Geeky Gifts:

Bert Knabe: "Well, I thought it more cute than geeky, but my 15 year old sister-in-law gave me a heavy pin shaped like a computer, complete with keyboard, mousepad and a little hanging mouse. The screen says: "Life's A Glitch".

(Life's a Glitch, and the you reinstall...)

Colin Kelly: "I want to put my two cents in on a couple topics. First I got two REALLY geeky gifts: A "Legend of Zelda" baseball cap and the "Myth Total Codex." The Myth part leads into the subject of middle initials. I got the Total Codex couple days before Christmas and, well...I didn't step outside until today. Myth II is ADDICTIVE. I didn't get a chance to check out your poll and get some comments in on middle names/initials.

I have a middle name, I have two of them. My Full Name is Colin Becket Doyle Kelly (AHHHHHH!!!!!). My parents for some reason decided to give me two middle names and I bet you've never seen so many Irish names on one bloddy birth certificate. Can you imagine growing up with two middle names? Think of those bloody standardized tests that only give you room for one initial!

(No Colin, the only time I've seen more Irish names is in a pub...)

Eric H. "My parents thought it would be funny to get me some looneytoon boxers with Taz on them screaming because his computer crashed. Cool thing is that the error message on the computer is very similar to the Mac OS bomb messages that plagued us all in OS 7+. They also got me a tie that has all kinds of computer jargon on it, but to us computer savvy type, the jargon doesn't pertain to anything. Anyway, so I'll be wearing computer geeky stuff for the next year. Oh, my parent's aren't that bad though, they did get me a Palm Pilot!

(A Plam Pilot! Eric, I bet by next Christmas I can get a blood test to prove I'm genetically related to you!)

John Flender: "I received 5 shares of Apple stock from my wife, a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer from my Mom, and a $100 gift certificate to my favorite local Apple reseller from my Mother-in-law. The best xmas ever! I scored big. Err, I mean it was a great time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. :-)

(All this is making my little Gargoyle look pathetic...)

---

Zen-GUI is Anthony Wu's new web site. If you use a dark Theme or scheme, he has a great AOL AIM splash screen for you! There are also some Connectix in Virtual Game Station resource elements.

---

Using Mac icons on your Linux Desktop.

---

Use Contributions: (12/29/99)

• Two more nice looking About this Mac replacments have been post by Douglas Polk. Featuring the Blue & White G3, there are versions for both OS 8 and 9.
  
  
• Doug was also kind enough to send in a Netscape splash screen replacement.
  
  
• No mater what color your Mac is, Jjaro has a great looking AOL 4.0 splash screen replacement for you.
  
  
• Ethan from Chemicons submitted a Cursor replacement extension that adds color to the finger pointer.
  
  
• A lovely model from Victoria's Secret graces this Explorer splash screen by Abraham Metta
  
  

12/27/99

About one third of you use your middle initial. there were many flaws in the question. For example, gender didn't enter into the question. I suspect fewer women use their middle initial than men.

Several readers emailed to say they don't have middle names, which prompted me to add a "Results" link to the poll so you can now view the poll without voting.

A fair proportion of the world's population have no middle initials in their names, particularly the chinese. Take for instance, Chan Lee Meng from Malaysia:

Chan is my surname (or last name, as you westerners call it), while Lee Meng is my first name.

While I was in the U.S., many people assumed that Lee was my first name, and Meng was my middle names. So I would often have my name mangled to Lee M. Chan. This would be absolutely unacceptable in my region.

To give you an idea of what I go through, imagine if your name was written using Asian conventions, and I created a (nonexistent) middle name from your first name. So your name would become: Coyle Mic Hael

A bit silly isn't it? Well, that's what we go through. You could just dismiss all this as cultural differences, but I think western countries could really help matters by using the word "surname" instead, and also by not assuming everyone has a middle name. "Last name" implies everyone has their surname at the end.

Anyway, I did manage to glean some useful information about soundsets from your site. So this e-mail is not purely a rant ;-)

I actually like the sound of Coyle Mic Hael, and from this point forward, I insist everyone refer to me this way! Thank you for the comments Mr. Chan (or is it Mr. Meng??). I keep forgetting that two of the WWW's stand for World Wide!

This week's secular, nondenominational, politically correct Polling Place questions asks, "Did you enjoy this past week?"

Best Christmas present of the season came from my sister Anna who gave me this way-cool Star Trek watch! Not only is the second hand an orbiting Starship Enterprise, if you push the side button, the watch plays the show's theme song!

Thanks to a faulty Submit button at buy_your_husband_junk.com, my wife inadvertently ordered two shipments of my surprise Christmas present - a laptop toting gargoyle. Rather than go through the effort of returning the extra beast, she elected to send it to the only other computer geek she knows, ResExcellence software editor, Cletus™.

