Now That’s A Switch

Published 20 years, 11 months past

From macosxhints, via xlab: how to restore Mac OS X to a little more sanity in the form of switching the keyboard shortcuts for “New Folder” and “New Finder Window.”  Contrary to the tip’s assertion, you will need to restart the Finder for the change to take effect, but it does indeed work.  Also, since the tip is somewhat ambiguous about what you should have in your com.apple.finder.plist file when you’re done, here’s what I have: 

<key>NSUserKeyEquivalents</key>
<dict>
	<key>New Finder Window</key>
	<string>@$N</string>
	<key>New Folder</key>
	<string>@N</string>
</dict>

Those seven simple lines are all it took to remove one of my last major complaints about OS X: now I can hit cmd-N and get a new folder instead of a new Finder window.  I shed a tear of joy.  All I have to do is figure out what to hack so all of my new windows open in minimized List view, and I’ll be pretty much golden.

(As I also discovered, you can alter your shortcuts with TinkerTool‘s “Menu Shortcuts” panel, but I prefer directly hacking the OS.  It makes me feel all tough and manly.)

Now for a tear or two of sorrow.  Thanks to Jeffrey Zeldman, I went and read the New Yorker article about post-conflict Iraq, “War After the War.”  I’m pointing to the printer-friendly version, which should be a lot easier on the eyes than the narrow-column main article.  It’s a disturbing, disheartening piece that will likely not go over well with many in the right wing of the audience, but not because it’s slanted left.  It isn’t.  It’s a factual, first-hand report of what’s going on, in detail and from the mouths of soldiers and diplomats, in Iraq.  Some of those mouths are already stilled forever.

The personal downside is that, if you read the article all the way through—and it’s a long, involved piece, so don’t expect to rip through it in five minutes—you may have the same reaction I did, which is an almost overwhelming mixture of sorrow, anger, frustration, and helplessness.  Even worse, I’m not sure anything can be done at this point; even replacing the current administration would likely be too little, too late… and that assumes that the Democrats put up someone I would regard as a better choice than Bush, which is by no means assured.

Meanwhile, the sister-in-law of a friend of ours just got shipped to Iraq on almost no advance notice.  This person is a member of a National Guard unit that was classified “non-deployable.”  Whether or not such a distinction should exist, apparently it did.  Now the unit is being deployed, the very thing she was told would never happen, which is the only reason she decided to enlist; she has a husband and three children that she had no intention of leaving even temporarily.  When I hear such things, it makes me wonder if maybe the news from Iraq is more positive than the situation warrants.  Why else would the military choose to deploy a “non-deployable” unit?  That’s the sort of act I associate with desperation.

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