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Add a Quit Finder option to the Dock

When not working on DNA sequencing, Professor Ibson shares small tidbits he has discovered while researching MacOS X.

Today, he will show you how to add a Quit option the Finder from the Dock. While not confirmed, it's likely that this will speed up the execution of other running applications since precious CPU cycles won't be wasted on a backgrounded Finder. For example, when running XFree86 on a virtual desktop, you can quit the Finder and still have access to the Dock and XDarwin.

The file to edit is located in your Home directory: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist. If you have the Developer Tools installed, you can open this text file in the PropertyListEditor application. When you do, the window will look similar to the one below.

To add the "Quit Finder" option, click on Root, then click the New Sibling button.
Rename New item to QuitFinder.

From the Class popup, select Boolean and change the value to Yes. The window should now look like the one below.

Save the file and log back in to see the change. That's it!