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!

• We start our Icon Extravaganza with a double set by Michael Addison of Macalodeon titled "Polish My Dock". This handsome set features 22 Aqua style spheres with useful text identifying each icon splashed across it's face. The download includes two variations on the theme.
  
  
• Somehow, file folders flung out willy-nilly all over your desktop without a place to store them is quite a pain. Enter "File Cabinets-X" by Flax Creations, a simple idea to help bring some order to the chaos. The set includes 9 different "flavored" cabinets to suit your decorating needs, and can be used nicely either in Classic or in OSX. No assembly required.
  
  
• In his signature style, Martin Valdes of MV Design presents "Dalmane Icons vol.1". This for "Classic only" set features 20 striking geometric designs in silver grey and black tones.
  
  
• Music lovers will go bonkers over Dale Stonebraker's "Music-Icons vol.1". This unbelievably huge grouping of X sized icons showcases 54 female and 28 male popular musicians, complete with drop shadow. Keep your eyes peeled for Volume 2, which continues the set with another 88 icons. Whoa!
  
  
• No trees were destroyed in the making of Woodsigns Icons by Adam Betts. The reason he choose this subject was that he wanted to make something original, unlike all the recent Aqua stuff, and wanted to make something that people will actually use. Check out this set of 13 fun and funky signs for lots of different occasions.
  
  
• Bob Osiin found himself so completely blown away by what he found on the Doodlevision Website, that he decided to create a set of 8 "Doodlevision Icons" for OSX using the interface templates found there. A visit to Doodlevision is a visual feast, and a must see for any serious GUI lover.
  
  
• The theme of this huge "Werewolf Icons Collection" by Bobby Hansen is the RPG “Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The plot goes something like this: In a world of ever-encompassing darkness, increasing danger and eroding ideals, only one group stands firm before the decay. They've been hunted by their enemies, tortured in mind and body, and tempted by power and evil. They have seen the Earth ravaged and burned, and their friends and allies corrupted one by one. And they're not going to take it anymore. They are the Garou, an ancient race of werewolves and they're fighting back. Check it out!
  
  
• Most Icon makes will attest to the fact that more often than we care to admit, many well planned concepts end up in the dumper. "Things" by Flax Creations is a collection of 16 useful but mismatched X sized left overs that would just love to find a home on your hard drive.
  
  
• Bruce Hulvey used his digital camera and Photoshop to create a small but interesting set of fantasy OSX icons titled "Fantasia Icons".
  
  
• GO BLUE! Mauricio Marcantonio submits a small grouping of what he calls "Michigan Hard Disks", featuring the University of Michigan's familiar blue and yellow colors.
  

News From Around the Web:

Ethereal Creations updates with five new and guest releases.

Warrior~Poet has added 21 "&Proud" desktops for GLBT people and their allies?

DV Graphics is announcing today the official opening of their Design Services website. They will be offering various design packages for application programmers, website creators and other content managers.

MacMonkies has another all-star Icon and Desktop Edition for your pixel pleasure! Icon artists include Rene of Happicon, Matthew Bice of IHeartNY, Dan Flax of Flax Creations, Patrick O'Kelly of Eye9design, and Scott Chitwood of alligator country! Also available are Desktops from Todd Darland, EA Design, and MacMonkies! Swing by MacMonkies for plenty of "eye" fun!

White Fire Ministries is now operating under a different name. As of April 26, everything at the White Fire site including desktop pictures and OS X Screensaver packs, has been located at donniefischer.com.

A new Why the Mac is so great.com now has a new desktop image available for download, titled Aquatic Wall."

Mando would like to inform you that mandolux.com has just issued one new desktop representing a continuation of the 'Technosis/Anthraxis' theme with 'Night Cruising.'

Widget would like to announce a desktop bonanza for the next week. Every day for the next seven days - weekends included - Widget will be releasing a new, cool and stylish desktop picture for your Mac. Head on over and check it out!

Pixelgirl Presents a new site revamp allowing you to snag the coolest desktops and sexiest icons! Submit your own work and join their exclusive member’s list! Updated weekly!

Zensmile.com has released a new set of OS X icons, "Marbles". They are free for the taking. Download them from the website.

Live Pencil updates:
ICONS: 16 new icons in this new series SPIDER-MANIA.
IT IS YOU: Our friend Sergio is getting married.
ANIMATION: What an idea!!! See the light.

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

Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.

Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

Click for larger image.

To attempt a fix, boot into MacOS 9 (from a CD if necessary) and navigate to the folder shown on the right. Instead of seeing a Extras.rsrc file, you will most likely see a file titled temp.rsrc. Rename the temp file back to Extras.rsrc and you should be able to boot into MacOS X.

