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!

• Talented Iconist Hein Mevissen of MixthePix decided that some of the core default icons supplied with OSX could use a little work, and look even better. With that in mind, he created an attractive set of 24 HIToolbox replacements for you to use in his unique signature style.
  
  
• Even though your great grandmother may be the only person alive still using this type of "Word Processor", you too now can bring that nostalgic look back to your desktop with Typewriter Key Icons by David Schloss of IconYard. The set contains one icon for each letter of the alphabet. Each key has custom smudges, just like a real old typewriter. Collect them all and make words! Amaze your friends with your ability to still be able to spell without a spell checker!
  
  
• Kevin Suyenkee releases a very attractive new series of abstract desktops titled "Experience Quartz". The set includes 3 different variations on the theme, and are all available in several different resolutions.
  
  
• The striking young screen actress and recent Starwars character Natalie Portman lends her mysterious and seductive look to this new desktop made by Tube Test. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Matt Crowley continues to expand on his Beatles album desktop series with this excellent shot of John Lennon. Comes in 1280x resolution.
  
  
• John Hendron of Biberfan submits a cool looking 3-D rendered desktop made in Bryce titled "Ship at Night". This sci-fi creation is available to all earthlings in a colossal 1600x resolution.
  
  
• Beaten is the second of many new desktops to be displayed here by Alan Sherwood of EADesign. This one is described by Alan as a piece of work done made for a poster on bullying, suddenly transforms into a great desktop
• and influential piece of work to anyone who comes across it. Comes in 800x and 1024x resolutions.
  
  
• Color of Love by Bradford Wiles of Macmonkies makes use of traditional Valentine colors with a psychedelic touch. This stylish desktop is available in 800x and 1024x resolution.
  
  
• While personally I have never been able to figure this out, per chance you may remember those immortal words: "All your base are belong to us" Well, like it or not, you now can take that timeless journey backwards with this desktop by Littonpower, and revisit the good old days when obtuse things like that slogan really entertained huge masses of people. The desktop comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Mac15 doodles around a bit with the four primary colors from the Web Palette used in Photoshop 7, and comes up with an interesting composition titled "Web Colours". This one is available in 1024x resolution.
  

News From Around the Web:

DV Graphics has a "butt-load" of updates, including his new icon set, Glass VII!! It's cool, it's shiny, it's ready to download!

Twisted Technology has released a new set of 4 desktop pictures at resolutions of 1280x1024 and 1024x768.

IconsTree has a new site design... with a new concept where you could find news about the icons world.

Ethereal Creations updates with one image in their New Releases section and three images in their Guest Art section. Stop by and have a look!

MacMonkies offers another packed edition of Desktops and Icons sets from your favorite GUI artists. In addition to these fantastic GUI selections, the OSX Boot Panel Department has been updated with 2 new selections. News, Humor, and plenty of Desktop fun is in store this week at MacMonkies.com!

Desktop Federation updates with a bit of change to the pages and has added a news section. Ah, 3 new picts too! Be sure to have a look!

Mando would like to inform you that there are a number of new desktops at mandolux.com.

Widget has got a new icon set called 'Bits'n'Bobs: A Hardware Odyssey', ready to download today, as well as the regualr roundup of news, rumors and GUI goodness. And its worth checking out...

EA Design updates with a number of new desktops pictures.

Live Pencil updates with new Wallpapers, It Is You, Live Animals and more Tickle Me series.

1000s of desktops can found at this Swedish website. Not to worry, they are easy to spot even if you don't read the language

Warrior~poet has posted Scheldes IV, a colorful set of 18 glassy shield gems.

MAJArch Studios posts some new icons: "USA for OSX".

Hein Mevissen opens the doors into his new Icon only website MiXthepiX.

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

Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium

Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

Want to make Mozilla better looking? The Machzilla Theme (shown below) will add the look of Chimera to Mozilla so it fits in nicely on your MacOS X desktop. Another theme that looks great in MacOS X is Pinstrip. Grab them both before you need a search warrant!

Standard Carbon font smoothing on the left. Silk's Quartz smoothing on the right.

Configure Airport Under SuSE 7.3 PPC. by Michael Coyle

"Ease of Use" under Linux on the desktop has come more of a reality with the SuSE 7.3 distribution. This simple HOW-TO for configuring an Airport card assumes you are familiar with networking under Linux and just need a little help with wireless networking. (Continued...)

