<b>Tip of the day: The flag icon in your menubar

One day, Theo Maschas saw an icon of the U.S. flag in his menu bar, next to the Application menu icon. When he accessed it, it contained a list of several countries, and their flag icons. He did not know where it came from. After posting the question on Apple's Discussion Boards, Apple's John Phelps provided the answer:

These countries represent different keyboard layouts as selecected by the Keyboard control panel. This appears to be a new option in Mac OS 8. You can now select, via checkboxes, more than one keyboard layout. If you do, the flag menu will appear in your menubar, allowing you to switch layouts among the ones you have checked. (Prior to Mac OS 8, third party utilities provided similar functionality; there were also ways to get it via basic Mac OS software, although it typically involves installing certain WorldScript features or doing a ResEdit hack.)