Turns out the same works for both keyboard and screen backlight. This has rocked my world!

While we're on the OSX tips, somebody finally fixed the horrible mouse lag, and it's a god send: http://smoothmouse.com/

More info: http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mous...

Does anybody know a way to stop OS X from artificially limiting the volume on MBP speakers? It's annoying if I try to listen to a podcast or whatnot and can't hear it from the other side of the room. The last time I searched, all I could find was some proprietary sound-management apps that seemed like overkill for this purpose.

There's an app called Boom that allows you to make the volume of things louder on OS X. Believe it's available on the app store.

I believe they removed this in Lion and put it back in Mountain Lion. Can anyone confirm?

10.7.4 is when it was reintroduced I believe:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/53073/8035

You can also use Shift+volume to silently adjust the sound, what won't I learn today.

And if you have set the volume change notification to silent, Shift+volume does the opposite. Also ALT+Volume opens the system sound configuration window.

How's this stuff not more widely known. I've been using a Mac for years and am only just finding this out.

Another useful tip, using only the shift key will adjust it silently.

related: you can set it to be silent by default in System Preferences; then shift will make it not silent.