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Today's News by Cletus™ Launch Items X is the highly touted CMM that allows you to open files and folders. It comes as a set of CM plugins. A partial list of updated items includes the following: Users can customize the advanced features of Browse Volumes.plugin from the Launch Items Editor X, or turn off the ability to show desktop items of Browse Volumes. They have added the ability to Browse Volumes, which means you can now display the "Home", "Applications" and "Favorites" folders on the root menu.
Dair Grant has updated SwapTop, which will allow you to set up a schedule to automatically download a random desktop picture each day, to download a featured daily picture, and to search the WebShots image archive. If you do not like the same old- same old desktop picture, and further are not happy with a predictable image, then give this a shot.
Ranchero Software has released beta 1.0b4 of their new program TigerLaunch. It displays an Applications menu at the top of your screen listing all your applications in alphabetical order—no matter what folder they appear in. This release allow you to add folders where TigerLaunch will search for applications. The list can get kind of long depending on how much you have on your machine, and this helps.
A Reader Tip at OSXFAQ thinks that the new Stickies program in Jaguar is just the "cats meow,"— pun intended.
It has happened again, I am not happy and they know it too. My ISP was upgrading software for the cable modem, and something went wrong causing an outage. That is fixed, however once again the email servers are working overtime to catch up. I have not received a single e-mail all day. Nothing is lost they insist. Just a large delay in relaying messages. If you expect a reply from me, hang tight!
I've had this problem and it has driven me batty since the beta release of Mac OS X. In list view, clicking on the name of a file (not the icon) to change the name would result in the window shifting (scrolling) to the left and out of view. If there was a solution posted to solve this anywhere, I never saw it, and I consider it a bug. I have written to Apple about it. I have since figured it out and wrote to Apple again. It is corrected by adjusting the size of the column title in the window. In this example, the only column is "Name". If it is the same width or smaller then the window width, the window will not jump. If it is large, then it will jump as the two images show below. A buddy of mine who will remain nameless (Russ) likes that it jumps, though I can not for the life of me figure out why! :D
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Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium
Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle Considering all the MacOS X Boot Panels he sent to ResEx last month, it should be no surprise that John Rose is the winner of the random drawing to receive a $50 gift certificate from PowerMax! Thanks John for all the cool contributions!
Since installing MacOS X 10.2, my daughter's Powerbook would randomly crash, the effect of which was to constantly keep logging her back in. I did a clean reinstall of the OS but still no luck. Then I looked at the Console.app log (look in Applications/Utilities) and noticed a cryptic reference to an audio driver crashing. That gave me the clue I needed to find the corrupt custom sound file my daughter was using as an alert sound. That's why the computer would sometimes run for hours without crashing, and at other times it would log her out over and over - it all depended on whether the Alert sound was trying to get her attention!
When it comes to changing the spinning Wait Cursor, there's a new kid on the block! Brian Ellis has written a new application to swap the rainbow cursor titled Beachball! And the cursor files from Blobber and Rainbow are almost identical: " It's fairly easy to create cursors that are compatible with both Beachball and Blobber. Just make a folder, name it what you want the cursor to be called, then include the diff file and the animated gif preview as files with the same name as the folder (so if the folder was named "Foo", the diff would be named "Foo.diff" and the gif would be named "Foo.gif"). To make Blobber happy, include three text files titled "name.TXT", "desc.TXT", and "author.TXT" with the appropriate info inside them. To make Beachball happy, just include a file of any type (even empty) with a name beginning with the word "by" - that'll be the byline. Beachball gets the name of the cursor directly from the name of the folder." 
Many readers have written to ask when 'such-and-such a theme' is going to be updated for Jaguar. Until the theme authors get to it (if ever) you may want to look into Theme Fur as a solution. It repositions the graphic elements of a 10.1 theme to work with 10.2. Why don't I just convert all the older themes in the ResEx Archive? Because I don't believe it's my place to alter and redistribute the work of others! It these authors want their themes updated, they will have to do it themselves!
New Boot Images in the Archive... - A grey version of the YinYang symbol was sent by LaZenMonk.
- Everyone's favorite space cadet, Ellen Feiss, is booted by Noliv.
- Based on artwork from the very first Apple I logo, G. James Berigan created this image.
- See the look of horror on your friend's faces when they see this Sad Mac boot icon from Seth Johnson.
- Somehow, I imaging Jolin Warren's home is painted blue with white trim. All of you Scotts take a look at his Scotland boot image.
- Got a Sawtooth G4? Then you need this image from Zack Schilling.
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?)
Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.
Today's News by Cletus™ A-Dock 2.8.4 is the newest version of this Dock like program similar to that found in Mac OS X. The program runs on system 8.5 and higher. Changes include: - Locking the dock expanded can only be achieved by option-clicking on the bottom of the dock to avoid people from locking the dock by mistake.