Unaware that the same gift was also going to be mine, Cletus promptly sent an email thanking me for the cool looking creature. Doh! Be sure not to tell him about my surprise 40th birthday party! :)

Did you get a particularly geeky gift? Let me know.

---

Sometime during the next week, the domain name for ResExcellence will be moved from my ISP to my Linux server. Currently, the entire site is already served off the Linux box, and you may have notice a little "Bounce" redirect page.

I don't expect any problems, but you may want to bookmark the IP address just incase. (../)

---

Want to use a Windows USB keyboard with your new Macintosh?

Robert Hiller sent this easy edit that allows you to swap the Alt and Windows keys on the Wintel keyboards so they feel more Mac-like. (Read More...)

---

Many readers have asked what I know of the departure of MacPlaza. Very little to be honest. The webmaster had a career relocation that put him in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. Between the pressure of work and family, he had hoped to find the time to continue work on the page. While I haven't heard from him a while, I suspect this time the page is down for the count.

---

Fredzmac is a new web site set up by ResEx contributor Shawan. There are already over a dozen replacement splash screens ready for you to download.

---

Use Contributions: (12/27/99)

• Jason Wiggins, the webmaster at ESP, has created a spectacular transparent MOSS for MacOS 9. (Be sure to check out his web site)
  
  
• Whether you have MacOS 8 or 9, you'll like one of these About this Mac replacements from Douglas Polk.
  
  
• Jay Amici contributed a nice looking Netscape splash, and a cool one for Eudora.

12/22/99

Menutte is a slick utility by Tiger Technologies that replaces the menu headings with icons, even animated icons. If you have been thinking about running it, but were not quite sure if it was for you, read this ResExcellence Review by Jeremy Hoesly.

---

Seventeen year old Matthew Cone and I sat down in the virtual parlor for a little one-on-one. Answers to the hard hittiing questions he asked of me, such as "How old is your daughter?", can be read in his first MacInstruct Interview.

---

Linux Icebox: If you have installed LinuxPPC 1999, your hard drive may be a ticking timebomb surprisingly close to shutting you out of your Linux partition.

Find out why.

Have a look at Maelstrom running under LinuxPPC on my Powerbook...

---

Wigwam Multimedia has updated their makeover for ICQ. It will give you purrtee icons for ICQ 1.9.

---

Which reminds me, during dinner, while molding my mashed potatos into the shape of a plateau in the western United States, the peas were rolling around on my plate. When they stopped, it spelled a message from mysterious being known as phydaux:

There will be no further patches for AOL Instant Messanger 3.5 until it goes final. This version works for version 3.0. BTW, how do you humans eats peas...

---

Erick Tejkowski sent this great Applescript for users of the new ViaVoice:

I just received my copy of ViaVoice and enjoy it a lot.One thing missing for me, however, was the fact that ViaVoice will only let you transfer text directly to Word, AOL, Netscape, IE, and AppleWorks.

I program a lot, so transfering to BBEdit was something I really wanted. My solution (however inelegant) is to use ViaVoice for dictation. Then, turn off the microphone in ViaVoice (by voice cmd or key shortcut) and turn on Apple Speakable Items, where I have a script that will transfer the text for me. I have my SpeakableItems set to turn on with the 'esc' key in the Speech control panel.

Here's the simple script I used. It's not much, but it might give some of your readers a few ideas. One last thing, I named the script "Transfer to B B Edit" to keep in line with the scheme used by default in ViaVoice. Separating the "B" and "E" characters by a space also seems to improve my Mac's recognition of my utterance. Enjoy!

tell application "IBM SpeakPad"
activate
set x to get text
end tell

tell application "BBEdit 5.0"
activate
make new document
insert text x
end tell

(Added to the increasingly Sloppy Applescript Archive)

12/20/99

This is a rare instance when I disagree with the majority of readers on an issue. Over 80% of you felt Apple engineers should be allowed to sign their work.

A common theme in the emails I received was to let them do it in Easter Eggs, but my concern is that this hidden code could cause problems in an application.

Or as another example, holding the Option key while selecting "About this Computer" triggers an Easter egg that shows the Apple Campus, and after a few moments, a list of names appear. There are only seven employees listed for MacOS 9. Do you really think only seven people worked on updating the Finder? What about employee eight? How does she feel?

So you see, my guess is that a lot of people get omitted. Apple software isn't like shareware. Dozens of people work on each program, and then get left off the list of credits.

An engineer from Apple adds:

I don't really care either way about the ban on about box credits...

While there's nothing wrong with them, provided everyone gets credit for what they've done, that rarely if ever happens.

