Pair your remote with your Mac

If there are multiple Macs around when you’re using your remote, you’ll find that pressing a button once will perform the same action on every nearby Mac. To solve this problem, you can pair the remote specifically with a single target Mac. Open System Preferences, and then open the Security & Privacy pane.

At the bottom is a button labelled Pair…. Click this button, then follow the instructions that appear by holding the remote near your Mac and holding down the Menu and Next buttons on the remote. (Next is the button on the right-hand side of the ring at the top of the remote.)

Once you’ve done this, your remote and your Mac will be paired, meaning that using that remote will only control that one Mac.

Send your Mac to sleep with the remote

When using your Mac as a media center, you may wish to put the computer to sleep once you’re done. To do this quickly, you can use your remote. All you need to do is hold down the Play/Pause button on the remote. After a few seconds, a graphic will appear on the screen and your Mac will go to sleep.

Set up custom actions for your remote

By downloading the free utility BetterTouchTool, you can set up custom actions, which will be performed when you press specific buttons on your remote. This is great if you don’t use your remote for controlling iTunes or FrontRow, since you can override the default actions (play, next, pause, etc).

Once you’ve downloaded BetterTouchTool, you can add custom actions (called Gestures in BTT) by clicking its icon in the menu bar and choosing Preferences. Click Gestures at the top, then Apple Remote and other.

Next, click Add new gesture at the bottom of the screen. You can then select a ‘gesture’, i.e. a button on the remote, from the drop down in the lower left. After that, choose an action from the other drop down in the bottom right corner, or type a keyboard shortcut in the box.

For instance, you could set up an action which locks your computer when you hold down the Menu button on the remote by setting the gesture to Menu, Holding and the action to Show Loginscreen. (Note that since OS X doesn’t have an explicit ‘lock’ feature, this is the next best thing since it requires you to enter your password to get back into your Mac afterwards.)

Change the startup disk and eject CDs

As your Mac starts up, if you hold the Menu button on the remote, you’ll see the same menu as if you hold the Option key on the keyboard – a list of available startup disks. You can then use the remote to select a disk, and boot from it using the Play/Pause button.

In the same menu, you can also use the Volume Up button to eject a CD or DVD after selecting it.

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Free menu extras

There are a few icons that are in the menu bar by default, such as the Wi-Fi menu, the date and time display and the volume menu. There are also a lot of built-in system menus available, but not shown by default. To find them, navigate to System > Library > CoreServices > Menu Extras in the Finder. Here you’ll find even more menu items, such as an Eject item, which lets you eject CDs and DVDs from your optical drive, and Universal Access menu. To add one to the menu bar, simply double-click it in the Finder.

Another way to find additional menus for the menu bar is in the Mac App Store. There are hundreds available, but here are a couple which really stand out.

• MenuWeather Lite. This lets you put a weather forecast in your menu bar. You can choose for the icon to display either a temperature (in either celsius or fahrenheit), an icon to show the forecast, or both. The functionality doesn’t stop there, though; if you click on the icon, you can see details about the current conditions, a five-day forecast and access the preferences. MenuWeather Lite is free, and although there is a paid version with a few more features, the Lite version is good enough for my needs. It can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.
• Brightness menu bar. Similar to the built-in volume menu item, this adds a slider which allows you to control the brightness of your Mac’s screen. This is really good if you don’t have an Apple keyboard which has the brightness control keys on F1 and F2. The only downside is, like the keyboard keys, this only controls the brightness of your Mac’s built-in display, not any external displays you may have connected. Brightness menu bar is also free, and again, available in the Mac App Store. If you’re looking for a way to control external display brightness from the menu bard, check out Shades.

Tips and tricks

Here are a few tricks to get more from the menus you already have, without downloading new ones:

• Hold the option key. Nearly all of the built-in menu items have some hidden extras that reveal themselves if you hold “option” before clicking them. For example, if you hold option and click the Wi-Fi menu, you’ll see some extra information about your current Wi-Fi connection, such as the channel the router is set to and the type of security used. Even more useful: Holding option and clicking the volume button will let you quick choose from your available audio input and output options. Some other menu items with extras include the Bluetooth menu, which allows you to see extra information, and the battery menu which tells you the condition of your battery if you hold option.
• Hold the command key. If you hold the command key and drag a menu icon, you can change the order of the icons in the men bar. This only works with the built-in ones for some reason, and excludes Spotlight (which has to stay on the far right). You can also hold command and drag an icon off the menu bar to remove it altogether.
• Make the menu bar opaque. If you don’t like being able to see the desktop through the menu bar, you can set it to be opaque. Open System Preferences and open the Dock & Screensaver pane. Under the Desktop tab is a checkbox called Translucent menu bar; uncheck that to set the menu bar to opaque.

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It was bound to happen sooner or later, but barely 3 days after Leopard’s release we now have a simple app that changes the menu bar to solid white.

OpaqueMenuBar from Eternal Storms seems to just simply put a white bar over the menu bar. The only negative thing I found was that on dual-monitors it puts the white bar across both monitors instead of just the “master” monitor that has the menu bar.

OpaqueMenuBar is free for the taking.

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First off, Stacks. We’ve been hearing about patents along these lines for maybe a couple of years now. It’s nice to see that come to fruition. And I see a lot of potential in this new feature, for helping to keep my Desktop clean. I like it spotless as much as possible… So having Stacks at the ready is an interesting new feature I’m excited to play with, and expect will enhance my workflow. Will it knock Quicksilver off the top spot for accessing files quickly??? We’ll see.

Icon Previews will be huge for me. I love that I’ll be able to see the document in icon form as a super quick preview – quicker even than Quick Look, which looks decent in and of itself. This new feature seems like a no-brainer, but I’m sure will enhance many a user’s experience while looking through their documents. Spring cleaning anyone? The prospect of switching my icons from their current extreme (small, small, small) to the other end of things (big, big, big) suddenly seems like a good idea. (mental note, get larger LCD…)

Quick Look is a nice idea in practice, but I wonder how useful it’ll actually be to me, if only for the above mentioned reason. Couple the preview icons with the new CoverFlow capability and I doubt I’ll get much use from Quick Look.

Transparent Menu Bar. Um, short of [maybe] looking neat, why? Either hide the whole darn thing, or leave it be is my stance. I don’t see the use in the partially visible Menu Bar. Sorry Steve.

So I think the All Show and No Go argument is a bit harsh. There’s definitely some usability in the features we saw demonstrated. Don’t forget this is Apple, who’s design-centric strategies are partially to thank for where they are today. Just because Windows Vista tries to copy the eye candy and lacks in the functional area, doesn’t mean Apple’s following Redmond now.

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