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Very few of us would have problems with our keyboards; unless you consider how hard it is to get Dorito bits out from between the keys, the average user isn’t likely to want to change how their keyboard functions. For those that do feel like a tweak is necessary, either because you use a special software that doesn’t work well with your current layout, or because you’re from a a different country where keyboards are just different, then KeyRemap4MacBook is a free keyboard remapping option for Mac users. The app has simple GUI that lists multiple options for your keyboard, many of which are function and key specific, and allow you to change how the keyboard function by simply checking an option.

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Screenshot apps aren’t hard to come by for any platform – desktop or mobile – and we’ve certainly covered a whole slew of them. Of the many Mac variants that we’ve covered, they all had one thing in common; they were apps. Screenshot Plus Widget is a widget for Mac that rests on your Dashboard, and is as feature rich, if not more, as SnapNDrag. The widget not only does the basic screen, window and area capturing, but also allows you to take a timed screenshot of any desktop space or the Dashboard. It lets you save images in JPG, PNG, TIFF, GIF and PDF formats, and lets you choose one of four actions to perform after capturing a screenshot and save it to any location on your hard drive.

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We have covered multiple batch file renamers that allow you to rename files on a given syntax, and recently, we covered FreshBatch, that allows you to replace any set of regular characters in a batch of files with any other character. ManageMyFiles is a free Mac app that lets you rename files individually but forgo the need to click each one. Files are added by dragging & dropping them on to the app’s interface, and editing the file name. Once you’ve renamed all files in the list, click the Commit button and the files will be renamed at the source. Although small in functionality, if you have to rename a lot of files, each one with a unique name, this app can be very useful.

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Do you use both an optical mouse and a trackpad with your Mac? Both devices have separate system settings available, but the settings for a Mouse allow you to control the tracking speed, the double-click speed and the scrolling speed while those for the trackpad let you set up touch-gestures. So far as cursor speed and acceleration is concerned, they are same for both Mouse and Trackpad. SmoothCursor is a free Mac app that allows you to set separate acceleration speeds for trackpad and mouse. It has three different modes that allow you to choose how the settings will be implemented.

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Removing duplicate images from disk isn’t easy, not only do you have to go through hundreds and hundreds of pictures just to see how many similar ones you have, but you also need to pick out which one you will keep. PhotoSweeper is a Mac app available for $4.99, which analyzes images for similarities. You can check for similarities based on six different criteria; Bitmap, Histogram, Time Interval, Time + Bitmap, Time + Histogram and Duplicates Only. It also lets you  restrict the comparison to be between similar file formats.

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Bookmark feature in web browsers provides one of the easiest way to visit our favorite websites While it is convenient to open your favorite websites, it is just as easy to lose it among other opened tabs. Fluid is a free Mac app that lets you transform your favorite web apps into Mac OS X apps, allowing you to launch them from desktop. Think of it as bookmarking a website, only instead of being saved as a favorite link in your browser, it is saved as an executable app, which can be launched from anywhere on your system. Needless to say, Fluid functions as a web browser but instead of allowing you to universally explore the internet, it is meant to browse sites that you’ve added. The app uses a website’s favicon as the Dock icon to distinguish different sites.

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Last year, we reviewed HideAllApps, a Mac app that lets you selectively minimize open applications and Finder windows. The app is meant to hide windows that you aren’t working on and apps that might be distracting. Hide All is a similar Mac app that lets you minimize all app and Finder windows with the click. It is meant to quickly clean your desktop of all open windows, so you don’t have minimize them one by one. The app has a simple interface’; four buttons that allow you to minimize all windows, to restore the windows you’ve minimized, and to hide the app itself or quit it.

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A while back, we reviewed TopHat App Menu, a Mac app that lets you view and access your favorite and frequently used apps from the menu bar. TopHat Folders Menu Lite is a Mac app from the same developer that enables you to access your favorite, frequently accessed, and recently opened folders from the menu bar. Favorite folders can be added by dragging them over the app window. You can open the folders from both the app’s window and menu bar. When accessed from the menu bar, the app shows the folder hierarchy, letting you browse the folder’s content and open any sub-folder or file with a click.

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Very few of us work without a clock on our screens; some either check it regularly to ensure they are not late for something, while others check it to see how much longer until the work day is over. For whatever reason, many might find that the default clock displayed in the Mac menu bar, is somewhat bare bone, displaying only the current time. The Clock is a Mac app available for $2.99 in the Mac App store that will add a feature rich clock to the menu bar. The app not only lets you see what time it is, but also lets you view the day and date. Clicking the clock opens a full calendar, and you can add clocks from different cities and time zones to it. The app also has a feature to view how much time you have left until business hours in a particular city are over, and it lets you set break alerts to make sure you take a break at regular intervals.

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Redundancy is something we all try to avoid at both work and home. In fact, eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom are perhaps the only redundant things we can’t avoid. For all other purposes, we try and keep things from getting as repetitive as possible, and these efforts extend to typing text. xType is a text expander for Mac that lets you record abbreviations for frequently entered text. Whenever you type in the abbreviation, it automatically enters the text associated with it. In the event that you have used the same shortcut for multiple text snippets, it will list all the ones that correspond to it on your screen, and you can chose which one you want to enter. The app allows you to restrict each shortcut to work in a particular app, so that it doesn’t conflict with normal typing behavior.

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