One of the cooler Unix/Linux features missing from MacOS X is the virtual desktop. The new Open Source program Space.app brings this closer to reality. Space lets you create a large number of workspaces that can be accessed from the palette of via hotkeys. I usually have only two desktops in Linux, and now I can have the same in MacOS X!

Regarding Tuesday's post on SSH telnet sessions, Daniel Maxwell writes, "I enjoyed your piece on logging into your Mac through ssh, but you only mentioned doing this on a Mac OS X, Linux, or Classic Mac OS machine. Is it possible to do with a PC? If so, do you have any idea of what program I could use?"

Well Dan, I don't 'do' Windows, but I'm sure there mist be a ResEx reader somewhere in the world who does. What's the word, is SSH built into WindowsXP or can someone recommend a secure telnet app?

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?)

• Here is the cool Techno iTunes skin from the recently mentioned from the Japanese web site. Added to the archive is babelfish translation of the READ ME.
  
  
• Melissa from MAJArch Studios sent a humorous boot panel of Rosie the Riveter in front of the American flag.
  
  
• We have talked about this before, but Jordan Robinson is the first to do something about it. He made a MacOS X alert sound that is nothing but silence. For example, you can use it to eliminate the Beeps during a volume change.
  
  
• This cuddly MOSS by Obao proclaims "It's a Boy"! It almost makes me want to have another kid... almost.
  
  
• A nice looking boot panel with silver lettering on a blue background was anonymously contributed.
  
  
  

Generate Kaleidoscope Desktop Images with REALbasic by Erick Tejkowski

Just because "Dan the Desktop Man" is out of town doesn't mean we can't see some new desktop images. This week we'll build a project that generates random kaleidoscope-style images. This project lets you set colors, shapes, and image size to produce a wide variety of desktop images.

(Continued...)

Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.

Today's News by Cletus™

Looking for a quick way to launch a program? Need to open a file but are not sure what the exact name is? What if you could just type a couple of letters and bam! The name appears or at least several options for you to select from appear. Have I got the program for you. LaunchBar! That's correct, LaunchBar. Check out this weeks LaunchBar giveaway and enter for a chance to win one of 5 free registrations.

Mireth Technology have released "To the Trash!" It is a really innovative program that acts as a holding area for items you may want to delete, but don't want to risk holding in the Trash. Here is a more precise description. "To the Trash! provides a place to put those files and an opportunity to specify how long to keep each one. To the Trash! will store the file for you until that date, allowing you to retrieve it in the mean time if you need it, and automatically deleting it for you if you don't."

The popular ChangeDesktop, version 2.0.2 is the newest release of this program to randomly change your desktop picture at intervals you specify. The update provides German localization and several fixes. One of which is where the Start/Stop button/menu was left in an invalid state if the 'Change Then Quit' option was set. The other major one was caching of the iPhoto thumbnails. The daemon will now ignore all pictures smaller than 280x200 thus solving this problem.

Classic Menu 2.5.2 improves support for long file names and speeds up the menu display. If you use this program, you will want to update to this new version.

I always like to mention image editing programs. You all do a lot with desktop pictures and graphics— right? Especially when they are easy to use, but more importantly free! PixelNhance X by Caffeine Software is one such program. Version 1.58 is the newest release and provides further image opening enhancements and improvements for iPhoto integration.

Wait there is more. I just started using this program about two weeks ago and was waiting for a convenient way to tell you about it. An update provides me with an out! Curator, which is also made by Caffeine Software, is an excellent image display and organization application. Now you have a really cool way to look at all those snapshots you have downloaded! Plus it falls under the keyword— free. I really like this program and recommend you give it a try. Nothing to loose.

323 enterprises have posted a new release of iScreenMaker version 1.1. iScreenMaker is the only tool available that will take your Quicktime or Macromedia Flash movies and convert them into a self-contained screensaver module for Mac OS X. What could be more simple? Aren't you just dying to make that special screensaver for all of us to see?

This is another pretty cool item, Unsanity's Cee Pee You. Track your CPU usage easily with a number appearing in the menubar. Leave it to Unsanity to do something creative! Changes include:

• Ability to choose between small and regular font display.
  
  
• Support for PowerMate by Griffin Technology - it will glow depending on the CPU load.
  
  
• CPU usage measurement algorithm is more accurate.
  
  
• New installer.
  
  

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

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Dan is taking the day off to smell the roses. Below is his news from Monday in case you missed it.

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Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

Icons - Desktops: We have a great line up for your downloading pleasure, starting with (8) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". All on display for today's update.

Editors Note* This section will not be updated on Wednesday 6/5, as I will be out of town. Check back for more great GUI goodies on Friday. 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!

