Luckily, both the Windows Explorer and the Mac OS X Finder allow you to specify the full folder path to browse, where you can enter a path that otherwise would (partially) be invisible.
Windows Explorer: just enter a full path in the address bar.
Mac OS X Finder: press Shift-Command-G (or Menu -> Go -> Go to Folder...), then enter the full path.
An alternative for Mac OS X is the payed (but great tool) Path Finder which is one of the best Finder replacements I know.
Command-line trick to enable/disable Mac OS X Finder hidden folder behaviour
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NameChanger cool visual tool to do pattern based mass-renames on your Mac.
Needs OS X 10.6 or better (Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks), though previous versions that are still available support all the way back until 10.3 (Panther).
Cool, I just found out that Wikipedia has a Screenshot topic, listing how to take screenshots (and often shots of the current window) on many platforms, where (*) means I verified them:
Apple Mac OS X
(*) Use “⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift+3” for the screen or “⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift+4” for a part of the screen (as of Mac OS X Tiger, you can press the “Spacebar” to capture a Window in stead of part of the screen). You can press “Ctrl” with these shortcuts to the shot goes to the clipboard, otherwise it gets saved as a PNG file.
Microsoft Windows (*) Use “Prt Sc” for the screen or “Alt+Prt Sc” for the Window
(note that on my laptop and multi-media keyboards, you need to type the “Fn” key in order to press the “Prt Sc”)
Apple iOS
(*) Press the “Home” and “Lock” button at the same time.
Google Android
Hold the “Volume down” button, then press the “Sleep/Wake” button.
(*) Or press the “Sleep/Wake” and the “Home” button at the same time.
HP WebOS
Press the “Orange/Gray Key+Sym+P” at the same time.
Or press “Home Key+Power” at the same time.
Though I’ve written only a few blog posts about 7zip – my compressor of choice ever since I discovered 7zip some 10 years ago around version 3.13 (their history goes much further back: 1999) – here is a fresh one:
7zip is a fast, free, multi-platform and has great compression. No wonder Toms Hardware gave them an award last year: And The Undisputed Winner Is… 7-Zip.
For Windows, I take the downloads from 7-Zip: there are both x64 and x86 versions (x64 supports more memory so can handle bigger archives).
For Mac, I’ve been using Keka – the free Mac OS X file archiver. Both compressing and decompressing involve dragging the uncompressed or compressed files to the Keka dock icon.
That is slightly more involved than the context menu in Windows, but it works great.
For Windows command line usage, I use either 7za.exe or 7z.exe (uses DLLs, supports more compression)
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 