---

This week's Polling Place question is simply to satisfy a curiosity of mine after reading lots of reader email. "Do you usually use your middle initial?"

---

Tuesday evening at 9 pm Central, as part of TalkCity, I will be in #computer-macos for a chat hosted by Ilene Hoffman. So download a copy of Ircle and join us!

---

Don Tipton offered this great solution for my unwanted partition on the desktop. To recap: after installing MacOS X Server, I was left with an unwanted partition when ever I booted to the regular MacOS called MacOS_Booter.

After booting from a MacOS CD, I launched Drive Setup and selected the internal hard disk.

From the Functions Menu, select Customize Volumes and after selecting the unwanted volume, uncheck Automount at startup.

---

MacInstruct has a new tutorial - Connecting to the Internet Made Easy. The new tutorial explains in six easy steps how to connect to the internet using Remote Access and TCP/IP. Add this to your Mother-in-law's bookmarks so she quits calling you!

---

Robert Schultz has written a new template for ResEdit! The IEAI resource contains information for the number and length of throbbers in Internet Explorer.

This template allows you add throbbers, or customize the length of a new creation.

---

Use Contributions: (12/20/99)

• Futurebaby is a new Netscape splash by Shawan. It's high tech grid with a kid looks "Matrix-like".
  
  
• A very nice MOSS & ATM combination was created by Mark Ransom. If you like a consistent look, these two are for you.
  
  
• A bold, simple Hotline splash was submitted by Simon Steiner.
  
  
• One of my favorite (and current being used) ATM submissions has been updated. MacOS 9 Earth was given a better font by Miguel D'Amico.

12/17/99

Gideon Greenspan, author of DropDrawers, has selected the winners of the Drop Drawers/ResExcellence Contest. Congrats are in order for Ben Garland , Robert Strachan, and Dave Crane. Cletus has the details...

---

The link to the best article I have read to date on MacOS X was sent by Todd Partridge. Mac OS X DP2: A Preview by John Siracusa is a seven page in depth review of the latest software preview that intelligently looks at the unix underpinnings.

---

"Does anybody really know what time it is..." (as sung by my hometown band, Chicago)

Is it a function of the New Year's celebration! Suddenly, clocks appear to be everywhere. Here are five new ones at ResExcellence by Robert Percivel. But wait, there's more. tKting dimensions has posted several FancyClocks. But wait, there's more! Snag a copy of DesktopClock from Lunar Software.

Now if they would just invent a clock that shook me, shouted, and splashed water on my face, I would be all set!

---

The second final candidate release of T-Minus Ten 2.2 is available for downloading and testing. This version addresses a few more minor problems in the Multiple User support and possibly fixes some start up task problems.

---

Here's a great deal involving my favorite utility! For a limited time, download KeyQuencer for $49.95 and receive Action files 1.5 for FREE! (Use the $29.99 you save to buy my Christmas present!)

To take advantage of this exclusive offer, visit eMacsoftware.com,.

---

I'm feeling a little under the weather today, so I turn the floor over to my cohorts...

12/15/99

The final version of AppearanceHopper 1.9 is available. Get it and add some better System fonts!

---

Marc Andryuk sent me a link to a favorable review of the "Bicentennial Man".

---

The online Haiku page has been updated with more than a dozen pearls of wisdom.

---

We've got five new clocks in the archive created by Robert Percival. These are so cool, I wish I could order a real one to hang on the wall.

As always, they are free. Watch for more on Friday...

---

Robert Schultz has created a ResEdit template to allow you to modify trobber information in Internet Explorer.

---

Change the Startup Phrases spoken by Speech Recognition

---

Use Contributions: (12/15/99)

• Another great looking MOSS montage was created by "Steve the Mysterious Gardener". It sports the brushed metal Sherlock look.
  
  
• This is a Netscape splash created in the style of "Worker Propaganda". The bold colored file was created by Shawan.
  
  
• In honor of the One Millionth page served, Owen Strain created a tribute ATM replacement.

12/13/99

Garrett Ostromecki came within 52 minutes of guessing when the one millionth page would be served, and won a copy of the premier resource editor, Resorcerer from Mathemaesthetics!

Since I didn't receive a snapshot of the millionth page, that prize is being awarded to the second closest estimate - and oddly enough it was from Garrett's father, Tom Ostromecki! Tom wins the Cyber Acoustics Speaker System from Small Dog Electronics!

While this father and son combo of winners may seem like an episode of the X-Files, Garrets says:

We have been watching the counter since before Thanksgiving. Just before we emailed our entries we found the average number of daily hits and then each did a little guesswork after that. I thought it would be earlier than what my dad thought. I can't believe that it worked. It was that simple. Love your site. Thank you very much!