Before I experiment with a new theme file, I always make a backup of the Extras.rsrc and HIToolbox.rsrc - just in case!

George Krueger, well know for his iTunes skins, writes with the following request: "I was just reading through your two articles on boot scripts. My question is, could you do this so that it prompts you to choose? It would be nice to have it come up and prompt you 'Press X for OSX or 9 for Classic', or something like that. Then other people wouldn't have to know what your special boot keys are."

Well, I have a solution courtesy of SuSE Linux 7.3. This script you can download is more complex than what is covered in the tutorial, and I must admit that I do not understand exactly everything that takes place in it, but if you have successfully completed the previous tutorial, it should be possible for you to modify the more complex script to suit your needs.

The big buzz at KDE-Look revolves around glass icons for Linux. One large set titled Marbles contains dozens of Aqua styled gems in a variety of sizes. If you run KDE, check them out!

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 new contributor named "BloodFly" has sent a cool iTunes skin titled "Butterfly".
  
  
• A Giant MOSS of a Bad Egg was created by Mike Hofer. It shows a skeleton clawing its way out of an egg. Nuff said. Mike also sends un update to his MikeOS About this Mac screen.
  
  
• With pitted metal and rivets, it's no wonder Dave calls this MacOS X Boot Industrial.
  
  
• Brian Freeman grabbed a still from Pixars Oscar Winning Animated Short, “For the Birds” and made a cute MOSS.
  
  
• Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman is featured in this Internet Explorer splash from Pete Pixel.
  
  
• A silky blue MOSS was sent Leigh. The download also includes a matching ATM.
  
  
  

REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski

This week in REALbasic news:

• URLAccess Plugin 2.0
• db Reports
• ResPloder and Radio Poster
• Carbon Events Plug-in
• QuickTime Effects

Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!

Today's News by Cletus™

Maury McCown has sent me the winners of the PasswordMaster Contest. ResExcellence and RAILhead Design would like to thanks all those that participated in the contest. Congratulations to the three winners listed below who correctly answered the question: "What was Maury's original name for PasswordMaster?" The answer: The original name for PasswordMaster was PasswordKeeper, as stated in the December 6, 2000 news.

• Harry Ewasiuk
• Rafael Archuleta
• Sam Thurber
  

piDog have renamed and updated their popular program piDock to piPop. The new version is version at 2.0b1. Described as a launcher/navigational tool, it has many great features. This update includes the following.

• Many bugs fixed regarding piPop becoming inactive unexpectedly
• Click and hold now activates only when clicking in a valid finder area
  
• Floating (tear off) menus now behave and look like normal menus
  
• Apple-drag a menu to tear it off
  
• Apple drag a floating menu to move it
  
• Click and drag at right or bottom edge of floating menu to resize it
  
• Dropping a folder to piPop now moves the entire folder contents
  
• Added eject and move to trash contextual menus
  
  

TPJ has released the new version of Tidy-It. The way it works is to organize items on your desktop into folders. Items it works with are: screen shot tiffs, jpegs, gifs, downloaded archives such as tar, gz, tgz, .and .sit files. If you find you have items all over your desktop and you just want it cleaned up quickly, give this program a try.

EarthDesk has been updated to version 1.0.3. EarthDesk uses dynamic map pictures in place of a normal stagnant desktop picture. Provides support for both the Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. Never have to use a static image for your desktop background again

Trash Box is an AppleScript to place the trash can back on the desktop. The page is in Japanese.

Mac PowerUser.com have released version 1.1 of iDraw for Mac OS X. This is a nice little application for creating illustrations and animations. It is very powerful, yet remains an easy to use program. It also offers many features found only in the much higher priced commercial programs.

Launch Items X has been updated once again with two new items: Launch Items Editor now remembers the last used module, so it will switch to that module when it is re-opened. The window "New Web Location" will be closed now when nothing is entered. If you use this launching application, you will want to get this version to take advantage of the added features.

I have updated the Mac OS X Software Archive with several new GUI related programs. I also deleted several items that are no longer updated or have been made obsolete with newer releases of Mac OS X. It remains a single page. If you find it loads too slow because of its size please let me know. Eventually I will be dividing it into several pages.

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

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Polling Place by Michael Coyle

More than half of us will give up an often used feature with the move to MacOS X.

PopUp Folders proved to be more popular than I had expected. Only 22% of readers never use them. Gee, I wonder if Apple ran any "polls" before deciding to eliminate features from MacOS X? (Never mind, that was rhetorical).

