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Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly

Come and get your Friday snapshots:

• A custom “Simple Hill” desktop picture and the SilverFox Theme debut in this contribution from AmbitiousLemon. Chimera, the Cocoa port of Mozilla’s next-generation browser, is displayed as is Adium, an AIM client for OS X.
  
  
• This awesome snapshot from Christopher Cifone touts a Star Wars Episode II desktop picture from TheForce. A smattering of Episode II trailers are featured along the bottom. Selections from Xicons and Icon Factory line the left and right edges.
  
  
• This submission from Neterhet sports a very yellow custom desktop picture. SoundJam, tweaked with the Metalhedz skin, is cranking out music in the lower left. Petit Pitou’s Tiki icons roam about.
  
  
• Jose Subiabre sends this screenshot touting Maury McCown’s AquaX III K-Scheme. iTunes windows are strewn throughout.

See just how easy it is to contribute to ResExcellence! Give our browser-based submission upload page a whirl.

Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

In an ongoing effort to make it easier for you to send us your Icons and Desktops, we've designed a new Browser Based Upload Page for the task. Just follow the easy to use instructions, and you'll find submitting your artwork is now a piece of cake!

• Matt Harrington adds to our growing collection of character icons with "Matt's Sponge Bob Icons". The set includes 15 different icons for OSX.
  
  
• "Multimedia Classic Pack by Christophe Goirand features 3 handsome Classic sized icons labeled for use with MP3s, Video, and Internet applications.
  
  
• All the way from the Dominican Republic, Manuel González submits "Hi iMac", a hand drawn illustration of Steve Jobs introducing the new iMac. This excellent desktops comes in 1024x resolution, and in 7 different "flavors".
  
  
• "Beamers" by Michael Addison of Macalodeon are two of the many amazing 3-D compositions we have the good fortune to be posting. Michael uses a large variety and range of software to achieve his effects, including Photoshop, Carrara, Bryce, Infini-D, Cinema 4D, Poser, Tree Pro, and Amorphium Pro. This one comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Scott Chitwood has been experimenting with different ways to dress up your desktop, and sends us a very cool grouping of desktop patterns titled "Rampant1 Patterns". The set includes 8 different colored patterns available in both PICT format and PPAT files. Instructions are included as how to use them.
  
  
• Mark Masztal did a caricature of Paul Periera months ago, but recently decided to create a desktop image of him and for him . Mark notes that You've got to know Paul to appreciate him, and that this desktop may make you giggle ike a lil' school girl. Comes in 800x resolution only.
  
  
• Nate Penwell does a great job of portraying the sultry Nicole Kidman in this recent desktop composition. Available in 1280x resolution.
  
  
• Astronomy fans will enjoy this new set of 4 different "Sunscapes" created by Wes Ferwerda. All come in a fiery 1024x resolution.
  
  
• John Rose adds two more Gorgeous Cindy Crawford desktops to his Celebrity Sketchbook, both in 1280x resolution.
  
  
• Mark Masztal & Ron Holl present: "Survivor 4 - Marquesas Screens". Painstakingly re-created by observation and free-framing video tape images, this set of 2 different pictures are available in 1024x and 1152x resolutions.

News From Around the Web:

Announcing the opening of www.pixeltoy.com A site dedicated to all pixel-artists around here. With the opening we organize a great contest : Garden party ! Because pixel are fun !

Longhair's Lair updates with some new desktop pictures.

Ethereal Creations is pleased to announce the release of three new images rendered in Poser and Bryce. All three are available in our New Releases section. The Site News page has also been updated with our latest happenings so stop by, stick around and enjoy yourself!

Mando would like to inform you that mandolux.com has just issued 5 new desktops about the F-18 Hornet. The title of this batch 'Last of the Hornet.' These pictures will be the last of the Hornet - next on the menu will be the Raptor.

