Reaffirming my faith in my fellow ResExcellence reader, Letterman trounced Leno in last week's poll. Was it the sympathy vote? Naw, Dave's just better! :)

If your Mac application freezes, you can often recover by invoking the built in debugger by typing Command-Power. In the debugger window, type G FINDER to attempt to return to the Finder, where you may be able to save your work in other applications. Sometimes it works... sometimes you crash anyway.

If you want to increase your chances of recovering, you can try Apple' s beefed -up debugger, Macsbug, with more commands and options for recovering from a hard crash. This week's Polling Place question asks, "Do you use Macsbug?"

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Console Update: All is well in recording-land now that my new console is installed. Some final pictures and comments are here.

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Victor Yee has written two Applescripts for you to download. The first returns an item to its initial location (the last location before the desktop). You can use the property except_items to define items you want left on the Desktop. The second changes the views of a folder and its contents.

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MacInstruct has published a new tutorial. "How to Travel With Your Powerbook- Part 2". This time the topic is the Location Manager.

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Nick Shanks has updated ResKnife, a developmental resource editor. This version has the following changes:

• added a windows menu
• opens 1-bit, 8-bit and 32-bit icons of 12, 16 and 32 pixel dimensions
• added crude navigation services support, still buggy, so disabled by default
• includes preliminary drag manager support
• enabled the sort button column headers (don't sort anything yet)
• converted to C++ (major headache!)
• used to play 'snd ' resources (before C++ conversion)

Good luck Nick! Keep those updates coming.

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If you are in your favorite extension manager, and you click on an item and read the info, that information is stored in the CCI™ resource. Sebastien Lavoie wrote a ResEdit template you can download to help you edit this info.

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Snapshots:

• Jordan sent a Linux desktop featuring an X-Files spin
• Robin Enhorn mixes Doom Trooper and PussyGalore!
• Sean shows his favorite car with the eStudio Scheme
• Edward O'Rourke displays the Stealth Scheme with a custom desktop.

Happy Birthday to our icon goddess, Ilona Melis! Ilona was born on Leap Day, February 29th, which means her birthday comes along once every four years! While I would never reveal her age, you can count the number of her birthdays on both hands!

2/25/00

The big story is Aqua resources under MacOS X.. Is it a theme, or isn't it? A reader found some interesting resources in the following MacOS X DP3 file:

System/Library/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Extras.rsrc

This file, Extras.rsrc contains ResEdit resources that look suspiciously like a Theme file's. (As seen in the image below).

This shows the many similarities between the Aqua Extras and a MacOS 9 Theme file. In fact, readers have said that the removal of the Extras file causes MacOS X to revert to a Platinum appearance.

It would be interesting to replace some Extras resources with some from a Theme file and see what the changes are. If you have MacOS X DP3, consider that your homework assignment for the weekend. :)

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The Console Update: It's going well now. Friday will be spent testing the systems and training my brain muscle with the new routine. Final update and pictures on Monday...

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Snapshots:

• Lander Salzberg with an Apple Desktop and Platino Scheme
• Scott Denowh shows Heidi Klum (!) and the Graphite Scheme.
• Alberto Chavez created a custom desktop for his Auqa theme.
• Rich Zak has a HiTech Castle (?)

2/23/00

The Logic 2 from Neve

Whew! Installing a new console makes loading Windows 2000 look like a piece of cake! We planned for months to make this installation go smoothly, and just about everything has gone wrong. Why is it the mere act of moving of a console 40 feet causes it to fail upon the next boot?

My new board will be an all digital AMS-Neve Logic 2. What you are seeing on the left is really a control surface, almost like a computer keyboard. No audio signals actually pass through the console. They are all routed through high quality AD/DA convertors. All the mixing of sounds and setting of levels is really no more than manipulating ones and zeros.

Now that's a PowerPC!

This is the rack of computing power associated with the console. Forty-eight convertors take the analog input signals and instantly convert them to better-than-CD quality data. This data is stored on twin 9 Gig hard disks, and routed through the console where it can be equalized, compressed, reverb, and spit back out - all in realtime!

