Best Finder tip ever ...

In column view names are often truncated. There's a fix

Mac 101: Viewing long file names - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

...At the bottom of the column, you'll see two short, vertical "pipes" (pictured above). Double click the pipes, and the window will instantly expand to accommodate the longest file name in the window...

Excellent, but in comments it gets better: "if you option+double-click it will expand all available columns!". Now I'll switch to a very narrow default column view ...