Gridface is pleased to announce a new series of desktop pictures. Tsankawi (Spring) features eight photos of fifteenth-century pueblo ruins and cliff dwellings in New Mexico

DV Graphics releases an icon set titled 'Mac Geeks' It celebrates all types of Mac users. (Including some of the ResX staff!)

"Windows SE" icons are up for grabs over at Happicon.

Live Pencil updates with a bunch of brand new goodies for some great fun.

MacMonkies has brushed up the bricks with a bit of a face lift for the Monkie Site. Along with the Spring Cleaning activities, they have put together a fine collection of Desktops from Neil Roberts, Dr. Monk of MacMonkies, and Andy Moraitis of Ethereal Creations. Be sure to stop by the Monkie nest and grab a handful of News, Humor, and GUI with this week's edition of MacMonkies!

Flax Creations updates with two new OSX Icon sets.

MacuserX.com has been updated with 2 new icon sets, CM4s speaker icons and Pills icon set.

So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!

Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X

4/4/02

Tools of the Trade

User Contributions

Snapshots

REALbasic

Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

Couple of site updates. I split the search functions. You can now search the Forum independently from the rest of the site. By splitting the forum off into it's own search function, getting search for the main site have been greatly sped up!

For the second bit of news, we welcome a new sponsor to ResExcellence! Power On Software, the makers of the outstanding Now Up to Date and Contact. For a limited time, ResExcellence readers can save $10 on their next purchase. Be sure to support all our fine sponsors. Without them, there will be no ResEx!

I feel like we're on the cusp of a renaissance in Theme design. We are seeing fewer hacks of the original Aqua design and the release of some beautiful original creations. AluniteX (shown below) is one new release. In addition, XThemination has also posted two versions of a nice theme called "SimpleX 1.5".

Want to go shopping at the DS_Store? TheMacMind has posted an article on the function of the invisible DS_Store file and how it controls who owns a folder. There is also a tip for tweaking IRC for MacOS X.

If you're looking for a way to change the font in iTunes, this ResEdit template from Sean McNamara will help. It will allow you to edit the font attributes for many parts of iTunes. The READ ME provides detailed instructions and it wouldn't hurt to see this previous ResEx Tutorial.

Sean also found that in Mac OS X, the Apple logo and iTunes logo used in the visuals are in the Localized.rsrc file in the <language>.lproj directories in the Resources directory in the Contents directory in the iTunes.app package. (How to open a package)

Just as people have deleted these resources from the Mac OS 9 application to have logo-free visuals, you can delete them from that file in Mac OS X to achieve the same result. I haven't found info about their location in Mac OS X on ResExcellence (except for requests for info on their location).

If the text position goes awry, just copy a blank 38x38 PICT into the iTunes application using ResEdit and give it ID 4004 - in my case it has maintained the position of the text despite there being no iTunes logo.

A reader recently emailed to ask if I could get a cool little X11 program called XPlanet to run under MacOS X. It places an image of Earth as a desktop picture and actively updates the position of daylight on the planet. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to compile under Darwin, but installation under PPC/Linux was a snap. (See the snapshot below). Coincidentally, a shareware application was just released that does something similar, EarthDesk for Classic and MacOS X. It's $19.95.

Click for large image in new window

User Contributed Splash Screens. by Michael Coyle

It's easier than ever to contribute using the new Browser Based Upload Page! If you contribute a file to any section of ResExcellence, you could win a PowerMax gift certificate worth $50 ! (How?)

• Derek Gordon sends a new variation on his popular MacAtom Boot Panel.
  
  
• While not a Giant, this MOSS by Manuel González is certainly has a non-standard size. It's another in his "Think Really Different" series.
  
  
• Conrad sends a new MOSS titled "Sky of Red".
  
  
• While there is no yellow in it, AmbitiousLemon sents his first contribution to ResEx, a Boot Panel for X.
  
  

Software Distribution by Erick Tejkowski

So you've built the perfect utility, game, or widget using REALbasic and you want to unleash it on some victims. What do you do next? Today we begin a short series about the process of releasing software. We will discuss the different kinds of "wares", open source, how to protect your software, and some other goodies. The goal behind this tutorial series is to briefly examine the various avenues open to you, should you want to distribute your software.