While the console has only 24 physical faders, there are three additional layers of virtual depth for a total of 96 audio channels! (Can you tell I'm excited!)

Wednesday will be spent interfacing the new equipment with the old, Thursday will be for last minute fixes, and Friday will be testing, testing, testing...

All this audio processing power will enable me to produced richer sounding commercials that will envelope your aural senses, prompting you to jump in the car and rush to your nearest McDonalds for an Extra Value Meal. :)

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Greg Pare sent this Applescript that opens Netscape to several search engine submission forms. While Greg knows that there are programs to do this, this one is free and it might spawn some new ideas for readers!

tell application "Netscape Communicator"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=addurl"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.webcrawler.com/info/add_url/"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html"

make new document
GetURL "http://hotbot.com/addurl.asp"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.google.com/addurl.html"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.go.com/AddUrl?&pg=SubmitUrl.html"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.excite.com/info/add_url"

make new document
GetURL "http://www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html"

activate
end tell

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A tip-o-the-hat to Toren Valimir who's I/OS X Graphite is the "Scheme of the Week". A quick parusal of the ResEx Snapshot Gallery will show that my contributors like it too!

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Snapshots:

• Nicholas Jitkoff has a great looking custom desktop in this colorful snap
• Rick Roe loads his desktop with Neutech and tons-o-apps

2/21/00

Poor Launcher. Nobody loves it anymore. Less than 10% of you regularly use the it! While I don't either, I do make sure it's configured on any computer I setup for a friend.

I have always felt that there are two kinds of people in the world. No, not Mac versus Wintel, but an even more divisive topic: Letterman versus Leno! Five weeks after heart bypass surgery, Dave returns to the air this Monday. Obviously, it was unfortunate that Dave was away from the show during the critical "sweeps" ratings period, but guess what - reruns and the "backstage" shows trounced Leno in the ratings! <snicker, snicker>. This week's unbiased Polling Place question asks, "Letterman or Leno?"

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Out with the old...

I apologize in advance for what will be a week of light postings on my part. My recording studio is receiving a new console and the installation will monopolize most of my time. Don't fret though, Ilona, Cletus, and Jeremy will still be here updating their sections!

The current board, show on the right, is an eight year old Sony MXP-3036 analog console. While it has served me well through thousands of sessions, the technology is rather outdated.

It will take an entire week to disconnect the old board, rework the wiring, install the new console, and test the hundreds of connections.

Do I cut the red wire, or the blue!

This photo on the left shows the complexity of wiring the console to all the other equipment in the facility. It doesn't normally look this messy; the wires have been pulled out of their housing and disconnected in preparation for the new board.

I will be documenting the process with my digital camera and if possible, I'll post more pictures as the process unfolds. If you have any curious questions, send them.

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Sebastien Lavoie has updated his web page with some goodies for you.

"Seb's Colors WIND!" is a makeover of the dialog editor in ResEdit. You get more colors and more fun!

My "Seb's AppleScan color Kit!" is new to my site too. I am probably the only being still using an AppleScan, but it may be useful for someone.

And finally my "Icons for the Resedit picker" have been updated since the first time I send it to you.

Sebastien's Netscape Splash screen is also listed below.

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Macinstruct has posted a new tutorial on the ins and outs of the Desktop Database, and rebuilding the Desktop.

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Snapshots:

• Jere Freeman with a Leech Overpower Desktop
• Anonymous with Explorer 5
• Paul Thiem with Deep Space 9 and LCARS scheme.
• Floyd Fisher sporting a nice shaded desktop with Ink Scheme.

2/18/00

Woo-Hoo! Propaganda has released a new volume of my favorite desktop tiles! Rebirth contains 56 tiles, so go get them! The archive is a Linux tar file, but Stuffit Expander 5 will decompress it.

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Xappeal has some information about John Carmack (of Quake fame) and his creation of an X server for Darwin. Geez, will I have to repartition again!

They also have images from MacOS X DP3 (Aqua).

