2. Get Your Files & Apps in a Row

One of the most visually appealing features in Leopard demos we’ve seen so far is Stacks, a Dock enhancement that creates beautiful pop-up menus of the contents of docked folders. Of course, Tiger already possesses this basic function, although without the visual flair promised by the Leopard demo. To dock a folder in Tiger, drag its icon to the right side of the bar that separates docked applications from the Trash. Then Control-click (or right-click) the docked folder’s icon to browse the folder’s contents.

Leopard also features a better way to manage Safari downloads. Rather than automatically placing all downloads onto your Desktop - resulting in endless visual and system-clogging clutter - Leopard features a Downloads folder on the Dock. You can approximate this feature in Tiger. Launch Safari and open its Preferences (Command-comma or Safari > Preferences). Click the drop-down menu next to “Save downloaded files to” and select Other. In the resulting dialog, browse to your Documents folder, create a Downloads folder, and select that folder as the location for your downloaded files. Finally, return to the Finder, open your Documents folder, and drag the new Downloads folder to the right side of the Dock. To see the contents of your Downloads folder, just Control-click (or right-click) the folder icon.

To set your docked folders apart, try assigning them different icons. First select the icon you want in the Finder. Then press Command-I, select the icon preview, and press Command-C. Highlight your Downloads folder, press Command-I, select the icon preview, and press Command-V to paste the new icon over the old one. You can download free icons at interfacelift.com.

Control-clicking on any docked folder within Tiger will display a list of the folder’s contents, although not quite as stylishly as Leopard’s animated Stacks feature.

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3. Automate Your Backups

Leopard’s Time Machine promises to make recovering an old version of a file as easy as browsing through a folder, a first for the Mac OS. But the core feature behind Time Machine - automatic, incremental backups - is already available in Apple’s Backup service, available to .Mac subscribers ($99 per year).

To get started, download the Backup app from your .Mac account (log in to www.mac.com and look for Backup in the list on the left side), and add it to the /Applications folder. Run the application, and click the plus-sign button at the bottom of the window to create a new backup plan. To back up your Home folder (which will preserve all of your data except for the OS itself), simply choose the Home Folder preset from the list, and click Choose Plan. Under Destination and Schedule, double-click the Daily plan, and select your preferred backup location and schedule.

To restore a file, select your plan from Backup’s main window, and click Restore. Select the appropriate dated incremental backup on the left, and browse through the saved folders and files in the panes on the right. Check the box next to the files and folders you need, and click Restore Selection to make them available on your Desktop.

It’s not as dramatic as a souped-up DeLorean, but .Mac’s Backup can restore selected files and folders from its automatic, incremental backups.

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