• Athletics fans and weekend warriors will enjoy this small group of SportsconsX from Flax Creations. The set includes 9 different OSX icons representing some of the more popular sports activities. While designed for the X environment, these don't look half bad in Classic as well.
  
  
• Aaron Schurman felt the need to create an entire set of Sponge Bob Friends Icons, and share them with you. Aaron thinks Spongebob is one of the funniest cartoons out there, and hopes this little sea creature and his friends add some joy to your desktop! This is the second of three sets, and contains 55 icons for OSX.
  
  
• Dieter Zasche designed a nicely done OSXvnc server application icon to replace the boring generic icon which comes with the software.
  
  
• "Spiral" by Spock, is a fascinating free form backdrop that will look good on any desktop. Check out this exceptional creation in 1152x resolution.
  
  
• Starting out a new series of desktops from John Rose is "Champagne" This subtle and easy on the eyes backdrop features a right handed dock, and comes in 1280x resolution
  
  
• Nature and Landscape lovers will love this set of 17 different Photographs taken by Gabhla. Most are from Scotland where he lives, and a few from New Zealand where he has spent the last 5 months. All are available in 800x resolution only.
  
  
• Ourselves Together is the first of many new desktops to be displayed here by Alan Sherwood of EADesign. This one is described by Alan as representing the interaction of different people, the way we form groups and stick with them and the bindings we make in those groups. Comes in 800x and 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Only Us by Kevin, radiates a vivid tranquility and peacefulness, the kind of moments we all relish. The new Quartz rendering engine built in to OSX does a beautiful job with this type of image, and comes in 3 different resolutions.
  
  
• MVDesigns Desktop Pictures Vol.3 are collection of 40 desktop pictures with a wide variety of textures and patterns. These images were produced using Photoshop 6 and can be used with screen resolutions of 640x480, 832x624, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. See the read me file for more details on how to get your hands on the whole set.
  
  
• Damien Sorresso provides us with this cool Yoda desktop, scanned from the Episode II CD cover, and cleaned up photoshop. This one is available in 3 different resolutions.
  
  
• The preview of this OSX Milk theme desktop by Sean Field doesn't do it justice. Download this interesting and understated backdrop in 1280x resolution, and see it for yourself.

News From Around the Web:

Widget has got a new icon set called 'Bits'n'Bobs: A Hardware Odyssey', ready to download today, as well as the regualr roundup of news, rumors and GUI goodness. And its worth checking out...

Mando would like to inform you that there are new desktops at mandolux.com: a new collection of desktops named "Helicopter 2K2" starting with the Blackhawk S-70.

EA Design updates with a number of new desktops pictures.

Live Pencil updates with new Wallpapers, It Is You, Live Animals and more Tickle Me series.

1000s of desktops can found at this Swedish website. Not to worry, they are easy to spot even if you don't read the language

Warrior~poet has posted Scheldes IV, a colorful set of 18 glassy shield gems.

MAJArch Studios posts some new icons: "USA for OSX".

Ethereal Creations updates with two desktops in the New Releases section and one new desktop in the Guest Art section. Stop by and make yourself at home!

Hein Mevissen opens the doors into his new Icon only website MiXthepiX.

Blueskyheart announces the release of a new desktop picture titled "Scarab".

Tray's Trove updates 5-27-02 with eight new desktop designs.

Check out the New icons at Bombia Design. "Pitbull Pro Icons.

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

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Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!

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06-04-02

Tools of the Trade

User Contributions

REALbasic

Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

John-Michael Mulesa submitted a Boot Panel to ResExcellence last month, and that was enough to enter him in the drawing where he won a $50 gift certificate from PowerMax. Congratulations!

In a recent forum post, an excited Ron D mentioned a Japanese site containing some cool iTunes skins. Download them here. If you need a translation, try Babelfish. I hope to add these to the ResEx archive soon.

Remotely Log into a MacOS X Machine

While it is a rare event, sooner or later MacOS X will lock up on you. It may even be one of those hard freezes where nothing works, not even Force-Quit (Command-Control-Escape).

If you were clever enough to enable remote login, you can go to any terminal on the network and gracefully restart the frozen computer rather than give it the Three-Finger-Salute (Command-Control-Power).

Open the System Preferences application and select the Sharing Tab. Under Application activate the "Allow remote login" checkbox. This is all you need to do on the MacOS X computer. If it crash/freezes you can now securely log in from another computer on the network.

