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!

• It's a great please to have the opportunity to display the first two sets of Adrian John's (mac.axonz.com) Tritanium Squared icons for OSX . The first offering is titled "TTS2 HardDrivez" and features 25 stunning Hard drive icons , and the second titled "TTS2_Folderz" is a matching set of 23 metallic multipurpose folders. Keep your eyes peeled for the next two sets in the series coming up soon.
  
  
• Jake and Ellwood (John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd ) make a guest appearance on this movie themed "Blues Brothers" desktop. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Bradford J. Wiles, head banana of Macmonkies sends us a nicely done Bryce 3-D composition titled "Far From Home". Brad waxes philosophical in his description of the piece by saying: "Many say that this life is but a journey. Regardless, it seems like we are so "Far From Home" from the big picture". Something to ponder for sure. The desktop is available in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
  
  
• Keaner continues to experiment and test his graphic design skills in this latest artistic endeavor titled "Josie2". It's not hard to figure out why he chose the subject matter! Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Searching for something really bizarre to put up on your monitor and freak out your friends? Well then, you've come to the right place. "Lookie" by Jeff Garczewski is the first of several truly odd desktops we have on hand from the author. This one comes in an off size but scalable 1360x resolution.
  
  
• "Night Charm and Hippy " 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.
  
  
• William D. Curry pays homage to our computer platform of choice, and ResExcellence with this new desktop that comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• In illustrative simplicity, a drawing of a Mac graced the front of the manual to the original Macintosh computer. Recently, Conrad was pleased to find a decent scan of that drawing which he was able to clean up nicely in Photoshop and create this elegant Apple-retro desktop titled "Simply Mac". Comes in four different resolutions
  
  
• You really ought to check out this stylish Apple-centric desktop made by Jail. "White Apple" comes in 3 different resolutions.
  

News From Around the Web:

MacMonkies new desktop lineup includes 8 spiffy new works from the all-star cast (and one Monkie) including: Neil Roberts, EA Design, Ethereal Creations, Mikawares, and MacMonkies. Also amongst the all-stars is a new Patterns Pack from Scott Chitwood!

Live Pencil updates with a bunch of brand new goodies for some great fun. ICONS: 13 new icons in a new series of MORE SMILIES' SHAPES. IT IS YOU: I HAVE MADE IT! I HAVE TURNED A LOVELY KID INTO AN EVIL THING!
LETTERS FOR YOUR E-MAILS: You will start your paragraphs with a special letter.
TICKLE ME: 2 of the pencils we used to see long time ago as buttons in their site.

DV Graphics has been working really hard and have finally completed the first pages in their site re-design (No frames!!!).

Mando would like to inform you that mandolux.com has just issued 5 new desktops representing a new beginning for the F-22 Raptor desktop collection. The title of these desktops is of course - F-22 Rapt

Ethereal Creations Ethereal Creations is pleased to bring you four new desktops for this week's release. Our Collections gallery has been renamed "Guest Art" and now also contains the beautiful works of new Poser/Bryce artist Brenda McKeown as well as those of Michael Gingerelli.

The Iconfactory is proud to announce that People's Choice Voting for Pixelpalooza 2002 starts today. The People's Choice Award is the public's opportunity to choose their favorite contest entries from the three submission categories. The entries that rank the highest in the People's Choice voting will be announced along side the official contest Grand Prize and Runner Up Winners on Wednesday, April 17th at The Iconfactory.

EA Design updates this week bring you 16 new pieces. Small site changes to smarten EA up. We release 8 whopping new 3d pieces and also another 8 new 2d pieces. New desktops will be coming soon. Head on over to EA Design to check out the new work!

MacuserX.com has been updated with 4 new desktop pictures and a spiderman the movie icon set. Also he has finally launched the Store!!!!

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.

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

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

Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!

Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

Underling has been tweaked and is once again available at XThemination. In the ResExcellence theme archive, XP and XP Silver are themes that imitate the Windows XP style for MacOS X from Max Rudberg.