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Gaming Outside the Box

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This simple Applescript submitted by Bill Ferriot will close all but the active Finder window:

tell application "Finder"
close (every window whose index is not 1)
end tell


(Added to the Sloppy Applescript Archive)

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Snapshots:

• We have our first dual monitor Snapshot from Travis Gregg
• Brian Johnson sent a Myth-like map desktop.
• Timm Hoff used Neutech and a Paul Chesley desktop picture
• Jonathan Giglio shows the Black Sun scheme with a Mac2k picture.

2/16/00

Two readers have answered my request for a solution to the ninety-second log out delay. Once I test the solutions, I'll put together a tutorial and post it.

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One last post regarding Finder color Labels. Paul Gobble has found an excellent way to use Labels in conjunction with Applescript:

Here is another great use for labels. Since they can be checked and set via Applescript, they make a great pointer. I've written a script that automates the printing of my digital photographs to my Kadak DS 8650 dye-sub printer, so I can send entire folders full of images to print. I have the printer script label the file bright orange once the file has been printed. This way, if the printer crashes or jams (which happens alot) and takes the script down with it, I can just resend the entire folder of images to print. The script will automatically skip the files that have been labeled bright orange.

I've also written a little script that counts the number of bright-orange-labeled files in a folder, so I can get an idea of how much longer I will have to wait for my prints. All in all, I find them very handy.

Maybe if you politely email him, he will share the scripts with you.

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Modify the MultiUser Login Screen

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Snapshots:

• Tracy Haynes send a nice snapshot with Quantum Hourglass Desktop Picture
• Mike has a nicely coordinated metalic look to his desktop.

2/14/00

Like me, 38% of you never use Labels for coloring icons. Several readers wrote in to ask what Labels were! Maybe Apple needs to advertise their value to users. One handy use for Labels was sent by James Huffman:

I'm surprised people don't use them more. The one REALLY good thing I use them for is as a quick way of figuring out what extensions have been loaded recently. Before I install a new piece of software, I change all the icons in the extensions folder to some bizarre custom color. That way, when there is a conflict, I have to spend less time with Conflict Catcher, trying to figure out which extension is the culprit.

This week, the Polling Place would like your opinion on the following question, "Do you use Apple's Launcher?". If you're not familiar with the Launcher, read Jeremy Hoesly's recent article.

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Well aren't we special! About.com was nice enough to recognize ResExcellence as one of the Best of the Net".

As ResExcellence becomes one of the old timers in the Macintosh web neighborhood, these welcomed bits of recognition are few and far between, so thanks again for the tip-o-the-hat!

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MacInstruct has published the next chapter of "The University of HyperCard: Chapter II". This article covers a lot of ground, so if you've been thinking of learning HyperCard, start reading before you fall behind the rest of the class!

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I'm looking for the solution to a ResEdit modification. Under MutipleUsers in MacOS 9, when you log out, the 90 second delay dialog appears. I want to shorten that to one second. The first person to send me the correct edit gets a free ResExcellence t-shirt!

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You have to think about this one a little...

FF buckets of bits on the bus,
FF buckets of bits.
Take one down,
short it to ground.
FE buckets of bits on the bus.

from Bobby Kinstle

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Snapshots:

• Jocke Uhrwing from IronHood with a Hi-tech look.
• Quentin Hill spouting Aqua .
• Ethan from Interfacelift
• A desktop featuring a guy who's dying to be a Mac user - from Alberto Chavez.
• Chad Bergeron zaps us with DC Volt and Neutech

2/11/00

Houston, We have a problem...

A couple of posts in the User's Forum refer to problems with appearance and printing once the Appleloosa font was installed. (The font is part of InterfaceLift's Aqua Theme).

I installed the font as a System font using this Previous Edit, and it's working perfectly for me in all my applications, but a little caution is advised even though the problem is easily remedied by removing the font.

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The iturk web site has posted two more Speech Characters.

Victoria is featured in this picture (I always wondered what
she looked like!). The other one has an Egyptian flair and is named Sphinx.

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Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer.
You take one down and pass it around,
Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall...

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Patrick Kelleher has an iMac throbber for Explorer on his iTools web site!

