Step 1: Make sure your JAVA_HOME path is using the correct value

Edit or create a .bash_profile file in your home directory and add the following line.

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`

This will set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to whichever version of the Mac OS X JDK is available. You can see which version is in use by firing up the Java Preferences application (in /Applications/Utilities)

Step 2: Use ./android instead of android to launch the SDK & AVD Manager

The documentation says On Mac or Linux, open a terminal and navigate to the tools/ directory in the Android SDK, then execute: android, but on the Mac, you actually have to type ./android.

That may be obvious to some, but for the n00bs among us, not so much . You can then continue with the installation instructions.

Git, of course, is the new hotness in version and source control with both command-line and GUI interfaces such as Gitnub, GitX, and SmartGit available.

I use SVN, hosted by Springloops with Versions at the day job, but we’re considering a switch to Git and GitHub.

Mac users can replace XAMPP with MAMP.* For portable apps, there’s the OS X Portable Apps suite.

If you need an offline blogging tool, you can try the ScribeFire extension for WordPress.

What are your tips for web-working without a connection?

*Yes, Mac OS X has a web server installed, but MAMP makes things easier in my experience.

OS X comes with its own encryption feature known as FileVault. But in my experience, FileVault can cause some performance issues. If you don’t regularly log out of your machine, you may find yourself running out of hard-drive space faster than you should. Recovering that space is easy, but can take half an hour or more in some cases.

TrueCrypt avoids FileVault’s disk space issue by giving you the option to encrypt your data one file at a time. [Via Lifehacker]

Well, first Mike Kronenberg cut out a few steps and released ies4osx. Then Sérgio Luís Lopes Júnior added those changes into the latest version of ies4linux.

This isn’t yet a one-step operation. You will still need to install Darwine first.

Something I learned while digging around the System Preferences on my MacBook: Mac OS X features what they call “Trackpad gestures.”

Depending on which Trackpad gestures you enable, you can:

• Scroll by dragging two fingers down or across the trackpad.
• Enable the secondary click menu (the equivalent of Ctrl+click, or the Mac’s version of a right click) with two fingers on a trackpad plus a trackpad button click.
• Click by tapping the track pad (rather than the track pad button)

To enable, go to Keyboard & Mouse under System Preferences. Trackpad gestures are at the bottom of the dialog box.

It takes a little while to retrain your brain to use the gestures. But I like that I don’t have to reach for the Ctrl key when I want to bring up a secondary menu. To me, anything that decreases the amount of finger dancing I do with my keyboard is a good thing.

I do find, though, that the click-pad tap can be a little too senstive. Either that or I need to adopt a feather-light stroke.

I also like the two-finger scroll. Much easier to manage, in my opinion, than the two-handed scroll option (one hand holding the trackpad button while the other hand scrolls), or the one-handed scroll motion of death (using your thumb to hold down the trackpad button while using another finger on the same hand to scroll). Now I have no reason to go anywhere near the scroll bar.