Remote login under MacOS X is through ssh. If you wish to log into the frozen machine from another MacOS X or Linux computer, open a terminal and type:

ssh -l user_name IP_ADDRESS

or in my specific example:

ssh -l coyle 10.201.35.7

By the way, that's the letter "L" as in Larry, not the number one. The first time you do this on each remote computer you will receive a minor warning:

The authenticity of host '10.201.35.7' can't be established. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Feel free to type 'yes' and at the prompt enter your password to start your encrypted login session. Now that you have access to the frozen machine, to restart it type:

sudo reboot

After entering your password, the machine will quit all processes, unmount the partitions, and safely reboot.

If you are on a remote machine running Classic MacOS, you will need to download a Terminal program that supports ssh. I recommend Nifty-Telnet SSH. It's free and works great. To setup a secure telnet session open a new connection.

Give the Shortcut a name and IP number to access, then use the Popup menu to select SSH-3DES.

Hit <return> to connect and enter your user name and password in to the window shown below.

This will give the familiar terminal prompt from MacOS X. From here, follow the instructions above to restart the computer.

Setting up SSH-Telnet is something you always wish you had done BEFORE you found yourself staring at a frozen computer screen. With time, you may even become experienced enough to shutdown just the runaway process eliminating the need to reboot the computer altogether! This is UNIX after all.

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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?)

• Peter McHugh sent in another fine throbber for Internet Explorer. This one animates a flying dove.
  
  
• Remember when BeOS was all the buzz? Now you can use Will Ernst's makeover to add BeOS MOSS, ATM, and desktop picture.
  
  
• A new iTunes skin from Bloodfly is titled "A Better Standard Skin". It has a subtle graphite look.
  
  
• These are cool! Martin Sundstrøm sent a set of six Industrial Boot Panels. Steel, wire and Aqua all mixed together.
  
  
• From "Chi Chian Spirit World", the pinky toe got his inspiration for this beautiful MOSS.
  
  
  

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REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski

This week in REALbasic news:

• Aqua Checklist
• ZegsRuler 1.05
• New REAL Software Employee
• Sort Library
• KuConta v1.5
• 666 Killer

(Continued...)

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Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!

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06-03-02

News

Polling Place

Icons/Desktops

Today's News by Cletus™

Another exciting week at ResExcellence with a new giveaway. Dr. Mac listed the prize we are giving away among his favorite OS X programs. Now you have a chance to win one of five free registrations for it this week. What is it? LaunchBar from Objective Development Software. LaunchBar allows you to browse all of your files, applications, web-bookmarks and email addresses just by entering a short abbreviation. But be warned: Once you've used it you will most probably become addicted to LaunchBar. Stop by the contest page and enter for a chance to win.

POPmonitor X version 2.0 is available for download. In short, this version is a completely new program with a total code re-write, more capabilities and speed, with a much improved user interface. If you are tired of spending time downloading email, waiting with bated breath for something exciting, only to find it is Spam, then this is the program for you. This version is for Mac OS X 10.x specifically. There is also a version for Mac OS 8/9 available on their download page too.

X Themination have released 0.5 Public Beta of ThemeShop, which is a complete suite of theme editing tools. It allows those without great knowledge of themes to quickly and easily produce a top-notch interface without wasting weeks of valuable time. They do want you to be aware that all updates in the 0.5.x series will be publicly available but any version thereafter will not. ThemeShop v0.5 PB is by no means as perfect as described in the ThemeShop documentation. As a public beta, they request you review the product and provide input with any problems or ideas for improvement.

Speed Download 1.8.2 has undergone a significant amount of changes in this new release. Please note that this versions initial release may have corrupted during download giving you an unexpected quit error right after launching. If you have this problem, please download again. The problem has been solved. A partial listing of new features is included below:

Updated and feature enhanced/faster Speed Download Plugin for Classic and Mac OS X.

Faster FTP performance and compatibility.

Handling of downloads from pages with frames.

Multiple URLs to the same file for mirror servers.

Multiple URLs to different files at once.

Percentage downloaded is now displayed even when a download is cancelled.

Completely optimized Drag 'n' Drop ability in the main window.

Added the preference of picking a sound to alert when downloads are complete.

Handling URL rerouting.

We mentioned the initial release of Yadal last time, and now version 1.0.1 is out fixing a couple of nasty bugs. First, the drawer dance bug and second, the "continuous" problem on all buttons. In addition, they have added a couple of localizations with this release for French and Japanese.