- Added lock/unlock sounds.
- When the Desktop and Trash were not displayed in A-Dock, the last application in the Dock was always marked as visible. This is Fixed.
- Corrected a problem with German menus displaying garbage.
ParaDocks continues to receive nice features in each upgrade. This latest release adds the following: You can close the window Settings. You can now automatically install ParaDocks at start. You can choose not to sort running applications by name.
UptimeInMenuBar will provide information on the last time the computer was booted in the menubar.
ChangeDesktop is an application that will change your Desktop picture with random or preselected images. This one has been around for a while and is very popular. Specifics about this release include: - Fixed several bugs in the WebPics service.
- Fixed a Jaguar only bug that caused desktop changes to fail on one monitor systems if the Finder crashed or was restarted while the Daemon was running.
- Fixed a few French localization problems in ChangeDesktop.
HourWorld Live Deskpicture X places a dynamic image of the earth rotating as the day goes by. This is pretty cool! You can pick high-resolution maps that take more power to run but they look spectacular. Version 2.0 includes an option to display night earthlights from cities around the world, and new display sizes to support the 2002 Titanium PowerBook and 17" G4 iMac.
YazSoft have updated Speed Download. The hi-lite of this release is described here: "The power of Unix meets the power of Speed Download. You can now remote control Speed Download from 'Terminal' from anywhere on the planet using the command line interface. We have made it extremely easy! This feature runs on Mac OS X Only feature. Additionally, it is 100% seamless with all popular Mac browsers, and you can set a download position for each item in the queue."
 If you miss the disk activity LED found in earlier Mac models, DiskSpy will bring it back, but this time in your menubar. "DiskSpy is a small program that acts as a software disk LED for Macs running Mac OS X. DiskSpy sits in the menu bar and gives visual notifications when the OS is reading from or writing to a disk."
Flocks 10.0.1 is a port of the Windows OpenGL ScreenSaver made by Terence M. Welsh. Flocks is a Free Software under GPL 2.
Narattaphol Charoenphandhu has bumped Folder Icon X to version 1.2.9. Adding full compatibility with Mac OS X 10.1 through Mac OS X 10.2.1, improved speed of template loading, and the plugin can now import disk icons correctly.
Leander Kahney from Wired News has written two short articles dealing with the Mac OS GUI over the years: "The Mac OS That Can't Be Tweaked" and "Steal Your Interface: A History". Interesting read.
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Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle Laine Lee has created an application to split TIFF images into Boot Images, complete with custom color tables. To use BootImage Pal, drag a single 128 X 128 pixel, 256 color tiff file with the name extension ".tiff" onto BootImage Pal's icon to create both the data files (.act and .raw, appropriately named). It can also convert back the other way.
Blobber 2.0 is out! In addition to a totally new interface, there are new animated cursors and a tutorial to make your own spinning headaches. A plugin based architecture makes it easier to add and distribute your own Blobs. How about we open the Mailbag! Russell Znike asks, "What sound files does MacOS 10.2 use? I had a sound file I used when my computer first started up and also a sound for my errors. I was running MacOS 9.2.2." Under MacOS X the default sound file format is AIFF. The original alert sounds are located in /System/Library/Sounds. If you wish to add alert sounds from which to choose, create a folder called Sounds in your Home Library folder and place AIFF files in there. They will appear in the Sound Preference Panel. A few other system applications can have specific sounds keyed to events: Accessibility, Dock, Finder, System and Ink. These AIFF reside in the following directory: /System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/Resources/SystemSounds/ If you have $7 burning a hole in your pocket, the Daddy of all system sound apps is Xsounds from the Wizards at Unsanity Software. It duplicate the sound set function that was present in MacOS 9 in the Appearance Control Panel.
The makers of Can Combine Icons has come out with another cool utility! MacBoot is the ultimate Boot Image installer. You can create your own image from a variety of original file formats, plus MacBoot allows you to set the background color for the entire screen! It seems this feature was always there in color table of these images. Look at the highlighted second color in the table. That's the background! New Boot Images in the Archive...
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?) - George Krueger has updated another of his popular iTunes skins. This time it's the green-tinted Oak.
- A nice looking Explorer splash was created by random ink.
- We haven't had one of these before! Matt Anton sends a replacement splash (with instructions) for Quake III.
- Jeff Blanding sent three MacOS X Boot Panels. Two feature lovely ladies, and the third is a city street scene.
Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly Check out Tuesday’s snapshot lineup: - An anonymous submitter got snap happy with this snapshot featuring a seemingly endless recursion of screen grabs. Very mesmerizing.
- This screenshot from Jon Owsley features the “Sat-BluePuffySky” desktop picture. A smattering of icons from MiXthePiX, Xicons, Bombia, Mandolux, Icon Factory, and our Icon Archive are strewn throughout.