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Snapshots:

The quality of the Snapshots we have been receiving is great, but please don't feel obligated to feature resExcellence on your browser! :)

• Matthew Grans put together a nice hi-tech look.
• E. Poplawsky is all about OS X!
• Gregory Chan has Aqua here, Aqua there....

2/9/00

Many readers wrote to "enlighten" me about the web pages from iTools. Many enlightened me with a baseball bat!

Earlier I stated that iTools only allowed you to use templates. It turns out that any web pages that are in your iDisk's Sites folder will be accessible from homepage.mac.com. If you have a page names index.html, it will become the default.

I stand corrected, put away those baseball bats! My iTools homepage now contains the Coyle Family Site.

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Even though I had downloaded the Aqua Theme from InterfaceLift, Matthew Ruben pointed out a little gem that was tucked away in the archive. He noticed that Appleoosa is probably an early version of Lucida Grande demibold from Copland. It's very similar to the font featured in the OS X Aqua snapshots at Apple.

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The excellent 32 bit icon tool, Iconographer has been updated to version 1.1. This new release includes the following new features:

• A versatile floating colors palette.
• Revamped icon browser for easy use of files with multiple icon resources.
• Anti-aliasing support.
• A Windows menu.
• Improved Windows icon support.
• All three open commands have been combined into one.
• Many bug fixes and usability tweaks.
• Now available in three languages: English, Japanese, and French.

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Adding Feedback Characters to Speech Recognition

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Wade passed along some info on a patcher for the Keyboard Control Panel:

Keyboard Patcher patches the Keyboard control panel so you may use the function keys to launch apps no matter what Mac you are using! I've got a G3 333 (beige) and it works great. I remembered you had a brief discussion about doing such a hack previously, so I thought you might like to know about the patch.

I tried this on my Powerbook, and unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Still no function keys, but maybe you'll have better luck.

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Sean Hennessy put together a very cool makeover package for Netscape. There are nine sets of button bar replacement icons in every Mac color imaginable. Also notice the Aqua ppat behind the icons.

The kit also includes instructions and helper apps to assign Sherlock as the Search application, and script for mail and news helpers. AND it also contains a modified PPob to remove the word Netscape: from the title bar! Download it!

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Snapshots:

Four new pictures, all different, but all beautiful...

• MacOS X Aqua from Simon Steiner
• I/OS Desktop and Scheme from Nate Friedman
• An Aqua Theme from Anonymous
• Toren Valimir gives us a Strawberry I/OS snapshot

2/7/00

Other than the recent misstep with their Terms of Service, Apple appears to have a winner on their hands with iTools. Though the service is only a few months old, most readers are using it in some way. My family all have their required mac.com email addreses, and several of us use iDisks. The web page is lame though. Why do we have to use their templates?

Sometimes, a new feature from Apple is immediately accepted, some take longer. Are some never used and forgotten? This week, the Polling Place asks, "Do you use Icon Labels?"

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Ilicon has received a beautiful new update! In honor of the Grand Reopening, Ilona has released some GUI items for the Linux community! System Penguins is a set of 60 icons in 32x32 and 16x16 sizes. In the Snapshot section you can see a picture of them along with one of Ilicon's matching desktop pictures.

Don't worry, she didn't forget MaOS users! ToddleToddle is an expanded set of 79 System Replacement Icons.

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Long time contributor Donald Tipton sent this surprisingly simple Applescript for you to download, that does something way-cool. It adds a Trash icon to the Application Switcher. Drag an icon on to the icon, and it is moved to the trash.

This behavior emulates a NeXT/Linux dock function.

-- remove the "--" from the beginning of the following lines to make the
-- Application Switcher appear similar to the row of minimized icons in OpenStep

--tell application "Application Switcher"
-- run
-- set visible of palette to true
-- set frame visible of palette to false
-- set button ordering of palette to alphabetical
-- set names visible of palette to false
-- set icon size of palette to large
-- set orientation of palette to horizontal
-- set anchor point of palette to upper left
-- set position of palette to lower left
--end tell

on open (thefiles)
tell application "Finder"
delete thefiles
end tell
end open

(Added to the Sloppy Applescript Archive)

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MacInstruct has published a new tutorial. "How to Troubleshoot Crashes and
Freezes".

