Although some may like Dashboard in 10.4, I never really use it and I find it a waste of resources. Here is how to turn it off.
Launch Terminal and enter these two commands
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock
To turn Dashboard back on enter these into terminal
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
killall Dock
I knew about invisible files from past experience with unix. An invisible file in unix typically starts with a “dot” and I thought this was the case for OS X, but I was wrong. While you can hide file in OS X by starting the file name with a “dot”, it is not the ONLY way. There are three ways to create a hidden file in OS X. One way is to use the “dot” prefix for a file name as previously stated. Another is to enter the file name into the “.hidden” file in the root directory (This file is not created in version 10.4 installation but it is still supported). The final way to create hidden files is to activate the “invisible bit” for the file. This can be done in a Terminal window with the help of XCode’s developer tool “SetFile”. I learned all of this after copying my fiance’s songs off of her iPod and realized they are hidden files. I used the SetFile command to turn off the invisible bit. Here is how I did it:
Launch Terminal and enter defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes (Shows all hidden files)
Open the /Developer/Tools folder in the Finder. Locate SetFile and drag its icon to the terminal window. The Directory path for SetFile (/Developer/Tools/SetFile) should appear in the Unix command line prompt.
Type: -a V . Leave a space after the upper case V.
Locate the file that you want to make invisible. Drag its icon to the Terminal window. Its path should now be added to the same command line prompt.
You should now see something like
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v /Users/homedirectoryname/Desktop/MyDoc
To reverse the process you use the same command but use “V” instead of “v”
Finally relaunch Finder by entering the command killall Finder into Terminal