Unless something dramatic happens, the Justy Mouse order just ain't gonna make it. Despite all the emails stating the check was in the mail, I have received only two checks for a total of three mice. If readers are not interested in the mice, that's fine with me, but I need to set a deadline so those who sent their money will know what they're getting. Let's say that by Friday, April 19th we will close the door. If I don't have checks for all twelve mice by then, we'll call the whole thing off in fairness to those who sent money.

It's a sad day for users of KeyQuencer from Binary Software. They will not be updating the speedy little macro editor for MacOS X. It would require a full rewrite and some of the functionality is not currently possible in OS X. They will still sell and support KeyQuencer 2.5.5 for Classic MacOS X. Proving they're a classy act, Binary recommends that users of MacOS consider the competing Quickeys X.

One of the most prolific iTunes skin authors, George Krueger notes, "I (finally) installed the new version of iTunes. It seems Apple switched some of the PNG resources around. For this reason, my existing makeovers that use these resources will still display the scroll arrows as Aqua. Since I don't have a lot of extra time right now to sift through PNGs, can you ask your readers if anyone knows the correct PNG mappings? I could fix this rather quickly if I new which resources I was looking for."

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat as George when it comes to free time. If anyone has info on the resources, let me know.

ResEx Regular Ron D offers this great tip for organizing your iTunes collection:

The "Comments" and "Search" boxes in iTunes can actually be very useful as an alternative to using playlists! For example, I can type "*sister" into the Comments boxes on a bunch of MP3s. Then, if I type "*sister" into the Search box, only those specially prepared MP3s will appear in the list! (I used an asterisk to differentiate from song/artist tags that may actually contain the word "sister".)

This way, when my sister wants to use the computer, I can quickly type this into the Search box so that iTunes will only play songs that she likes!

I could overlap this "*sister" keyword with many other keywords; eventually, certain MP3s will have several keywords in their Comments, and I can filter them all according to my mood, surroundings, etc. simply by typing keywords into the Search box. Why do this instead of creating several playlists? For people with so many playlists that they have to scroll down to see them all (yes, I've seen people with that many playlists), this can be a very quick and handy shortcut. Also, instead of hunting for a certain playlist, just type in a keyword. This way, the user can minimize their number of playlists, and effectually have virtual "keyword playlists" while within the main Library list!

With this concept in mind, I'm sure a lot of other ResExers will be able to come up with more ways to use the Comments and Search boxes to come up with some clever results!

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?)

• Opps. I accidentally deleted these time sensitive submissions when Eddie Mathews first submitted them. Sorry Ed, but better late than never. Eddie sends a pair of March Madness Boot Panels for Maryland and Indiana.
  
  
• The anime Lain, based on original artwork by Yoshitoshi Abe, was converted to a Photoshop splash by Rincewind.
  
  
• "Gremlin I Am" sent a cool Boot Panel of game character holding a gun above his head. I have no idea where it's from, by the creator says, "Evil Dead's and Army of Darkness. Ash will live forever!"
  
  
• SpaceInvader has updated his self named iTunes skin one last time. Watch for a new skin in the upcoming weeks.
  
  
• Conrad has a couple of contributions to brighten up your day. Take a look at this Rainbow Boot Panel reminiscent of the original Apple logo. Or take a look at a clear blue sky in the About this Mac replacement titled "Beautiful Day".
  
  
  

REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski

Fun stuff in this week's REALbasic news:

• Commodore 64 Lives on!
• High Precision REALbasic
• Sheets...wee!
• RB-NUG FAQ
• New Calendar Class

Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X

Today's News by Cletus™

Today begins another contest where we ask the ResExcellence readership to get involved. I always think this is one of the nicest, if not wisest ideas a sponsoring company can do. Why not tap into the pool of talent found at ResExcellence! The contest is entitled: "Xgadgets Icon Theme Contest" and is two-fold. You have a choice of participation. Full details and options are found here. Let's get involved and demonstrate your talent!

A weekend round up of software releases follows...

