One of the frustrating things about switching was that doing the alt-tab thing didn’t work on Macs. First, you need to quit using the alt key and switch to the Command key (squiggle). Second, if the window you are tabbing over to is minimized to the dock, Command-Tab won’t maximize the window. All praise blog A New Mac Tip Every Day for digging through the hints at MacOSXHints. Here’s the cheese at the end of the maze:

1. Press Command-Tab until you are on the application you want to switch too.  

2. Without releasing Command, press on Option and then release Command.

3. The window should maximize from the Dock.

In addition to Vista hate, Mac OS X Leopard’s new ‘help menu highlight’ feature makes switching so much more enticing for shortcut hounds. Where Tiger often left switchers poking around in menus, hunting for that quick way to print, switch tabs, or whatever menu item, Leopard gets there quickly and efficiently. In any Leopard ready application, to find that obscure menu item quickly and easily, hold down shift, command (the ‘squiggle’ next to the space bar) and the “?” key at the same time to access the ‘help’ menu. Now, type the first few letters of that menu item, for example ‘print,’ then cursor down for mouse free access to that menu item.

The really cool part is that you can access not only ‘standard’ menu items such as print, but also ‘recent’ documents items and ‘history’ items in Safari.