The Magic Mouse lets you navigate forward and backward between web pages in Safari or Firefox with a two-finger swipe.

The same two-finger swipe also moves you forward and back in iCal. It works just the same as clicking the forward and back arrows around the day/week/month view control at the top of the iCal window.

The Mouse System Preferences pane on Leopard does not include an option to enable momentum scrolling like Snow Leopard does. However, by setting a hidden preference, you can get this feature without updating to Snow Leopard.

To enable momentum scrolling, first run the following command in Terminal: Next, go to the Mouse System Preferences panel, and uncheck and then check the Scroll option. You should now have momentum scrolling enabled.

[robg adds: I don't have a Magic Mouse, so I can't test this one.]

Some people are speaking from the "living room of the future:" A television where you can read your emails and surf the web, listen to your music everywhere in your house, and also control everything everywhere. For me, all solutions I've seen until today are not very user friendly. Surfing the internet with the television remote control, problems with all the different video codecs when playing media files on the TV screen, etc.

I've had my own solution for the last three years: A Mac mini (small, quiet, powerful enough) attached to a big LCD TV, a Dolby Surround system, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, some AirportExpress Base Stations for iTunes access in other rooms and an iPod touch to control them, eyeTV, etc.

There was one small problem with my setup, though: With the Mac connected to an audio device using the digital fibre connector, there's no way to control the system output volume. Pressing the volume keys results in this bezel. From that, I presume that the digital output only transports the signal information and no volume information.

So I had to control the sound volume with an additional remote for the digital surround device. I also had to control the power for the surround device and the LCD TV via that remote. This was very annoying, as I had more than enough remotes on my couch table already.

Finally I found a low-cost solution some weeks ago, and maybe it's worth sharing -- I don't think I'm the only one who's using a Mac as a real digital hub.

We are hearing reports of a bug in the Airport software version 7.4.2 -- access to hard disks attached to the AirPort via USB become unusable after a few hours. You can't even access them through the Finder until the AirPort reboots. It's discussed in this thread on the Apple Forums, but there's been no official comment from Apple.

The solution is to revert to software version 7.4.1. To revert, run the AirPort Utility, click on the Summary tab (once you're in Manual Setup mode), and then click on the word Version -- this brings up a list of previous software versions, making it easy to move back one version.

[robg adds: I was having this problem myself, which was really bad as my Time Machine backups are on the attached disk. Every few hours, I'd have to reboot the AirPort to get Time Machine working again. Downgrading to 7.4.1 has solved the problem (going on two weeks now without a single failure). Note you can also reach the firmware options screen by selecting Base Station -> Upload Firmware.]

The following hint is useful to me because I use my iMac in my bedroom, and I don't shut it down or put it to sleep. I prefer to sleep in the dark. Additionally, I don't want people hopping on my computer and changing my stuff - so I need the password protection a screen saver provides.

Since 10.5 was released, my workaround has been to set Energy Saver to sleep the display after a certain amount of minutes, and set a screen saver to start one minute after the display sleeps. It didn't always work, unfortunately.

Here's my new solution. For this to work properly, you're going to need to have either a hot corner set up to activate the screen saver, or have the screen saver set to a timer. It's a good idea to disable Energy Saver's display sleep. Then, download and install Sleep Display and ScriptSaver.

First, write yourself an AppleScript that contains this one line:

do shell script "open -a SleepDisplay"

Save it somewhere safe. I made a folder called ScriptSaver Scripts in ~/Library/Application Support/.

Then, open System Preferences, then click Desktop & Screen Saver. Click the Screen Saver tab, then select the new ScriptSaver item. Click the Options button, and leave everything at the defaults, and select your script as the Activation Script. Click OK.

That's it. When your screen saver is activated, the display will shut off. I've tested this with an iMac (Mid 2007) and a Mac Mini (Early 2009), both running 10.5, and it worked great.

If you're running 10.4, you can probably substitute SleepDisplay with Sleep Display (a completely different application that works only with 10.4).

After installing the latest update to my Apple TV, I was having a look to see what had changed. There are a couple of things that have been posted on the net; for instance, the new Remote app for the iPhone/iPod touch, the new UI that sorts shows with the oldest first rather than the newest, and the ability to display unwatched episodes only.

However, one feature that I have not seen documented is that when you have a TV Show or Movie highlighted, if you press and hold the center button on your remote for a second or so, a menu will appear allowing you to mark the item as Watched.

I wrote this Apple TV plug-in to provide a clean front-end for launching ROMs with various emulators. Of course, this requires the AppleTV to be modified so that you can install custom code, and it is not sanctioned by Apple, but I thought some of you might find it useful.

It's a great way to augment the utility of the Apple TV in the living room with a wireless USB controller. Plus, my source code is open if others need a jumping off point for creating their own plug-ins.

[robg adds: There are lots of instructions out there on how to modify your Apple TV, including sites such as AwkwardTV. My Apple TV is stock, so I haven't tested this particular plug-in.]

I created a Folder Action that turns your cheap screenless MP3 player into an iPod shuffle (3rd gen) wannabe. It reads the title of the track into a file, converts the tracks, and merges them together. This way, the audio file starts with a computer voice saying the name of the track, just like the iPod Shuffle. Or, if you drag multiple files into the folder, it asks you for a playlist title and merges the tracks together, adding the title to the front of the playlist.

To install it, download the Shuffle Wannabe Folder Action [30KB download], and add it to /Library » Scripts » Folder Action Scripts. Plug in your MP3 player, and Control-click on its drive icon. In the More contextual menu item, select Enable Folder Actions, and select the script.

I originally wrote this up on my blog

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one. Note that the download link is for a .scpt file, which Firefox (at least) doesn't like; I had to Control-click and use Save Link As to save it. I've also mirrored the script locally (as a text file), in case the source site goes away. Check the original source first (in case of updates), but if that fails (or you want to view the source before downloading), try our copy.]

I won't discuss the pros or cons of Apple's Mighty Mouse here, as mine just broke. Or more to the point, I broke it -- the sticking little ball just drove me round the bend. Anyhow, I ended buying myself a simple, cheap and quite nice USB optical mouse. Nothing fancy. Two main buttons plus a scroll/button wheel (ie: a scroll wheel that you can also click). So far so good. Until I re-installed my System.

Once in I started setting the system up like I wanted it, to my horror, the Mouse preferences didn't show me the third button on my mouse! Now what? Well it turns out that the System treats the Mighty Mouse special. That is, it recognizes it as such and brings up the corresponding preferences. Great, what about the rest of us?

I scoured the net for several days trying to find out if someone had worked it out. I did find one solution. Just plug in a Mighty Mouse, set the preferences, plug it out, use you other mouse -- the preferences will 'stick.' Fine, what if you don't happen to have a Mighty Mouse just lying aroud?

Most people replace their mouse with fancy Logitech, Microsoft or MacAlly mice that bundle their own drivers that allow all kind of wonders to be done. But what about us simple folk that want a no-frills but functional mouse (not to mention five times cheaper)?

Caution: Terminal and root access required.

In the newest versions of the boot manager (Intel only, I believe), it is possible to simply Option-Boot the computer and press the Eject key on the keyboard to eject a disc. This works even if your computer has a completely blank, newly-formatted hard drive.

This may also work on the older PowerPC versions of the boot manager, but I haven't tested it.

[robg adds: This would have come in handy for me when I was trying to upgrade our iMac to 10.5.7 -- one of the problems was a non-ejectable CD in the drive.]