There are often times when you want to completely override your Mac's Energy Saver settings. You could be giving a presentation and don't want your screen to dim or you could be doing work around the house and don't want to have to wake up your computer in order to see if you have any new email. For moments like this I rely on the free app Caffeine by Lighthead Software.

Caffeine is a great free Mac app that I use everyday. Clicking it prevents your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers.

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I keep a fair amount of apps in my dock because I'm usually multitasking and have a lot of apps running. Keeping them in the dock allows me to always know where they are. However, it was always a big pain that there was no way to segment or organize apps in the dock. Sure, you can use third party apps that create mutliple docks but I wanted something that was native to the OS.

A little while back I came across the perfect solution. It's a simple Terminal command that isn't a hack. Simply follow these instructions:

Open Terminal and copy and paste this text. After doing so press Return.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

Then, to restart your dock type the command below and press Return again.

killall Dock

After doing so a spacer will be placed in the far right of your dock. You can drag the spacer anywhere in your dock to create whatever segmentation you like. You can also drag the spacer off the dock to remove it just like you would for any app. If you want additional spacers, simply follow the above procedure to add as many as you would like.

I'm constantly hiding apps. However, OSX's dock doesn't distinguish between open apps and apps that are open but whose windows are closed. This terminal command fixes that by making hidden apps' icons translucent.

Open Terminal and copy and paste the code below.

defaults write com.apple.Dock showhidden -bool YES

The restart the dock to have it take effect.

killall Doc

That's it. Hidden apps' icons will now be translucent.