In the related forum thread readers make several suggestions on solutions, the most common being DropDrawers, but nothing quite matches the original PopUp Folder.

After a six mile car drive to the station, another thirty miles on a Metra train, and the final one mile walk, I arrive at work every morning. It's one hour and fifteen minutes door to door. Then at 5:00 p.m. turn around and do it all over again.

As bad as that sounds, twice last week I drove to work under a blue sky and no accidents on the expressways and it took over two and a half hours! I kept wondering, "How do people do this everyday!". (Never mind, that was rhetorical).

How about you? This week's Polling Place asks, "Do you take public transportation regularly?"

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Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

Icons - Desktops: We've got a huge 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:

Attention Icon Addicts And Pixel Connoisseurs! On Wednesday May 1, we will be dedicating the day to posting a raft of backlogged Icon submissions which have been just burning to see the light of day. Download to your hearts content, and come back for more anytime.

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!

• Pixelgirl Shana Victor presents her very cute "PixelBabies" series of icons for OSX. Included are kitties, bears, a buggie, a unicorn, a dragon, an owl, and the devil himself.
  
  
• Wes Ferwerda gives that good old Finder Icon a long needed face lift with his new "Finder Icons" set. Featuring 5 different flavors of that smiley Mac face we all know and adore.
  
  
• Foxy Jessica Alba, star of Fox T.V's hit series "Dark Angel", makes a guest appearance on this poster desktop sent by Sam DiRocco. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Using some nifty Photoshop tools and techniques, Alexander Wolf showcases a stylish and attractive backdrop titled "Fraxed Up" to dress up your desktop. Available in 3 different sizes.
  
  
• William Curry is becoming quite an Apple Evangelist, as you can see with his submission of another great Apple Desktop. This one comes in four different resolutions.
  
  
• "Twisted" is the third featured desktop on display from a whole new grouping of Bryce 3-D renderings created by Ed Allen of EA Design. This one comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
  
  
• EEK! Looking for a little something bizarre to dress up your desktop? Well then, you've come to the right place! No doubt, a jumbo sized Big Brownie spider sent by Jeff Garczewski will give anyone the willies. Comes in 1360x resolution.
  
  
• After waiting longer than forever, avid Photoshop user Steve Sobek finally got his itchy paws on the new Photoshop 7, and figured he had to do something in honor of the occasion. This cool desktop comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• As the spring begins to fade towards summer, a young mans fancy turns to... FORUMLA ONE RACING! This desktop tribute by Willy is dedicated to Ferrari and all the M. Schumacher fans out there. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Marc Kuder speaks his mind loud and clear with his new "Think Similar" desktop. It made him sick the first time he saw all those Mac wannabes being sold in stores. This desktop help him express those feelings, and comes in 1024x resolution.
  

News From Around the Web:

The Iconfactory is proud to announce that IconBuilder Pro, the professional tool of choice for Macintosh & Windows icon construction, has been updated to version 3.5 for use with Mac OS X.

Pixelgirl Presents a new site revamp allowing you to snag the coolest desktops and sexiest icons! Submit your own work and join their exclusive member’s list! Updated weekly!

Mando would like to inform you that mandolux.com has just issued the last of the F-22 Raptor desktops.

Zensmile.com has released a new set of OS X icons, "Marbles". They are free for the taking. Download them from the website.

Live Pencil updates:
ICONS: 16 new icons in this new series SPIDER-MANIA.
IT IS YOU: Our friend Sergio is getting married.
ANIMATION: What an idea!!! See the light.

Desktopfederation updates with lots of new desktop picts and a few Flash pieces.

Ethereal Creations updated with two images in their New Releases section and three images in their Guest Art section.

MacMonkies adds another installment to their newly opened Icon Section. This week's icons come from talented artists Matthew Bice of IHeartNY, Paul Sahner of DV Graphics, and Rene of Happicons. Hanging in the Gallery are new desktops from Ed Allen and Alan Sherwood of EA Design, Scott Chitwood,
and MacMonkies. Make your Mac happy with all the latest from MacMonkies.com!

Gridface is proud to announce another set of Tsankawi desktop pictures. Tsankawi (Summer) is a series of four photographs taken on a trail at Bandelier National Monument (in New Mexico) last July. It features cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.

EA Design Updates with 12 NEW artistic pieces for your viewing pleasure!

Widget would like to announce the release of a new desktop picture, 'Heaven', and a new icon set, 'Apple Desktop Hardware ', featuring the new iMac and iPod. Head on over and check them out!

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

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