Mac OS X Hints - Part III

Stop the Vibrating Alarm Clock.

Apple's iCal program can alert you to upcoming events in many ways. If you choose Message or Message With Sound from the Alarm pop-up menu, for instance, the iCal Dock icon bounces, a sound plays (optionally), and the small alarm-clock icon in the alert box vibrates to catch your eye.

These alarms provide a good reminder of upcoming deadlines, but the buzzing and bouncing may soon start to wear on your nerves. To stop both, you can close the alert box - but if you do that, you may forget all about the message it was trying to deliver.

If you want to stop the buzzing and bouncing and keep the alert on your screen, just control-click on the clock itself and then select Stop from the pop-up menu that appears (see "Buzz Off!").

Silence the Volume-Changing Beep
You're probably quite familiar with the beep your Mac makes whenever you change its volume via the keyboard. This audio feedback can be useful at times, but I usually find it annoying. It can be especially bothersome if you're trying to work quietly (in Microsoft Word, say) in an environment such as a library or a red-eye flight.

Thankfully, the solution is very simple. To silence the volume-changing beep, hold down the shift key while pressing the volume-up or volume-down key. (This doesn't work when you use your mouse to select the volume menu on the right side of your menu bar.)

If you use an iBook or a PowerBook, and you've set the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane to require the fn key in addition to the volume-changing key, don't worry: adding the shift key still silences the beep and doesn't require too much in the way of finger gymnastics.

Trash Mail Messages via the Dock
If you use Mail, you probably know a few ways to delete a message. I can think of a few-with the message selected, press the delete key, click on the Delete button in the toolbar, or drag the message to the Trash folder in Mail's sidebar.
Since I prefer to use the keyboard for most things, I usually press delete.
If you prefer the mouse, or just happen to have your hand on it, you can also drag the message to the Dock's Trash. If your Trash is empty when you do this, it won't change to display the Full Trash icon - messages deleted in this manner actually move to Mail's Trash folder.

This trick works in some other applications too, including Apple's iTunes and Safari (in Bookmarks view) and Panic's FTP program Transmit.