Murphy is a little hung up on Excel this week. This is probably the end. But if you’ve never looked at a pivot table it’s worth taking a peek.

We’re going to use the same data we used yesterday, an accounting of Murphy’s gambling activity while in Vegas last week. The raw data doesn’t tell us much, but the pivot table gives us tons of presentation options.

There are some truly nifty features in a pivot table. Like double-clicking a sum to create a table displaying its source data. The interface is great too - friendly drag and drop. Even if your table set-up isn’t right you can probably drag a few things here and there to fix it.

You can base a pivot table on an Excel list or some other data source. In the screencast we’ll use an Excel list for simplicity.

iMovie Double Map Pan and Zoom

You can add a nice finishing touch to your travel movies by including a map that shows where you were. For geographically challenged viewers you can start zoomed way back from your map - and zoom all the way in to the specific spot where you shot your video.

The problem: That can be a LONG way to zoom - and the viewer might not appreciate it. Murphy has a solution. Break the zoom into two phases using two copies of the same map still-image. One zoom goes from country level down to the regional level. Then cross fade into a zoom that starts a little closer in and finishes at your locale. The fade makes the journey far easier on your viewer’s eyes, and gives your production a polished look.

You can take your efforts a step further by making another copy of your map still and placing a graphic on it, like an arrow. The second zoom could fade into this still, making it clear exactly where the movie was shot.

You might have to do some experimenting with the distances and speeds used for the zoom. Also, it helps a lot to pan toward your final destination in the first zoom - which you can do by just dragging the image in the iMovie viewer. Your audience will see where they’re heading in the first zoom - letting them know where they are with regard to the big picture.

Watch the screencast if you’re totally confused!

Click here to see another cool iMovie effect.  Or watch this Final Cut Express trick.