(Continued...)

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4/3/02

Icons/Desktops

Tools of the Trade

User Contributions

Today's News by Cletus™

No I am not a deserter. Second, let's finish up the Haxie contest giveaway. I have selected the five winners and they will receive the registrations shortly as their prize. Thanks to all that entered. I finished with a cool 700 plus entries. Congratulations go out to the winners from Unsanity Software and ResExcellence.

• Anthony D. Saxton
  
• Jeff Welsh
  
• Diana L. Edwards
  
• Jacob Simpson
  
• Brian Kalcic

DockExtender has received a significant update to version 1.2. Changes include:

• New Installer
  
• Unable to drag icon when first creating DockExtender bug is fixed
  
• Fixed micro icon problem
  
• Change name in PreferencePane causes crash on exit bug fixed
  
• PrefPane now updates docklings on startup
  
• Displays if the product is registered
  
• Added submenu support
  
• PreferencePane optimized
  
• Register link points to Dock Extender page
• Fixed SystemUIServer respawn
  
• Customizable submenu names added
  
  

Show Desktop 1.1 is a small Mac OS X application that will hide all apps and show the desktop when clicked on in the Dock. "Shift-clicking on the icon will show all apps. It also offers several Finder options which make it worth its price in gold (free), check it out."

• Added shift-click to show all applications.
  
  
• Tweaked the icon & added the desktop folder icon as an optional dock icon.
  
  
• Added a Dock menu with user options.
  
  

Wapp pro 3.6 provides menu listings of all running applications to switch between them. Now hidden applications have their icons grayed-out in the menubar-application-switcher.

Glidel 5.2.3 is the really cool application that allows files to be dragged and dropped on items in the File or Apple Menus. Changes include the following:

• Fix of a benign error that came with Glidel 5 and that could occur only starting with Mac OS 8 if the selection was dragged and if the Finder didn't first come to the foreground. This could only happen if one or several applications were launched at startup. Then an error message was displayed and the requested treatment wasn't undertaken,
  
  
• The About Glidel ... dialog is now correctly dismissed at logout when multi users mode is enabled,
  
  
• If Glidel help is not available, a navigation dialog is displayed to find the Help file : it is no more possible to activate the About Glidel ... dialog before having dismissed the navigation dialog.
  
  

MP3 Strip 1.4 is a CSM to play MP3 files. This release fixes several bugs.

Gravite 2.0.3 is the newest release of this popular piece of software that applies gravity, inertia, and friction when dragging in the Finder.

CharView 1.3.2 will show you all printing characters of a selected font. It runs on all systems from Mac OS 8.6 or higher with CarbonLib to Mac OS X 10.0 or higher.

MoonMenu 1.8.1 adds a moon in the current lunar phase to the menu bar under system Mac OS 8.1 or later. This version fixed a problem with quarter predictions not leveraging GMT offset in the MoonMenu global system menu.

The results of my computer troubles. As my previous updates mentioned, I have tired everything short of major "part" replacements. I have definitely eliminated the hard drive, floppy drive and CD drive and Ram, by taking them out of the equation. I further reset PRAM, replaced battery and reset the Logic Board. The last thing I tried, was to start up in Open Firmware. Considering I was having so many problems, I saw nothing wrong with trying this. Mike and Erick helped me through this. I would not do it on a functioning computer however. I reset the Firmware via a series of commands. This I think, solved my problems. I am not convinced and still do not thoroughly trust the machine. I am strongly considering a new G4. I definitely want one. I definitely do NOT need the newest and fastest however. There is a nice 733 available at the Apple Store on line I am considering.

Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!

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Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium

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Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

Icons - Desktops: We've got a great lineup here! How about (8) New Desktops, (2) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". All on display for today's update.