- This OS X Jaguar screenshot from Ely Small sports both iCal and iChat, two utilities created for the new OS. iTunes is cranking out music along the bottom to complete the “i” lineup.
- Greg Martin’s “In the Shadow of the Stars” desktop picture debuts in this submission from Tycho. AquaMon spits out machine stats along the left side.
As promised, here are a few selections from the hoard of pictures I took during this trip:   
The first picture is of the Colorado River as seen from the Observation Deck of the Hoover Dam. The second is of the famous Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. The third shot is of Mission Beach in northern San Diego. On this cross-country road trip, I captured sights from Rocky Mountain National Park just west of Fort Collins, Colorado, rock formations in Utah, more pictures of the Hoover Dam outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, additional pictures of the strip in downtown Las Vegas, and other shots of La Jolla and Mission Beach in northern San Diego, California. All in all, it was a very productive trip! See just how easy it is to contribute to ResExcellence! Give our browser-based submission upload page a whirl.
Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X
Today's News by Cletus™  Hide From Dock is a utility that will enable a Hide menu item in your applications Dock menus. This is a really useful feature that Mac OS X can support, but doesn't function as well as it could, especially if you want to use Dock menus and multi-button mice as the read me suggests. Apple could have implemented this concept a bit better and perhaps will in a future update.
ClearDock 1.2.1 provides relief from the odd background colored menus that would occasionally rear their ugly head. This is a neat little program. I know I had this problem at times using ClearDock. I have had no problems since updating to this version. Grab the update if you are suffering from the menu color problem. It is also freeware!
The Clam has written his first official application for Jaguar. Snatcher 1.0a4 is available for download and is a Screenshot tool for Jaguar. It provides some nice features and is also going for free. Download a copy and reel off a few snapshots for the ResExcellence Archive!
I use this all the time, do you? Zingg! provides similar features to what now is built into Jaguar, however it takes it a step further. Maybe two steps further! It shows you a list of all applications that claim to open a particular file via a CMM. Zingg! lets you configure certain applications to appear always or never in the pop-up, you can also set it to not show Classic applications when the Classic environment isn't running. Yep, it takes it two steps further.
 DockFun! is a tool to run an infinite number of OS X's Dock configuration and is from John MacDonnell. This is also a really cool little program. For example you'll be able to set up a Dock for Internet applications and a Dock for graphic purpose which you'll turn on, easily, with just a click!
- Full Jaguar Support, (Mac OS X 10.2)
- DockFun! mode control has been added.
- Localization in French and Italian completed
DockDisks allows disks to auto-mount in the Dock. A great feature if you want to keep a clean desktop, avoid space conflicts if you place the Dock on the right side of the screen or do not want to fight with windows covering up the disk icons on the desktop.
If you become tired of custom icons and want to revert to plain, Mac OS X installed ones, or want to clear them so you add new ones, then grab IconCleaner. This file utility allows you to clean custom icons from files and folders simply by dragging them on its window. This version adds Mac OS X 10.2 support.
Screensaver time...
Plasma 10.0.2 is read for download. This release adds a Spanish localization and fixes a bug so Cancel will now work correctly when the preferences have never been saved.
For the fans of BeOS, dsandler.org has brought the screensaver Message 1.3.0 over to the Mac OS X platform. Well done! "Message" displays the output of a fortune program, or a short message of your choosing, in a variety of subtle font and color combinations. Here is a screenshot.
Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!
 Polling Place by Michael Coyle I must admit, when I asked this poll question last week, I did not like the brushed metal look of Apple iApps, but then I installed Max Rudberg's Brushed Aqua Theme and now I love it! What bothered me was the inconsistency; some windows Aqua, some windows textured, but now that everything is textured I think it looks very slick. Check out my desktop snap below. Click for large image in new window.  | So why does Apple have two window styles? Matt Cooper provided the answer when he sent this link to an Apple document on Human Interface Design. It seems the brushed metal window style "has been designed specifically for use by—and is therefore best suited to—applications that provide an interface for a digital peripheral, such as a camera, or an interface for managing data shared with digital peripherals, such as the Address Book application." I don't buy it. Using that definition every application could use the textured design. Apple should just come out and admit, "Ok, we use the textured window style because we think it looks cool and we're bored with Aqua, but Steve won't let us implement Themes!" As I walk down the street to and from work, I see the lobbies of every building filled with people hugging the glass trying to get a static free signal on their cell phones. It took my four attempts to order my Aurelio's Pizza while on the train ride home this past Friday. That's just not right! Everywhere you go, everyone you talk to, the gripe is the same - wireless phones suck! Last year a poll question established that half the readers of this site have a wireless phone. I assume that number has risen. This week I want to find out if you're happy with your service. Please post your comments in the forum thread so we can all see which companies are on top the situation, and which are dropping the ball. This week's Polling Place question asks, "How do you feel about your wireless phone service?"
Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.
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