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Disk Inventory X is a disk usage utility for Mac OS X 10.3 (and later). It shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way called "treemaps". If you've ever wondered where all your disk space has gone, Disk Inventory X will help you to answer this question. For a quick start please read the readme file on the disk image.

Propagator provides a GUI for pushing out files to Macs on your local network. This is useful for OS X system administrators who wish to update all of their managed client machines with a specific file, most commonly property list (.plist) files. This functionality can also be achieved using Apple Remote Desktop, but a free alternative is always worth taking a look. My two favorite aspects of Propagator are its Common Places drop down menu for quickly specifying common locations to drop files (such as long ~/Library paths), and it's Set Ownership check box for giving proper ownership of the file to the right user accounts. The option to Lock Files After Copy prevents users (in my case, students and unknowing faculty) from messing with your work, accidentally or not.

Almost a year ago Apple gave us Leopard (OS X 10.5), and along with it came virtual desktops for the masses, in the form of Spaces. For many this was an interesting new way to expand their workspace virtually. For the rest of us [power users?] it was a letdown in execution. What was worse, the third party options looked to be dwindling as well. Last November I called for third party developers to bring the competition - let's take a look at the result of that call to arms.

Dock icons are a quick way to bring a hidden window or application to the front so that you can work with it again. Dock icons are odd ducks - they're activated with a single-click. Most icons are selected (highlighted) when you single click and opened when you double-click. So Dock icons are kind of like links on a Web page - you need only a single click to open them.

Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X market share has passed the 8% mark for the first time, a research company reported today. In September, Apple's operating system ran on 8.2% of the computers that accessed the 40,000 sites monitored by Net Applications for clients, the company's data showed. The Mac's share of the operating system market was up over August's by nearly four-tenths of a percentage point, the biggest one-month gain since May. Apple tends to post significant increases in September, according to Net Applications. Last year, for example, Mac OS X climbed by 0.45 points that month

Are you using the latest version of Mac OS X efficiently? Try our tips and watch your productivity soar.

Don't let you Mac fall asleep

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) 3 is the latest release of Apple's desktop management software, enabling administrators to distribute software, manage assets, and remotely administer Mac OS X systems via a network. ARD 3 takes advantage of innovative technologies in Mac OS X Tiger such as Automator. Automator is built on the concept of actions - discrete tasks such as opening a file, cropping an image, or sending a message. With Automator users can string together a series of actions into a single Automator workflow document. Much like a script, a workflow document can be executed, triggering each action and passing any data generated by the action to the next action in the workflow. Using the Automator actions installed with ARD and custom actions you create, you can develop workflows to automate repetitive system administration tasks. For example, workflows can distribute software, create detailed software and hardware reports, and remotely configure systems using ARD.

Ultimately, I was foiled by the security features of the Mac. I found that SSH attempted to log me in as the account owner of the Mac itself, rather than letting me to supply my own log-in name and associated password. In effect, I couldn't log on as anyone except the owner of the Mac account, at least by default. Because I didn't have an account on that Mac and my friend with the Mac didn't have an account on my Linux box, I couldn't log in.

When you think of the Apple Macintosh, you might think of a smooth-running, elegantly designed, though comparatively expensive, laptop or desktop computer that is used largely in homes. But can Macs also play a part in the workplace? The answer seems to be, increasingly, yes. For instance, the Orange County, Calif., Sheriff's Department recently purchased 175 iMacs and MacBook laptops, which will work within the department's Microsoft Windows environment. "They are used in regular office space for all types of assignments," said Assistant Sheriff James McDonald.  "We also use them in the training room and we use some for video editing and podcasting."

As a Mac sysadmin, I've had the need to manipulate the dock on hundreds of systems at a time. I used to cobble together terrible shell scripts to do the job, but now thanks to plistlib and python, plist manipulation is really easy. I am releasing this utility free under the Apache 2.0 license. Hopefully some other sysadmins will find it useful. dockutil is a command line utility for managing Mac OS X dock items. It can add, replace, list, move, find, and delete dock items. It supports Applications, Folders, Stacks, and URLs. It can act on a specific dock plist or every dock plist in a folder of home directories. It is compatible with Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard.

Add Item to Dock is a flexible, open-source tool, released for the benefit of system administrators. Add Item to Dock provides an interface to the defaults program, allowing you to add items to the dock via the command line.