This may be off-topic from the current discussion -- though not from the original discussion -- but another way to change the visibility of files is with the veritable ResEdit-Get-Info replacement SetFile.
If you have the developer tools installed, open up terminal and type
Code:
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V <file>
to make a file invisible and
Code:
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v <file>
to make a file invisible (only in the finder). You'll have to relaunch the Finder as previously mentioned for it to take effect.
SetFile lets you do a whole lot of interesting Finder tomfoolery; type
to see what else it can do.
But, it still doesn't solve the searching problem. One possible, though insecure, solution is to put everything inside of a folder and disallow everyone, including yourself, permission to the contents of said folder. Do this either in the Finder with Get Info: Permissions or in the terminal with
. When you want to look at the contents, then do
. If someone knows the folder is there, that solution won't stop them from going inside if he/she knows how to change the permissions.
So, if people are looking specifically for your hidden materials, well, do the encrypted disk image as previously mentioned. Or, better yet, have personal user accounts for each person and a trusted BOFH with the root password. That's the UNIX® way (as is the original .<filename> solution intended for one's own aesthetic convenience -- others shouldn't have access to your files in the first place).
