Mac OS X Howtos & Tips

Documentation on using Mac OS X, biased towards the command line. For more tips, try Mac OS X Hints.

Using automount on Mac OS X - how to mount remote filesystems.
Using CFEngine on Mac OS X - plus other tips on automating OS X systems.
How to configure a custom Domain Name System (DNS) server.
mfw - command line utility to manage multiple firewall configurations.
Presentation Terminal - how to setup a large Terminal window for use in presentations (fills 1024x768 display, large font, non-hostile colors).
Quota support - how to enable and use quota support on Mac OS X.
Tips on backing systems up with Retrospect.

Utilities

For more software and reviews, consult VersionTracker.

Adium - chat program. I dislike the wasted space in iChat chat windows: Adium supports space saving display templates, and tabbed windows.
Audio Hijack - the “perfect tool to record any audio on your computer”. Also consider Detour to specify where audio goes to, and LineIn to pass through audio from an external source.
BBEdit - text editor I like, in addition to vi(1). For those on a budget, consider the free TextWranger.
Delicious Library - catalog, browse, and share books, movies, and more.
GeekTool - allows all sorts of customizable windows to display data, such as a menu bar display of what iTunes is playing, or a background window following a logfile.
Kinkless GTD - implements David Allen’s Getting Things Done method.
NetNewsWire Lite - freeware Really Simple Syndication (RSS) reader, good keyboard-based reading of news.
Omnigroup Software: I use OmniOutliner Pro, OmniGrafflePro, and OmniWeb.
play - command line sound playing utility.
Quicksilver - keyboard completion for application, documents, and other resources. Also allows keyboard shortcuts, for example to lock the screen or run a particular script. However, recent versions (β44 and β45) have broken application opening (one can either launch and application with a keystroke, or bring a running application forward, but not both as in previous versions), so I have resorted to Drag Thing to provide keyboard shortcuts.
uControl - a “keyboard remapper and more”.

uControl has not yet been updated for Tiger, though remapping the caps lock key is now possible via the Keyboard & Mouse preferences pane via the Modifier Keys… button.

UnicodeChecker - search for, display, and convert Unicode character data.
VideoLAN Client (VLC) - open source video player.
witch - window switching by keyboard.