Minimal Mac

Sorry folks, but lack of daycare this week combined with end of year financial stuff have finally caught up with me. I wont be able to resume this series until Monday.

Very sorry for the delay.

On day one of this series, we cleaned up your Desktop and had you organize your files into the already built in groupings on your Mac. The main goal was to get them off of your Desktop and into manageable bunches. Today, let’s take the time to put some of those items where they ideally belong. Once again, I wish to preface that this series may seem rudimentary to some of you “pros” but hang in there with the rest of the folks (Who knows? You may even learn a thing or two).

Just as Apple has created ready made folders in your “Home” directory to sort like items into, they have made applications to help you further organize and enjoy those files. Photos and Music are two obvious examples (iPhoto and iTunes). Here is how to handle these:

Photos

If you moved any photos into the Pictures folder of your Home directory on day one, consider adding those to iPhoto (Choose Import to Library… in the File menu). This is really where photos belong. Once they are in iPhoto you can safely delete the originals from your Pictures folder.

There may be some images you wish not to have in iPhoto. For instance, lots of people I know who do design work keep various images for ideas and inspiration. There are a number of 3rd party tools for that very thing that I won’t cover here, but I will challenge you to add those to iPhoto instead.

If you don’t want certain photos mixed in with the family photos, no problem. After adding these, select them and choose “Hide Photo” from the Photo menu. Then, create a new Smart Album (File: New Smart Album) and set the criteria to “Photo is Hidden”. Now, these photos will only show up when you click on the Smart Album. This tip is also good for all of those other photos you grabbed off the net that you don’t want to show up when showing off your new puppy… Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.

My point is this, there is nothing that should stop you from storing any photo you wish to keep in iPhoto and not keep any stray ones around elsewhere.

Oh, and here is an iPhoto pro-tip: You do know that photos you “delete” in iPhoto don’t really delete but get moved into iPhoto’s own special Trash, right? Well, now you do. Go to the iPhoto menu and choose “Empty iPhoto Trash” and get back a bit of disk space. You’re welcome.

Music

Similar deal here. That Radiohead album that you downloaded, unzipped, and added to iTunes. Yep, that one. Are you still holding onto the downloaded copy? Even the zip file? Why? Once it is in iTunes, trash the original. If you are worried about having a “backup” have a real backup of everything on your hard drive – one onsite and one off. That really cool mixtape.mp3, that audio interview with the productivity guru, that ringtone of your buddy’s pet bunny sniffing into a mic – stick that stuff in iTunes (File: Add to Library) and then delete it.

Also, just like iPhoto, Smart Playlists are your clutterphobic best friend. Create a new Smart Playlist where the criteria is “Playcount is less than 1”. These are all the things in your library you have never listened to. As I see it, you have two choices here – Hit the play button or hit the delete key. Perhaps you might even find some things where you hit the delete key moments after hitting the play button.

Next up…

Tomorrow, we will do a little “getting real” with your Applications folder.

In day one of this series, we cleaned up your Desktop and had you organize your files into the already built in groupings in the Home directory on your Mac. Today, I’m going to focus on two other areas on your Mac that are easily cluttered, and near impossible to ignore – the Dock and the Menubar. Here are some suggestions for how to deal with those:

The Dock

The Dock is a very useful feature of your Mac and it’s purpose is to allow you to launch frequently accessed programs quickly. Frequency is the key here. Certain programs you probably launch everyday, many times a day, or pretty much run constantly from the moment you log in to your Mac. Those are the sorts of items that belong in the Dock.

There are many applications that automatically place icons in your Dock upon installation for programs you may use only infrequently, if at all. Microsoft Office is one example (the 2008 version puts 7 icons in your Dock). Even Apple is guilty of this with the iLife and iWork suites. In addition, many people still keep an icon in the Dock long after they have stopped using the application. I argue that such items have no place in the Dock.

Take the time to look at each icon in your Dock and evaluate with honesty which ones fall into which of the above criteria. Any that fall into the later, click-hold and drag those directly up then release them and breathe a sigh of relief with every saucy little poof.

The Menubar

Like your Dock, there are many applications that put an icon in your menubar upon installation. In increasingly more cases, the menubar icon is the application. And don’t even get me started on the applications that put an icon in your Dock and your Menubar on installation even if in prior versions of that aplication you have told it you prefer one over the other (Droplr, you know I am looking at you right?).

There are some other scenarios I can think of where a Menubar icon may exist for a service that is rarely used. I have seen many people with desktop Macs that are networked via ethernet that, despite not being used, have the Airport Menubar item active. Or Bluetooth when no such devices are being used. Just because Apple put them there does not mean you need to keep them.

Therefore, just like your Dock, it can be a slippery and fast path to a lot of icons for applications and utilities that you rarely use. If you use a Menubar icon for a service or application, keep it in there. If an application has both a Dock icon and a Menubar item that perform essentially the same functions, choose one over the other.

If neither of these is true, why have a Menubar item at all. With many of them, command-clicking and dragging out of the Dock will remove it. Others have it in a preference panel or pane. Still others you simply must quit the application to make it go away.

Coming soon

Tomorrow, we will look at how to deal with some of that stuff you cleaned up off your Desktop on day one. Stay tuned…

We are going to start with cleaning up your Desktop (and keeping it that way). A computer desktop can get cluttered very quickly with files and folders. After all, it is intended to operate just like a real world desktop – a place to hold items you are working on. But, just like the real world, that spot operates best when it is being used to hold only the items you are working on. Luckily, the Mac makes it easy to file and organize these items into fairly logical grouping which will make them easy to find should you need them again. Much of this may seem rudimentary to you but, trust me, there are many that can benefit from this info.

1. In the Finder, go to the “View” menu, click on “Arrange by” and choose “Kind.” This will group items based on the type of file they are.

2. Open a Finder window and navigate to your “Home” folder. One of the nice things about the Mac is that it actually encourages you to organize into some logical groupings. Documents, Pictures, Music… It is all right there ready for you to get your org-fu on.

3. Take the files on your Desktop, now grouped by kind, and organize them into these folders. Place Documents into Documents, Pictures into Pictures, etc. Don’t worry about their final resting place (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) right now. The goal here is simply to get your Desktop cleaned up.

4. While doing this, think about the things you don’t need to keep and can go straight to the Trash. This includes .DMG files for applications you have already installed. .ZIP files for archives you have already unzipped, etc. If you don’t need it there is no reason to file it anywhere but that circular file in your Dock.

5. A clean Desktop is easy to keep that way. Commit to taking a few seconds at the end of every day to file away items no longer needed at the ready using the steps above. The fewer the items, the less time it will take.