Once I’ve setup Quicksilver the next thing to do is to move the dock. By default the dock is centered at the bottom of the screen. On a widescreen like the MacBook has (and my iMac) I prefer it on the right side of the screen, but the standard setting available in OS X again centers the dock on the right side. This makes dragging things to the dock difficult; the position of the trash varies depending on how many items are on the dock.
Enter Tinkertoy. This is a great piece of donationware that, among many other things, lets you move the dock with greater control than OS X allows. A couple of clicks and the dock is pinned to the bottom right corner, and I know that mousing to the corner will get me to the trash every time.
Combining this change with Quicksilver, I can take everything off my dock (except for the Finder icon, I’m still working on that) and easily see what’s running (because only running items are shown). It ends up looking like this (Safari is shown because I’m writing this blog entry – I know it’s actually running because it’s in the dock):
The dock is often criticized, with some justification, but with this setup launching is easy (Quicksilver, no dock required) and the dock actually provides useful, easily understandable feedback and an easily usable trash.
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But where do I tie-up the boat? Still waiting.