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Today's News by Cletus™ Apparently there was a meteor shower all around me last night and I napped through it. The super sonic explosion knocked pictures off walls, broke a window or two and brought everyone out into their yards. Very bizarre. There was reported debris in a corn field in Salladasburg, PA— roughly 20 miles from where I live. Once again ResExcellence readers come through with the first phase of the BeHierarchic Giveaway. I received over 200 entries. WOW! Congratulations to the first two lucky winners out of that drawing: - Gary Oates
- Nathan Gabriel Stein
Remember to send in another entry for the next part of the contest. UtilityDog 1.3.2 is a multi-purpose utility for finding, organizing, manipulating, and interacting with the files and folders on your disks. This updated has these changes: - Added the ability to rename items using data stored in a text file or in the Finder comments
- Added the ability to rename items using the name of an items parent folder
- Added a text file history of name changes in the UtilityDog Preferences folder in a subfolder named "History"
- Minor bug fixes
SpeedApp 2.1.2 will allow you to quickly launch an application by simply typing in part of its name in a window. Very nice application and very popular also. Work performed on this release is listed below: - Rewrote a part of the code in the sorting application list. Operations are a little bit faster.
- Added the 2 byte code in all the localization strings. Japanese text is now displayed correctly.
- Some code in the unregistered count-down window has been rewritten.
- Fixed cosmetic bugs in most of the windows.
- Released a French language version.
 Gerry's ICQ d44.1 is an alternative to the ICQ client provided by ICQ.com. Fully compatible with both Classic and Mac OS X 10.0 and above, this is a very well done alternative to ICQ. This update fixes a bug which caused the chat window to crash
 ClipEdit is now Carbonized for use with Mac OS X. You may remember Wade Cosgrove mentioning this last year when we interviewed him. ClipEdit is a small application that allows you to create and edit text and picture clippings. Yes, you read correctly....edit clippings! ClipEdit also exports any internet address to an internet clipping. ClipEdit is very flexible with many customizable settings. Wade also mentioned that a maintenance version of ClipEdit 2.1.4 for Classic is also available. This version fixes several long standing issues with the product.
Submit Software and General News Suggestions!
Tools of the Trade. by Michael Coyle
In the long run, Mac users will benefit once we get use to the multiuser nature of MacOS X, but it wouldn't it be great if the new OS borrowed a feature from Linux. Both Gnome and KDE have a "Finder Window" that opens in the Superuser (root) mode. After typing the correct password, this special Finder window could display an extra widget letting the user know it's the 'root' window. Files can be moved in and out without the current "permission denied" dialogs that seem to popup at every turn. (Just a thought.)
Want to know what Torin Valimir is up to? Take a peek at ION, a Kaleidoscope scheme due out soon
Many readers have asked for more information and sites on recording audio on the Mac. Len Ford recommends MacMusic.
Many readers also wrote to recommend the VXPocket PCMCIA card for my Powerbook It sports two balanced analog mono inputs at microphone or line level and two balanced analog outputs, and one stereo SPDIF input and output allowing direct digital transfer and an LTC (SMPTE) time-code input. I see this card every year at Macworld, and I swear I'll buy one next year.
Customize the Color of the Spell Checker in MacOS X by Michael Coyle
 Professor Ibson has come out of the laboratory and his latest discovery will let you customize the color of the line when MacOS X highlights a misspelled word.
Like so many of the elements in this new OS, the underline color is stored in the TIFF image in this folder... (Continued...)
User Contributed Splash Screens. by Michael Coyle
Remember, each month the most popular contribution (includes Snapshots, Desktops, Icons, Splashes, etc...) will win a prize!
- Waldemar Exkul created a MOSS boot screen of a... boot! It's pretty funny. A large boot with its Webster definition along side.
- Another odd throbber has been created by Peter McHugh! This one is the MSN Messenger 2.0 log on animation converted to throbb for both IE and Netscape.
- Get your anime fix in today's Eudora splash from Channy Loeum.
- John Eriksson was bored one evening and decided to whip up matching Boot and Login panels for MacOS featuring the Rudy Apple.
Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X
Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly Here are your snapshots for Wednesday: - Scott Chitwood’s “QuantumX” desktop picture and Ben Mackin’s Liquid Metal Theme are showcased in this screenshot from Felix Gosselin. iTunes is handling the background music in the lower left. Icons from Icon Factory abound.
- The custom “Big Apple” desktop picture and Aqua Theme debut in this two-part contribution from Chris Hardy. iTunes, tweaked with Anders Vessel’s AquaButtons, is churning out songs in the lower left. A smattering of icons from Xicons, icons.cx, and Icon Factory among others is visible throughout.