Spectral Class has released their first graphics related program called TIFF Tuner 1.0b1. What it does is allow you to manipulate transparency layers of TIFF graphic files. On the technical side of things, they offer this description "Instead of a tool palette to manually modify the graphic, TIFF Tuner employs a mathematical algorithm (these algorithms can be customized) to automatically, and much more quickly, apply an alpha layer to otherwise opaque images."

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

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Polling Place by Michael Coyle

Most readers are like me. We seldom carry more than a couple of twenty dollar bills on us. It's not as if I worry about being robbed, but between credit cards and ATM machines, why carry more than a few cab rides and a couple of pints?

Several months ago, subscriptions became the new trend for Mac sites. Most sites now list a PayPal link and many offer banner-free pages for a fee. I must admit that I have not subscribed or donated to a single Mac web site (I haven't subscribed to any web sites). What about you? This week's Polling Place asks, "Have you donated or subscribed to a Mac web site?"

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Icon & Desktop News: by Dan

Icons - Desktops: We have a great line up for your downloading pleasure, starting with (8) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". All on display for today's update.

Editors Note* This section will not be updated on Wednesday 6/5, as I will be out of town. Check back for more great GUI goodies on Friday. 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!

• Athletics fans and weekend warriors will enjoy this small group of SportsconsX from Flax Creations. The set includes 9 different OSX icons representing some of the more popular sports activities. While designed for the X environment, these don't look half bad in Classic as well.
  
  
• Aaron Schurman felt the need to create an entire set of Sponge Bob Friends Icons, and share them with you. Aaron thinks Spongebob is one of the funniest cartoons out there, and hopes this little sea creature and his friends add some joy to your desktop! This is the second of three sets, and contains 55 icons for OSX.
  
  
• Dieter Zasche designed a nicely done OSXvnc server application icon to replace the boring generic icon which comes with the software.
  
  
• "Spiral" by Spock, is a fascinating free form backdrop that will look good on any desktop. Check out this exceptional creation in 1152x resolution.
  
  
• Starting out a new series of desktops from John Rose is "Champagne" This subtle and easy on the eyes backdrop features a right handed dock, and comes in 1280x resolution
  
  
• Nature and Landscape lovers will love this set of 17 different Photographs taken by Gabhla. Most are from Scotland where he lives, and a few from New Zealand where he has spent the last 5 months. All are available in 800x resolution only.
  
  
• Ourselves Together is the first of many new desktops to be displayed here by Alan Sherwood of EADesign. This one is described by Alan as representing the interaction of different people, the way we form groups and stick with them and the bindings we make in those groups. Comes in 800x and 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Only Us by Kevin, radiates a vivid tranquility and peacefulness, the kind of moments we all relish. The new Quartz rendering engine built in to OSX does a beautiful job with this type of image, and comes in 3 different resolutions.
  
  
• MVDesigns Desktop Pictures Vol.3 are collection of 40 desktop pictures with a wide variety of textures and patterns. These images were produced using Photoshop 6 and can be used with screen resolutions of 640x480, 832x624, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. See the read me file for more details on how to get your hands on the whole set.
  
  
• Damien Sorresso provides us with this cool Yoda desktop, scanned from the Episode II CD cover, and cleaned up photoshop. This one is available in 3 different resolutions.
  
  
• The preview of this OSX Milk theme desktop by Sean Field doesn't do it justice. Download this interesting and understated backdrop in 1280x resolution, and see it for yourself.

News From Around the Web:

Widget has got a new icon set called 'Bits'n'Bobs: A Hardware Odyssey', ready to download today, as well as the regualr roundup of news, rumors and GUI goodness. And its worth checking out...

Mando would like to inform you that there are new desktops at mandolux.com: a new collection of desktops named "Helicopter 2K2" starting with the Blackhawk S-70.

EA Design updates with a number of new desktops pictures.

Live Pencil updates with new Wallpapers, It Is You, Live Animals and more Tickle Me series.

1000s of desktops can found at this Swedish website. Not to worry, they are easy to spot even if you don't read the language

Warrior~poet has posted Scheldes IV, a colorful set of 18 glassy shield gems.

MAJArch Studios posts some new icons: "USA for OSX".

Ethereal Creations updates with two desktops in the New Releases section and one new desktop in the Guest Art section. Stop by and make yourself at home!

Hein Mevissen opens the doors into his new Icon only website MiXthepiX.

Blueskyheart announces the release of a new desktop picture titled "Scarab".

Tray's Trove updates 5-27-02 with eight new desktop designs.

Check out the New icons at Bombia Design. "Pitbull Pro Icons.

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

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