I'm pretty sure this is a new feature of the 2.3 update. If you add a Show label (under the Video tab) for a group of movies (for instance, Star Wars) then they will all show up in a sub-folder of that show name. So now, instead of seeing a long list of Star Wars: Episode I, Star Wars, Episode 2, etc., you just get one item with a little arrow next to it indicating there's a sub-folder.

As I was sending an e-mail today, I wondered if there were any easy way to choose my outgoing account in Mail. Like many people, I have several accounts, and need to choose specific ones for messages I send to certain clients. So I wondered -- since you can apply keyboard shortcuts to menu items using the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane -- maybe that would work for this drop-down menu in Mail.

So I went to that preference pane, clicked the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, and clicked the + button to get the new keyboard shortcut dialog. I chose Mail as the application, then entered the exact information that displays for one of my accounts (in the Mail 'From' drop-down menu). The format of each menu item is:

First_name Last_name <my_email@my_host>

Make sure to include the angle brackets, and put a space before the first one. Choose a shortcut -- I chose Command-Option-Control and a letter for each account -- then click Add. As you can see from Rob's screenshot, it works as expected.

Go to Mail and press Command-N to create a new message. Now, just press your keyboard shortcut, and you'll see the outgoing account changes to the one you've chosen. If you have several accounts, do this for all of them (or the ones you use most often). This doesn't save a lot of time, but it means I can use the keyboard instead of the mouse to make that change.

[robg adds: You can also add shortcuts for the outbound server and Signature drop-down menus. I guess this is to be expected, but I'm always impressed when keyboard shortcuts function on drop-down menus without having to first activate those menus.]

While there are a lot of solutions for syncing documents and backing them up, sometimes I want something that is quick and lightweight.

I have my email client (Mail.app for me), set up with a Gmail account over IMAP. Since I always have Mail open anyway, I often just create a new draft message and start typing. Every time I save, the text is uploaded to Gmail's servers (aka, a backup). Even better, I can edit this doc anywhere. My other computer (same email setup) has already grabbed the draft, and I can just open it up and work on it. And if I'm somewhere else, I can hop on Gmail's web interface. When I'm done, I just copy and paste it all into a serious editor.

Personally, I like this better than something like Google Docs, because I always have Mail open (plus, Google Docs is very JavaScript heavy).

Here are some tips for getting the PHP pecl_http extension running on a Macintosh OS X 10.5.x Leopard 64-bit Intel machine. For starters, you need to follow the instructions in the PHP Documentation pages to install the PEAR/PECL manager, because it is no longer in the standard OS X setup:

1. To compile the extension, you have to install the Developers (Xcode) from your system disks because they are not installed by default. This is a simple step.
2. It's not made clear that you need to install an older version of pecl_http than the latest stable version (1.6.1 as of this writing), because 1.6.1 needs PHP6. I used version 1.5.6 successfully. So, your Terminal command has to be sudo pecl install pecl_http-1.5.6.
3. There is apparently a libcurl dependency in the case of pecl_http (although no dependencies are listed at the extension site), but it came with the excellent entropy.ch PHP installation I substituted for the bundled PHP installation. I needed the entropy.ch version because it has the PDO_MYSQL extension and driver I need for the Zend Framework.
   
   Note that using the entropy.ch substitute can confuse the PECL install manager (it may place the compiled extension in the wrong place for the substitute) -- it's easy enough to move (mv) it after it's successfully compiled.
4. Once compiled and located properly, you may need to chmod the rights for the extension. I had to to make it comparable to the others in the extensions directory -- not sure this was strictly necessary, but I thought it would help to have them similarly owned and permitted.
5. As is made clear elsewhere, you need to add the following to your php.ini where all other extensions to load are listed: extension=http.so. I did not comment out the extension_dir="./" line as some suggest, and I had no problems.
6. Last and perhaps most important, I had to change the underlying Apache startup plist file so that it comes up in 32-bit mode -- it never worked under the standard 64-bit mode.

Read the rest of the hint for the details on the required change to the Apache file noted in the last item above...