- Aki from the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within pays a visit to the Snapshot Archive in this submission from Jeff Koga. SoundJam is dishing out tunes in the upper left. Custom Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel icons line the right edge along with Perfect Yosemite’s PY3 Graphite iPack.
- Theme-master Michael Rabe submits this screenshot featuring his Epsilon Theme and a matching “Epsilon” desktop picture by Dan Flax. iTunes is serving up music in the lower left.
What’s your Mac look like? Send a snapshot for all the Mac world to see.
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan  Icons - Desktops: We've got (6) great Desktops and (1) huge new Icon Set for OSX to dress up your desktop. All on display for today's update!
- "Glass" by Paul Sahner is an awesome new Icon set for OSX. Includes 52 different blue glass icons in several different categories. Check it out!
- When Rev. Mitcz Marzoni got done drooling over Apple's brand spankin' new bad-mofo machines, the new Quicksilver G4 Pro, the only way he could quell his lust for the moment was to make a desktop picture featuring it. Comes in 1280x resolution.
- Bradford J. Wiles of the newly opened MacMonkies submits another of his fantastic 3-D desktops titled "Shine" This one comes in 800x and 1024x resolutions. Visit the site for more great artwork to download and look up his most recent update.
- While the installation of OSX includes a pile of stylish new desktops, Gigi thinks they are a bit lacking. "Aqua Interface" adds a little more pizzazz to Apple's stock Aqua desktop and comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
- Henry Sigall sent us a large collection of backdrops titled "SciFi Surreal #4". The entire set includes 25 different pieces and would make for a mega download. So, over the next few weeks I will be posting smaller chucks. Today's selections include 3 different colorful pattern desktops , all coming in 1024x resolution.
- Several weeks back I received a neat series 3-D desktops that mysteriously disappeared from my files by Ray Plain. Lost and lonely in the bowels of my 20 gig hard drive, they finally came to the surface, (sorry Ray). The second of 5 upcoming selections is a cool 3-D desktop titled "Blue Rings" and comes in 1152x resolution.
- Soul Rocka Nasty Nene sends us "Divas", featuring 2 lovely, gorgeous, soulful divas to add to your Nene collection. Includes two different desktops that come in 1024x resolution.
News From Around the Web: The Iconfactory announces the release of MacQuarium Icons, by Kate England
Hoeslyvista has been updated with six new desktop pictures. macuserx.com has been updated with 3 new icon sets, all for applications featured by Adobe, Macromedia and Microsoft. Also he has 3 new desktops! Continuing a nearly one month tradition, Dome-O-Rama offers it's next monthly Desktop Calendar! AUGUST 2001! Blueskyheart announces the release of another new desktop picture entitled "Relik". Available in multiple resolutions. There's been plenty of monkeying around at MacMonkies as they will be updating with 3 new desktops! Mac.axonz.com updates with a feast for your ravenous GUI appetite! The Iconfactory is proud to announce the release of Smoothicons 3 for Mac OS X. This small set includes the 2001 iBook, the "new" G4 tower, invaluable disk icons and more for OS X users in the bold Smoothicon style. Nicolas Cardot posts a new OSX icon set to his site. Mando Gomez wanted let you know that there are 40 new desktops at http://www.mandolux.com. These desktops are a continuation my Money Series with more Chinese bills and now bringing Japanese money into the collection. Flax Creations updates with two new desktop pictures. After a personal hiatus, Jason Maki is about to reopen his website with a new look and artwork. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
Visit the Mac Experts!
REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski We have lots of goodies to announce in this week's REALbasic news: - New version of REALbasic available.
- Use iTunes plugins in your own apps!
- REALbasic 3D tutorials and demos.
- Make use of the QuickTime equalizer.
- Build a card game.
- Manipulate text to your heart's content.
- New OS X control.
Find this and more in today's REALbasic News. (Continued...)
Today's News by Cletus™  It is time for another great giveaway contest. Fabien Octave is offering 6 free registrations for his wonderful BeHierarchic. If you have never heard of, or have never tried this great Apple Menu replacement control panel, this is the contest for you. If there is one third party program I would not want to be without, it would be BeHierarchic. This is without a doubt the premier Apple Menu replacement. BeHierarchic is faster and more full featured. Head over to the contest page and enter the contest.
