Jolly little icons in the menu bar

Here are mine:



What do they all do?

1

The red 'airport' or 'WiFi' icon shows that the program Photosync is running. This program is wonderful, it allows you to copy files from any device to any other, for example from your iPhone camera to Aperture on the MacBook. You can also chose files on the MacBook to copy to the Photo app on the iPhone or iPad.

2

Next is the blue box. This is Dropbox, a file sharing system up in the cloud. Programs exist for the MacBook, iPhone and iPad to be able to view and exchange files. I put a number of reference files in my Dropbox so I can have them with me on the iPad. For example if you scan a document using Preview, you can save it directly to your Dropbox folder and weee... it pops up on your iPad.

3

The page and pen icon is Justnotes. This is a very quick way to write notes, it syncs via the cloud to Simplenote which runs on the iPad or iPhone. Whatever you write in a note on any device is automatically synced to other devices.

4

The Speaker icon does what you would expect, it allows you to adjust the volume. But it gets much better if you install Soundflower, this then gives you the option to select input and output sources and destinations as well as adjust individual volumes. Soundflower can be used to pass digital audio from one program to another, for example to record streamed audio, or film soundtracks. I use SoundStudio as my audio recording and editing program.

5

The circular arrows are for Mobile Me iDisk. iDisk is a virtual device in the could with folders in which you can keep files, these files are then accessible by your iPhone or iPad. For example the iPad programs Pages, Numbers and Keynote use the iDisk to copy files to your MacBook.

6

The clock and circular arrow is the icon for TimeMachine, the OS X backup software. Whenever Timemachine is backing up your computer it rotates. It can be used to launch a backup at any time.

7

Wiggle, no better way to describe it (faded out here), is the icon for MacBook Bluetooth. It can be used to link to your mobile phone, and then use the iSync program to update your phone with all the phone numbers in your address book.

8

WiFi, this need no explanation. From here you can chose a WiFi network, OS X remembers networks you have joined and after that can join them automatically

9

Battery icon. This can display just a bar chart of the battery charge or also the % or charge time remaining.

10

A much forgotten icon. This lets you display the OS X's full font and character set, for those occasions when you want a special character (language or symbol) in your documents.

So there, those are the one I find most useful.