Announcements:

In cooperation with the folks at the Iconfactory, the ResExcellence Icon Archive is proudly offering permanent homes for any and all Pixelpalooza 2002 contest entries, winners or not. Sounds good? Then bundle them up and send them on over for world wide display. Thanks!

In an ongoing effort to make it easier for you to send us your Icons and Desktops, we've designed a new Browser Based Upload Page for the task. Just follow the easy to use instructions, and you'll find submitting your artwork is now a piece of cake!

• Tour the solar system with this cool set of Planet Icons for OSX by Orange. The set includes 10 different planets housed inside shiny glass spheres.
  
  
• Steff Koerner enjoys the stylish look and form of fonts so much that she turned a number of "Letters" into Classic sized icons. This set includes 14 different black characters to dress up your desktop.
  
  
• "Lounge and Worm Hole Explorer" by Michael Addison of Macalodeon are two of the many amazing 3-D compositions we have the good fortune to be posting. Michael uses a large variety and range of software to achieve his effects, including Photoshop, Carrara, Bryce, Infini-D, Cinema 4D, Poser, Tree Pro, and Amorphium Pro. This one comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Ret. Capt. William D. Curry of Midway airlines appears to have a love for all sorts Aircraft, as you can see with his huge submission of 7 different airplane desktops he created. Included are the DC-9, J-3Cub, and others, each coming in 3 different resolutions.
  
  
• Thomas Haller really worked long and hard on this group of elegant Hawaiian Islands desktops. The original image came from the Visible Earth website http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/ to which he have added some color coordinated borders in 3 different styles. Each is available in 1280x resolution.
  
  
• Andy Lee has a great sense of composition, as you can see with his latest series of photographs including a fancy Steinway Piano. The set includes 4 different shots, all in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• "The Choice Is Yours II" by Bradford J. Wiles of Macmonkies is the 2nd in a series of 2 Bryce renderings that speak for themselves. Comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
  
  
• Keaner, freelance digital artist from Tampa Fla., flexes some more digital muscle to keep his digital art skills in good shape with a saucy composition tilted "Heiglone". Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• If you're looking for something provocative and a bit risque to put on your desktop, try Malange's latest entry into his "Cute" series of desktops. Comes in an off size 935x resolution.
  
  
• Noah Corwin submits and interesting metallic spiral desktop titled "E-&Mac189;", which is available in 1024x resolution.

News From Around the Web:

Gridface is pleased to announce a new series of desktop pictures. Tsankawi (Spring) features eight photos of fifteenth-century pueblo ruins and cliff dwellings in New Mexico

DV Graphics releases an icon set titled 'Mac Geeks' It celebrates all types of Mac users. (Including some of the ResX staff!)

"Windows SE" icons are up for grabs over at Happicon.

Live Pencil updates with a bunch of brand new goodies for some great fun.

Ethereal Creations begins April with a stunning array of new desktops rendered in Poser and Bryce. There are three new images in the New Releases section and one new image in the Collections section. The Site News page has also been updated with our latest info and a new article has been posted for The View From Here. Drop in and have a look!

MacMonkies has brushed up the bricks with a bit of a face lift for the Monkie Site. Along with the Spring Cleaning activities, they have put together a fine collection of Desktops from Neil Roberts, Dr. Monk of MacMonkies, and Andy Moraitis of Ethereal Creations. Be sure to stop by the Monkie nest and grab a handful of News, Humor, and GUI with this week's edition of MacMonkies!

Mando just wanted to let you know that there is a new desktop at http://www.mandolux.com representing a continuation of the 'Technosis/Anthraxis' desktop theme - it's called 'Orange.'

Flax Creations updates with two new OSX Icon sets.

MacuserX.com has been updated with 2 new icon sets, CM4s speaker icons and Pills icon set.

Tray's Trove updates with eight new desktops.

Blueskyheart updates with a New desktop picture, new icons and live nude girls. Check it out!

So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!

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4/2/02

Tools of the Trade

User Contributions

Snapshots

REALbasic

Polling Place by Michael Coyle

To the almost 25% of readers who take no vacation at all, I can only hope your career does not involve sitting in a missile silo, key in hand finger on the Big Red Button!

