All Disks, Present and Accounted For
Some of us like to keep the Desktop free and clear of any clutter, but we old-school Mac users like to have quick access to our disks from the Finder at all times. A trip to Finder > Preferences will enable to to determine which disk types show up on the Desktop, including hard disks, external disks, CDs, DVDs and iPods and also connected servers, which are usually off by default.

Quick Look in Exposé
You love the Quick Look feature introduced with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 and you love Exposé… now why not have two great tastes that taste great together? While viewing a window in Exposé, mouse over a one of them (it will highlight in blue) and then hit the Space Bar to get a Quick Look at that particular window without actually switching to it. Schwing!

Option-Click the Menu Bar
The Finder menu bar is a handy place for often-used software, but did you know many of them are also informative? A simple Option-Click on some of your menu bar items reveal a treasure trove of valuable data -- AirPort and Bluetooth will now show details of your connection, while Time Machine will give you the option of verifying a backup or even browsing other backups. But that’s not all…

Keep In Check with MobileMe Sync
One of the more valuable uses for a menu bar Option-Click is MobileMe, which usually just shows the last sync, allows you to initiate a new one or open the preferences pane. Click on the menu with Option-Click, however, and now you’ve presented with detailed information about each MobileMe sync as well as access to diagnostics tools for when trouble pays a visit.

Take Control of Screenshots
Many of us know that you can take a quick screenshot with a simple Command-Shift-3 keystroke, or use Command-Shift-4 and drag your mouse to capture just a part of it. But did you know you can capture a specific window by selecting Command-Shift-4, pressing the Spacebar on the desired window (it will turn blue like the image above) and then clicking the mouse? You do now.

Clean Up the Menu Bar
Apple provides us with a few key menu bar items, many of which can be turned off in the System Preferences. But it’s easy to get a lot of clutter out there once third-party applications are added, but thankfully relief is a click away. Eliminate Apple menu bar items by simply Command-clicking on the offender and dragging it right off. Poof! One less to deal with.

Relaunch Finder from the Dock
There are plenty of ways to relaunch the Finder in the rare event that it’s acting cranky -- including the Force Quit option under the Apple menu, which is generally the go-to function for misbehaving applications. But the easiest one is hidden: Simply Control-Click on the Finder icon in the Dock with the Command key also held down, and “Relaunch” will now magically appear as another option.

Slow Down the Genie Effect
This trick serves no practical purpose other than amusement: Next time you double-click on a window to minimize it into the Dock, hold down the Shift key as you do so. This will provide you with a “slow motion” look at the Genie (or Scale) effect, and it even works with the hidden “Suck In” effect accessible through TinkerTool and other system tweaking applications.