Mac keyboard shortcut to Maximize a window

I have sorely missed the simple keyboard shortcut from Microsoft Windows to maximize a window (alt+space x).

There are many other solutions out there for a Mac based on AppleScript & a 3rd party application to invoke it using a shortcut (like Quicksilver). But there is a way to do this for most applications without installing any other applications.

Almost every application has a "Zoom" menu-item in the "Window" menu which does the same action as clicking on the Maximize button on the left corner of the window.



So, here are the steps to setup a keyboard shortcut for this:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Go to "Keyboard & Mouse"
3. Navigate to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab
4. Click on the "+" button below the list
5. Set the "Application" drop down to "All Applications"
6. Set the "Menu Title" to "Zoom" (no spaces)
7. Set any keyboard shortcut. I have set Cmd+Shift+M (opposite of Cmd+M which is the standard shortcut for minimize)



8. Click on Add
9. In the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab, scroll down to see "Application Keyboard Shortcuts" at the end. Expand it to see "All Applications". Expand this to see the new shortcut you just created.



10. Close System Preferences

You are done. Now go to any application, press your shortcut & enjoy a maximized view of the application.

RCDefaultApp - centralized application association management

I came across this nifty preference pane RCDefaultApp for Mac OS X, that allows you to manage all kinds of associations like file associations, default applications for various file extensions, url protocol associations at a single place.

Its a relief to be able to set the default browser, default newsreader or default application for .xxx files at one place, instead of hunting around for the settings in various applications like Safari, Mail, Finder, etc.

This is now one of my must-have utilities for Mac.

Windows Scandisk better than Mac disk tools

I hate saying this... but it seems that the Windows Scandisk tool is better than any of Mac's disk tools (Disk Utility, fsck) at fixing disk problems.

I finally connected my external hard drive to a Windows system and ran Scandisk. That fixed all the problems with my hard drive. And now the hard drive mounts fine on a Mac too.

Sorry Apple!!! But this one goes to Microsoft :-(

Mac & FAT32 HDD problems

A file on my external USB hard drive failed to read today. The hard drive has a FAT32 file system, so that I can read the data from a Windows box and my Mac.

I suspect that the hard drive has some bad sectors (something I use to fix using "scandisk", when I used to run a Windows box).

I tried running Disk Utility -> Repair Disc from my Mac. It ran fine but the problem was still there.

I tried running "fsck" from Terminal, and it gave me a weird error "BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG ".

And googling just seems to bring me to the conclusion that nobody uses a FAT32 external hard drive with a Mac. Am I the only freak doing this??????

Snapshots in Mac

I knew that on a Mac, Cmd+Shift+3 could be used to take a snapshot of the entire screen and Cmd+Shift+4 can be used to take a snapshot of a selection.



But I was surprised to find that Cmd+Shift+4 followed by Space can be used to take a snapshot of a particular window. This is very useful and convenient, as I no longer need to carefully select a window from the top-left to the bottom-right. Just point at the window and click.