If you're having a problem with a wireless USB mouse skipping, double-clicking instead of single-clicking, or otherwise acting weird, and you've tried fooling with the software and the dongle to no avail, consider whether the problem might be with the keyboard...even if the mouse dongle is plugged into the computer, not the keyboard. And even if the keyboard is wired.

I had Logitech send me two mice which seemed totally flaky until I happened to unplug my keyboard, and found that the mouse worked like a champ. Now, whenever the mouse seems fritzy, I unplug and replug the keyboard's USB plug and it all gets better.

Weird, but there you go....

For those of us who must use Lotus Notes (LN) on Mac OS X, it is the bane of our existence. The installer is basically broken, and it's not configured for multi-user setup. But today, all that changes! I have devised a series of procedures to make LN easier to install, and also to make it "multi-user aware." These notes are known to work with LN 7.0.3, but may work with any R7 flavor, and may be able to be altered for 6.5.6, which is the last 6.5x version for OS X.

Some of the problems with the LN installer :

1. Sometimes LN does not ask for authorization
2. Running as a non-admin user does not work correctly
3. Only installs the templates and seed files (referred to as seed files) to the directory of the account that installed it.

The third one is really a problem. The installer assumes that the person who is going to use LN is the same person who installed it, and to install it, you need to be an admin. Read on to see how I fixed this mess...

I have six mail accounts that I check on with my iPhone, and for months, I've moved read e-mails to the Trash. What I forgot was that the trash needs to be cleared periodically. I regained a couple of hundred megabytes of space by cleaning all the accounts.

To empty the Trash you must enter each account, then enter the Trash and tap Edit. You are then given the option to Delete All. Select Delete All, then confirm the Delete All. A simple tip, but one that may free up a fair bit of space on your iPhone.

I just bought a new aluminum MacBook, and discovered that I couldn't get an IR remote control to pair with the notebook. This is optional, but it prevents other remotes from controlling your Mac.

If you go to the Security System Preferences panel, you'll find a Pair/Unpair button. Clicking on Pair brings up a message instructing you to press and hold the Menu and Next buttons on the remote until a "paired" icon appears.

I tried this several times with no luck. Finally, I found that you have to be running an admin account for this to work -- there is no indication that you can't pair from a non-administrator account. As a matter of fact, the panel is disabled until you click the lock and enter an admin account and password. But even after unlocking, you still can't pair from a standard account.

So if you have trouble pairing a new remote, make sure you log into an admin account first.

It is now well-known the four finger gesture to change apps. You swipe four fingers, right or left, and a bezel with open apps appears, as with Command-Tab. Then if you swipe with two fingers, you will select a different app, which can be switched to by tapping with four fingers.

One thing I saw today is that you don't have to release all your fingers after the four-finger swipe and the two-finger swipe. Simply make the first swipe and only release two fingers; the system will recognize correctly the new gesture, and you save a bit of time.

A similar thing happens with the zoom gesture in some applications such as Preview: you can zoom-in and zoom-out without release your fingers. Safari behaves a bit differenlyt: you can zoom-in/out without releasing your fingers, but it will only increase/decrease the page size once (Preview performs a continuous zoom). For larger zooms in Safari, you need to release your fingers.

On the other hand, a change between zoom and scroll is not possible, at least not in Preview or Safari.

One of the things that makes Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) so useful it that it can integrate, to varying degrees, with all broswers via its JavaScript bookmarklets. Many other sites also use these -- for example, I have bookmarklets for Digg, FaceBook, and more. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to activate these from a keyboard shortcut? You can!

1. Add a bookmarklet to your Bookmarks menu, not to your favorites bar.
2. In System Preferences, go to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard & Mouse System Preferences panel, and add a keyboard shortcut with the exact name of your bookmarklet. You can specify the application as either your chosen browser, or for All Applications if you use multiple browsers. If you choose All Applications, just make sure the bookmarklet has the same name in all browsers.

Now I can post to Delicious by pressing the same keyboard shortcut everywhere. Yay!

[robg adds: This works, of course, and can be extended to create keyboard shortcuts for any site in your Bookmarks menu, not just bookmarklets. It was mentioned in a footnote to this older hint, which covered a possibly quicker (but definitely not GUI-based) method of creating keyboard shortcuts in Safari (and any other program).]