ThermoInDock version 0.42 shows the CPU's junction temperature, in the Dock on Mac OS X. One note of caution is that the current version of ThermoInDock won't work on some models. To see if your model is listed check this page. This page will also describe the various feature of the module as well as how to install it. TinkerTool v.1.4 for Mac OS X is a great piece of software for controlling the many hidden features of the new operating system. For instance: "Do you want to control anti-aliasing of fonts? Would you like translucent terminal windows? Do you want to have all hidden files and folders displayed in the Finder? All that and many more hidden options of Mac OS X can be activated with the TinkerTool utility." If this all appeals to you, then I suggest you download and install this great little application. It is freeware. - New version supports all seven Mac OS X core languages
- Added shadow activation switch for the Dock The blocked features of the 10.0
- The blocked features of Dock (v1.0) can be activated. This will enable the Dock's placement options and makes the position settings persistent.
- Font anti-aliasing can now be manipulated at the CoreGraphics level, which makes it possible to disable font smoothing in Aqua user interface elements (including the Lucida font).
 Clockling 1.5.0 is a customizable clock.app replacement. This is a Dockling, a tiny piece of code which spends its whole life living in the Dock. The purpose of Clockling, is to provide a more flexible alternative to the Clock application bundled by Apple in Mac OS X. "You can move this dockling to any part of the dock, you can customize the background and do other modifications using the minimal interface. It also leaves a smaller memory footprint than Clock does. Both analog and digital mode." Many examples of what how you can change the interface can be found here.
DragThing author James Thomson has posted a note on his site stating: "I'm currently working on a small DragThing release which adds Unicode and long filename support, much faster startup times, and lots more. I expect it will be ready early next month. If you have any suggestions for things you'd like to see, please let me know."
Scheme News: The Kaleidoscope Scheme Archive has been updated. The update includes 10 new and 8 updated schemes. Most of the new schemes posted include those mentioned previously here at ResExcellence. Also included in the new schemes not previously mentioned here are: Stellar Confection and Blue Mist by Martha Royer. Submit Software and General News Suggestions!
Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium
 Polling Place. by Michael Coyle
Awww darn, since only 18% of readers regularly smoke, I guess I will not be signing up Phillip Morris to advertise cigarettes on ResExcellence anytime soon. (Just kidding!)
I'm sure the smokers in the group don't want to be lectured on why they should quit, instead, I'll just congratulate the 75% who don't smoke.
According to statistics listed with the American Heart Association, ResEx readers smoke less than the national average. It also shows that smoking decreases with education level. This is proof once again that ResEx has the smartest readers!
Another Macworld has come and gone. Unlike past recent shows, this one lacked any "show stopper" announcements. This week's Polling Place question asks, "How interested were you in MWNY 2001?"
Tools of the Trade. by Michael Coyle
Melissa has added three new sites to the ResExcellence Links page. I had never heard of any of them!
As promised, today you may cast your eyes on iTunes Skins Collection at ResExcellence. All the skins ever contributed have been collected onto these two pages with three news skins featuring the scrollbar color update.
Reality sets in today as I return to my day job after two weeks on vacation. I wrapped up my sound effects recording with a spectacular thunderstorm that lit up the midnight sky for over two hours. You can here a tree-splitting thunder crack if you have the time (977k AIFF File). While many of the thunderclaps will be prized additions to my library, I relearned an important lesson in voltage versus power.
In the studio, the microphones are powered by 48volts. This allows for a voltage swing of +/- 24 volts. Unfortunately, my Shure VP-88 is remotely powered by a 6 volt battery, or only +/- 3 volts. This was not enough to capture the energy of a thunderclap at 500 feet. You can see what happens in the image below when the microphone runs out of voltage. The signal stops as if it ran into a brick wall. Fortunately, because the sound of thunder is so explosive, even the sounds with "clipping" like the one on the right are often usable.
The signal on the left is clean. The one on the right overloaded the microphone.
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During the two weeks, I recorded over 1.6G of raw sound which will be edited, cataloged, and added to my existing library of over 35,000 effects. I do all this so that the next McDonalds commercial I mix can better convince you to buy a Big Mac!
User Contributed Splash Screens. by Michael Coyle
Remember, each month the most popular contribution (includes Snapshots, Desktops, Icons, Splashes, etc...) will win a prize!
- There are two new cute Boot Panels for you today from Brian Freeman. One is a cute kitty and chick, and the other is just a cute chick. (Sorry ladies. I couldn't resist).
- Channy Loeum sends another in his series of Ayanami Rei anime splash screens. This one is for Explorer.
- Do you still have a lowly-G3 like me and Jaime O. Hilario? Then take a look at this MOSS made just for us.
- Jeremy Hoesly sends a beautiful About this Mac replacement based on his photograph of a tranquil bridge. Be sure to check out his site for more desktop images.
Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.
Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly The start of a new week brings another round of snapshots: - A desktop picture included with Bryce 4 and a custom theme created by merging the Aqua theme and an XMorph theme are showcased in this OS X snapshot from Thomas Clément. Xicons’ Industrial Icons X are also featured.
- Nicolas Cardot’s “Dark-Titane” desktop picture and Jim and Julie LeDuc’s Smoke K-Scheme debut in this contribution from Guy Ettore. Audion, retro-fitted with Ric Zito and Paul Johnson’s F2 face, is dishing out tunes in the upper left.
- Michael Rosen sends this OS X screenshot featuring a custom desktop picture. A smattering of icons from icons.cx and Xicons are tucked away in the dock. QuickTime Player is showcasing a short student film Michael directed.
- This OS X submission from Chad Wolcott touts Desktop Imperium’s “Idiorrhythmic” desktop picture. iTunes, equipped with a hacked pattern, is churning out music in the upper left. Icons from 128x128, Xicons, and our Icon Archive reside on the desktop.
What’s your Mac look like? Send a snapshot for all the Mac world to see.
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan  Icons - Desktops: We've got (6) nicely done Desktops and (1) cool new Icon Set to dress up your desktop. All on display for today's update!
- Martin Valdes must have worked his fingers to the bone with the release of "Design Icons Collection 3". This is collection of 50 colorful icons with a wide variety of designs. Some designs contain OP-ART; a popular style of art of the 1960’s using geometric patterns. The icons were produced using ResEdit 2.1.3 with Mac OS 9.0.4.
- As announced on Friday in our Software section news, DragonTongue has released four brand new Copper themed Kaleidoscope schemes. The Dragon has been so kind as to send us one of the companion desktops for posting titled "Dragon Leather" in 1024x resolution. Other Copper related desktops can also be downloaded from his site.
- Bradford J. Wiles of the newly opened MacMonkies submits a stylish composition titled "Blue" This one comes in 800x and 1024x resolutions. Visit the site for more great artwork to download and check out his most recent update.
- Voluptuous might be a good adjective to describe "Softimage" by Gigi. This free form Photoshop generated backdrop comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
- Jeremy Hoesly our resident Snapshot section manager submits a new desktop titled "Inner Planets". He was inspired to make this desktop picture after seeing a recent desktop submission created using the SolarCell and LunarCell Photoshop filters from Flaming Pear. This picture consists of Sol, our star, and the four planets that lie within the asteroid belt, hence the inner planets. It was designed at a 1600x resolution so that it can fit just about any 3:4 aspect ratio monitor.
- Several weeks back I received a neat series 3-D desktops that promptly mysteriously disappeared from my files by Ray Plain. Lost and lonely in the bowels of my 20 gig hard drive, they finally surfaced today, (sorry Ray). The first of 5 upcoming selections is titled "Chromeboys" and comes in 1152x resolution.
- Soul Rocka Nasty Nene sends us "Train of Though", a new desktop to add to your Nene collection. Featuring the Stereo Mc's, one of his all time favorite hip hop groups out there, the desktop comes in 1024x resolution.
News From Around the Web: Blueskyheart announces the release of another new desktop picture entitled "Relik". Available in multiple resolutions. There's been plenty of monkeying around at MacMonkies as they will be updating with 3 new desktops! Mac.axonz.com updates with a feast for your ravenous GUI appetite! The Iconfactory is proud to announce the release of Smoothicons 3 for Mac OS X. This small set includes the 2001 iBook, the "new" G4 tower, invaluable disk icons and more for OS X users in the bold Smoothicon style. Nicolas Cardot posts a new OSX icon set to his site. Mando Gomez wanted let you know that there are 40 new desktops at http://www.mandolux.com. These desktops are a continuation my Money Series with more Chinese bills and now bringing Japanese money into the collection. Flax Creations updates with two new desktop pictures. After a personal hiatus, Jason Maki is about to reopen his website with a new look and artwork. Tray's Trove updates July 15, 2001 with eight new desktop designs! Macuserx.com has been updated with 6 new desktops and a new icon set, "Laundry". There is a new Mac OS X icon set, sixteen new folder icons available at resource Mac Ra announces the release of two new desktops for download at this site. The Iconfactory is pleased to announce the immediate availability of IconBuilder Pro 3.0, a filter for use with Adobe Photoshop for constructing Macintosh and Windows icons. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
Visit the Mac Experts!
You can now upload your contributions (include a READ ME) to the ResExcellence
ftp drop box, and let us know with an email. Be sure to read the Submission Policy
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