Vacations, like REM sleep, are vital for sane survival! After my short trip the batteries are recharged and the spring is back in my step. If you are grouped in with the 12% who take more than four vacations a year, you may be a teacher like my wife who may soon have traveled so much she thinks she should have her own cable access travel show! Gawd, I hate all the vacation time teachers receive. :)

I often use Apple's Sherlock to search my drive for a lost document, but I never use it to search the internet instead preferring to go to Google, but what about you? This week's Polling Place asks, "What percentage of the time do you search the net with Sherlock?"

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Tools of the Trade. by Michael Coyle

By submitting a Stylish desktop picture to ResExcellence, Mario Garza was able to win this month's $50 gift certificate from PowerMax software! Mario you bad boy. You didn't include a READ ME with your contribution so I don't have your email address! Send it to me buddy ASAP.

If you are a college student on a tight budget or a small company watching every penny, you really need to take a look at an office suite called OpenOffice. This program, recently updated for Linux, is a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office. All the spreadsheets, documents, and PowerPoint presentation templates that shipped with Office.mac X opened in OpenOffice under PPC/Linux. Total cost Linux and OpenOffice? Download for free or spend less than $100 to support open source software. Tech Republic has a review and check out the images below.

A spreadsheet and resume template in Linux/OpenOffice and MacOS 9/Office 2001
Click for a larger image in a new window.

The AmbitiousLemon web site has started a (long) list of needed improvements for MacOS X. Add your own comments and read what others think.

We may have posted this before, but I have forgotten so here it is again. Tomas Franzen found an Easter Egg (or whatever it is) in iTunes. Put a QuickTime movie in the same folder as the iTunes application and name it "iTunes 2 Splash.mov". Launch iTunes and choose "About iTunes" in the Apple menu to see your creation.

Max Rudberg has tweaked created several MacOS X Themes. Unfortunately, if ResEx were to post them it would assure us of a letter from Apple's Lawyers, so he has set up his own page. There is even a Luna Windows XP Theme!

If you have to use a Wintel machine at work and use WinAMP for MP3 playback, or you enjoy using XMMS under Linux, then take a look at this skin that duplicates much of the iTunes look. Grab it before the Cease and Desist goes out.

Gashu emailed with news on Mozilla themes. He has optimized Lo-Fi Classic for better performance under Classic MacOS, and mentions two new themes. Orbit 3 (pictured below) is worth installing just to see the cool throbber. Pinstripe, while not quite an Aqua theme, does contain some elements of the MacOS X UI. It's made to use look best under MacOS X where it tries to use the Aqua widgets when ever possible.

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User Contributed Splash Screens. by Michael Coyle

It's easier than ever to contribute using the new Browser Based Upload Page! If you contribute a file to any section of ResExcellence, you could win a PowerMax gift certificate worth $50 ! (How?)

• A very flashy and colorful MOSS with the rainbow Apple logo was submitted by Manuel González.
  
  
• Snow that the default iTunes skin and kicks up the Aqua in his latest contribution.
  
  
• Do you drive a Subaru? Then take a look at this MOSS and ATM combo from Nicholas Capitelli.
  
  
• Feeling a little patriotic, Brian Freeman decided to create this Eagle Boot Panel for MacOS X.
  
  
• The lovely Sarah Jane is featured in a pair of About this Mac replacements from Conrad.

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REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski

Fun stuff in this week's REALbasic news:

• MacAppProcess Plugin
• MovieWire and MovieWorks Plugins
• QuickTime Soundtrack Extracting Plugin
• Carbon Events Plugin
• Database Tip!

(Continued...)

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4/1/02 April Fool's Posting...

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Visit the Mac Experts!

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Previous News Page...

You can now upload your contributions (include a READ ME) to the ResExcellence
Web Based Upload Page and let us know with an email. Be sure to read the Submission Policy