This one's fun: StayWidget

As many of you know, I'm not much of a dashboard fan. I don't see the point of invoking and dismissing a whole suite of garbage, if I never use those things. But there may be occasion to have a persistent widget that actually does something useful. In this case, use StayWidget, which allows you to have a widget that remains on the desktop (above other app windows).

What you do is invoke dashboard by your command key (F4 on the new keyboards, F12 on old)... grab the widget you want to persist, and drag it around a bit WHILE uninvoking dashboard with the command key again.

Nifty.

StayWidget makes a lot more sense. You ought to be able to drag any of those widgets wherever you want them. I really like the stand-alone Dictionary app.

PrintWindow3

This is an essential utility that restores a legacy function, the ability to print a Finder window, for use as a hard-copy disk catalog when sending a job. In the print world, it used to be a common courtesy to send a snapshot of the disk contents as they appear in the Finder.

This program gives you a bit of control over the appearance of what prints (with/without icons and so forth).

I love outputting to PDF and then using the advanced editing tools of Acrobat to make my own layouts. Especially handy when making a quick PDF of technical instructions for Mac people, or job instructions for the press people. You can insert the little icon graphics and make a nicer presentation, for example, "open the application 'NetInfo Manager' <show icon>. Or, the job files are in THIS <folder icon> folder, blah blah blah. You can show people where things are just by dragging things around in the PDF and using Acrobat as a quick and dirty word processor.

And if you then open the PDF in Photoshop, you get a nice library of Mac icons (on a transparent background, but with roundrect surrounds) that you can repurpose.

This has helped me when I think about redesigning Aqua. I notice things like, the new ADOBE folder icons are leaps and bounds better than the stupid stripey 3/4 view generic finder icons. Flat folder icons need to come back. Adobe shows they can be simple and not boring.

I'm not crazy about the use of text (I still think apps should have pictorial icons)... but I like the use of distinctive color-coding for various apps. PS blue, AI orange, and so forth. That helps visually in the way that GOOD icon labels did back in the day.