St.Clair Software sent me a notice about an update to Default Folder X. The update specifically offers numerous enhancements and fixes, including improved performance, better compatibility, and a number of new options. This software was needed in the Classic environment and even more so in Mac OS X. If you have never tried this shareware, now is the time to hop on board.

XMonitor 1.5 is the newest release of this application that does it all. It allows you to easily monitor your "disk, cpu, ram and network usage, PPP status, IP address, Email, and more." What is also nice is that you decide the value of the program before you register it. Changes are listed below:

• Shows network interfaces, MTU (Maximum Transfer Unit), and duplex mode in Network Status Help Tag.
  
  
• When changing Display Mode (vertical, horizontal, etc.), XMonitor resizes relative to the screen quadrant it is in. For example, if the window is in the lower-right corner, the lower-right corner of the XMonitor window will not move, the other three will.
  
  
• 7 Bug fixes and changes.
  
  

Naratt has updated Folder Icon X to version 1.1.5. This very popular, Mac OS X-native icon tool allows creation and manipulation of icons for your system. This update added a navigational feature whereby you can now open the Template folder from the Edit menu.

Dixie Unlimited has released a new iTunes plug in. There is a suggested system requirement of a 400MHz iMac G3 with an ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics chip or greater. Your mileage may vary but the plug in is nice.

iGoom 1.7.7 is another option if you are looking for an iTunes visual effect plug in. It features a speed bump and nasty crashing bug fix. Get your black light and imagine the '60's all over again.

Zonic offers you a cool desktop picture manager with its software called SwapTop. What is so cool? It allows you to automatically update your desktop picture. Not only that, but it can be used to display your personal collection of images that you already have or even nicer, it can automatically download new pictures from the Webshots photo network.

Peter Krisntensen sent me a note about a new piece of software he developed called iChoose. It adds a menu to the menu bar allowing you to add your favorite URL's for quick access. installation is very easy also, simply drag iChoose.menu to the right side of the menubar.

Dockprefs hangs on to the term and function of a "Dockling" with the release of version 1.3.1. It gives one quick access to all preferences found in the preference pane and even allows you to build your own.

If having more then one Dock appeals to you, then how about unlimited Docks? The former dockDoubler has been updated and rreleased as multiDock at version 1.2. It allows creation and switching between an unlimited number of Docks.

Trollin's Home page is now offering the newest version of iconCompo— 1.4.2. iconCompo allows you to create and modify icons to make that special one of a kind icon for your desktop. Specific changes are listed below:

• Save function is improved (all options are gathered to the file navigation panel).
  
  
• Text can be added to the background image as well as to the foreground image.
  
  
• A reset popup button is added to retrieve the default size and location of the foreground image.
  
  
• A flat single color modification is possible if the alt (option) key is pressed while moving the color slider.
  
  
• A menu item "Close (or open) main window" is added.
  
  
• Stability is improved when the movie view is being used.

Krishna M. Sadasivam sent word of their sites revamping to commemorate the 350th "PC Weenies" cartoon. The new site offers a significantly streamlined user experience, and also features a complete four year archive of previously published "PC Weenies" cartoons. Check out this seriously funny site.

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

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Polling Place by Michael Coyle

Wow. What was once a shining star on Apple's tree is now seldom used for one of its main purposes. With 75% of readers not using Sherlock for web searching, it makes one wonder what happened? Some people may have been turned off by the banners at the bottom. I was tired of all the errors returned by poorly written plug-ins, but ultimately, I think its demise was due to easy to use web pages like Google and Yahoo (to name a few).

For a graphics class assignment, my daughter created half a dozen CD covers for fictitious bands. I have also seen people at work create custom CD artwork for MP3 collections they have burned. Is this a prevalent occurrence? This week's Polling Place question asks, "Do you make custom CD jewel case artwork?"

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Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium

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Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly

Snapshot Theme: Are you an auto aficionado or perhaps are just obsessed with a particular car make and model? Well, now’s your chance to proclaim your gearhead tendencies in a snapshot featuring your favorite motor-driven vehicle on two or four wheels. When I’ve accumulated a decent number of them, I’ll start posting. To help quickly differentiate your theme snapshot from normal submissions, please include “theme” or “auto” in the name of your submission archive.