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If you're looking for cool fonts, or want to request a custom creation, RAILhead has a new pricing structure. New fonts are now only $10.00 (from $20.00), and custom fonts are now $20.00 (from $30.00). They still have lots of free stuff too!

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Snapshots:

• This LinuxPPC/KDE desktop features Ilicon's new icons and desktop.
• Cars, cars, cars. That's what R. Lemons feature on his desktop.
• Jason shows us another nice way to do a slick looking hi-tech desktop.
• Mike Orticari can't wait for OS X. Check out all the icons in his menu bar!

2/4/00

Attention: If you happen to be the Director of the CIA, and have Top Secret information on your home personal computer, you can surf this site secure with the knowledge that when a nosey co-worker peeks at your hard disk, ResExcellence is not a site that will be considered "Hi Risk"!

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Well this should help clear 50% of the posts from the User's Forum. NoFinderZoom has been updated for compatibility with MacOS 9!

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Overseas correspondent, Philip Gabbert, filed this report regarding Temporary Folders:

FinderPOP will allow you to view the contents of the folder, and if you have to hot keys turned on, you can press 'G' and click on the Temporary Items Folder to trash it yourself.

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Some time ago, Tim Mityok made "Appearance Menu" to switch themes (collections of Appearance, Sound, Color settings) from the Menu Bar, but to be honest, he was a little under whelmed by the responses to the utility.

With the recent resurgence of themes, Tim was wondering whether or not a "Theme" utility such as Appearance Menu should be moved forward, or is it simply not needed/required in the Mac community?

Take a look at his program and drop him a line with your feelings. If you're a satisfied user of Appearance Menu, you had better pay your $5 shareware fee, or I'll come over there and spank you!

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Rams sent ResExcellence this helpful Applescript for you to download:

It registers and unregisters protocols for Netscape. I know there's already something like this in the sloppy script archive, but I got tired of popping open script editor every time I changed versions of navigator or communicator. So if your tired of looking for creator codes or just can't decide on your favorite newswatcher, this should help. If you're not using a script menu, you'll need to save it as a script application. If you just run it in script editor, it won't remember the protocols you set (and thus, won't be able to unregister things).

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Ice -The Fast, Speedy, Window Manager

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Snapshots:

• Shravan Reddy sends a great looking shot featuring the Aerial Lite Theme
• This outstanding pict by Edward O'Rourke has to be seen to be believed.

2/2/00

Jeremy Hoesly updated his Smiley ResEdit template to work with the latest AOL Instant Messenger. Version 3.5.897 now supports Smileys that contain four characters. Want to learn more? See this previous edit.

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Vic Wertz sent this little Applescript ditty...

I massively modified the script by Rams, originally posted on 1/26, so that it moves items from Temporary Items directly into the Trash. If you save this as an app and place it in the Startup or Shutdown Items folder, you need not ever worry about the Temporary Items folder again.

set x to "Macintosh HD:Temporary Items:"
-- Change "Macintosh HD" to match the name of your startup disk.
tell application "Finder"
if (count of (list folder x)) < 1 then return
repeat with i in list folder x
move alias (x & i) to trash
end repeat
end tell


(Added to the increasingly Sloppy Applescript Archive)

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Power a Control-Click Away

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This site was built on resources, but when you have a few thousand ResExcellence web site images on you drive, all those little custom icons and preview PICT images eat up a ton of space!

Resource Remover will quickly go through an entire folder and remove all those resources, leaving the data fork intact, and returning to you hard disk space (in my case, over 10Meg!)

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The man who knows a deal when he sees one, Bobby McBrains, has posted a tutorial on how a simple ResEdit modification can allow you to run MacOS 9 on unsupported upgraded PPC machines. In fact, he has OS 9 running on his Powerbook 540 w/PPC card!

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Snapshots:

• Markus Magnus sent in a slick one with a BlueSky Desktop
• Alan March shows us that he gets a bang out of life!