Monday brings another batch of snapshots for your viewing pleasure:

• A character from the new movie Ice Age debuts in this anonymous contribution. iTunes is juggling music in the lower right.
  
  
• William Curry returns with this submission sporting a custom “Mac Wizard” desktop picture. Email Alert periodically queries multiple email accounts for new messages, displaying a notification dialog as shown if any are found.
  
  
• An awesome desktop picture of Terra and Luna and the Satellite Theme are showcased in this submission from Doc. A smorgasbord of icons from Xicons is distributed throughout.
  
  
• This snapshot from Selva touts a MacDesktops desktop picture. ICQ handles chat sessions in the upper right, and icons from Xicons reside in the dock.

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

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Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

Icons - Desktops: We've got a great lineup here! How about a whopping (8) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". All on display for today's update.
My very own icon. Thanks! To DV-Graphics)

Announcements:

With cooperation from 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!

• "Matt's Icons" were lovingly crafted by, you guessed it, Matt Harrington as a cheerful set of 16 multipurpose icons designed for OSX.
  
  
• Wes Ferwerda got the great idea to upgrade the 32x 32 sized icons found in IE 5.1 to look like the 128x128 versions found in Explorer for OSX. This is a Resedit required makeover template.
  
  
• "Reason Icons" for OSX were created by Space Invader as 128x128 replacement for the popular audio application by the same name.
  
  
• For some New Englander's the Big Dig is a construction project that seems to go on forever. For others its a project with massive strides. Still for others it is a form of art. It's not to hard to figure out where Engineer Scott stands on the subject with this artistic submission of 4 different photographs of the project. All are available in 800x and 1024x resolutions
  
  
• Stephanie Sexton created "Eye in the storm" after having an inspiration to create a weird/unique rendered desktop. Stephanie played around with a lot of colors, opacities, and added light film grain to give it a more non-digital effect. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Unfortunately, the author of this smart looking Apple-Centric composition titled "Graphite" did not identify him or herself. Never the less, its a nice piece, and deserves a front and center home on your desktop. Comes in 1024x resolution
  
  
• You might want to check out this interesting high powered desktop by Heronymo Allen titled "Green Energy". Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Ambitious Lemon has been working in Mac OS X a lot more lately and made a few new discoveries that made him feel he needed a new desktop background to better fit into his own way of using the operating system. Without further adieu', we introduce "Hill Desktop" for your downloading pleasure in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Sometimes it nice to not have to think to hard about the artistic motivation behind a desktop submission. In this case it's pretty Clear: Jonathan says he loves Legos and loves Star Wars, hence the set of two different Leggo desktops with the Star Wars theme. Both come in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• As is so aptly implied by the name of this desktop, it is um, well "Plain". Conrad says that this is the least interesting desktop he's created to date, as it obviously did not require to much work. BUT, you get to be the judge of that, and note that more often than not, simple is better! Comes in 1024x and 1280x resolutions.
  
  
• Mac15 sends us his first desktop ever titled "Simple Che". Created in Appleworks, as he doesn't quite yet have the bucks to fork over for Photoshop, this one comes in 800x and 1024x resolutions.

News From Around the Web:

The Iconfactory is proud to announce that People's Choice Voting for Pixelpalooza 2002 starts today. The People's Choice Award is the public's opportunity to choose their favorite contest entries from the three submission categories. The entries that rank the highest in the People's Choice voting will be announced along side the official contest Grand Prize and Runner Up Winners on Wednesday, April 17th at The Iconfactory.

EA Design updates this week bring you 16 new pieces. Small site changes to smarten EA up. We release 8 whopping new 3d pieces and also another 8 new 2d pieces. New desktops will be coming soon. Head on over to EA Design to check out the new work!

MacuserX.com has been updated with 4 new desktop pictures and a spiderman the movie icon set. Also he has finally launched the Store!!!!

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.

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

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Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.

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