The following four people had estimates close enough to claim ownership of a ResExcellence t-shirt! Paul Paolo, Michael Artz, Kim Gammelgaard Nielsen, and Diane Jennings.

Sylvain Le Borgne wondered when was the first ResExcellence page was served? Well, the current counter was started in April of 1998. It took one year to reach half a million pages, but only a little more than six months to serve the next half million.

My very first resource editing posts were done in November 1997 as part of Desktop Madness. And if I may get a little sentimental, I can't believe the fun and friendships that ResExcellence has allowed me to have over the past few years. When I sit down to write my updates, the thought that is foremost is my mind is, "What can I tell my friends today?".

I'm looking forward to page ten million! Thanks everyone.

---

With every commercial for "The Bicentennial Man", my expectations for the adaptation of Isaac Asimov's story fall further. If you plan to see the movie, do yourself a favor and read the story first!

As you may know, my day job is sound mixing for TV and Radio commercials. I may mix more than a thousand commercials a year, and my name isn't on any of them!

Every commercial involves hundreds of professionals all across the country. For the most part, we are fairly compensated and love our work. That's why it's no surprise to me that employees at Apple are no longer allowed to sign their work. But what do you think? This week's Polling Place asks that question. I would also be interested in hearing your comments on the topic.

---

If after seeing some Linux screen snapshots, and hearing all buzz, maybe you're wondering what all the hype is about. Today's MacInstruct has some excellent introductory information on Linux for the Macintosh platform.

---

Ben Blake has updated Appearance Randomiser. The new version adds random Startup screens, fixes several bugs and adds a logging feature. Appearance Randomiser is a freeware Applescript utility that randomly sets a theme, desktop picture, sound set or startup screen.

---

Evan Francois loved the Orbit Clock from BlueSkyHeart Graphics, but accurately positioning it was a little cumbersome, so he wrote a little Applescript to automate the process for any monitor size! (Be sure to change the paths to the picture and clock!)

-- I put my "DC Orbit 800&Mac176;" folder in my Application Support folder.
-- Wherever you put yours, the next two paths need to reflect that:

property the_picture : ((path to startup disk as string) & ¬
"System Folder:Application Support:DC Orbit:DC Orbit.jpeg") ¬
as alias

property the_DA : ((path to startup disk as string) & ¬
"System Folder:Application Support:DC Orbit:Orbit Clock") ¬
as alias

try
tell application "Appearance"
launch -- without visible
set picture file of monitor 1 to the_picture
set picture positioning of monitor 1 to automatic
quit
end tell
tell application "Finder"
open the_DA
activate
end tell -- that's it!
on error e_mess number e_numb
if e_numb is -128 then -- user canceled
quit me
else
beep
tell me
activate
display dialog ¬
"Script was unable to complete the task." & ¬
return & return & e_mess buttons ¬
{"Cancel"} default button 1 with icon stop
end tell
end if
end try

(Added to the Sloppy Applescript Archive)

---

Kudos to Bobby Kinstle for sending me a link to Applefritters. This site features pictures and information on Mac prototypes, hardware hacks, and clones - and I'm not referring to Power Computing! Read about the Mac512 clone from Brazil that caused an international crisis.

---

Dan Schmidt reports that Resurrection has been updated. Resurrection is a shareware replacement for ResEdit that is currently in alpha testing. The current release of Resurrection supports more than 50 template types, including several for Appearance Themes.

---

A "friend" of mine has the following problem:

Everytime I boot my Mac, the useless MacOS X Boot partition appears on the desktop. Using a function of Akua Sweets, I wrote the following script to "Put Away" the partition and dismiss the dialog warning box,:

tell application "Finder"
activate
select disk "MOSX_Booter"
automate alerts after 0
put away selection

end tell

Unfortunately, it works unpredictably. Do any readers have better suggestions?

12/10/99

ResExcellence served page one million at 10:53:46 pm on Thursday the 9th of December. Not surprisingly, several attempts were made to stuff and hack the counter. Fortunately, I had redundant systems that allowed me to keep an accurate count, and know exactly when the page was served.

Unfortunately, because of the mad rush at the end, the server was extremely overloaded. It's possible that no one took a snapshot of the one millionth page. That's ok. If I don't receive a picture by Monday, I will award all prizes based solely on the basis of who came the closest to the guessing the time.

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was very exciting for me to watch the counter rise. I hope I'm here for page two million! (but please, no contest!)

---

The final candidate of T-Minus Ten is available for any readers who wish to check it out. Visit the web site to learn more about this program that lets you schedule events, assign hotkeys, and more.

---

ResExcellence is posting another great shareware review by Jeremy Hoesly. This time it's Power Windows!

---

If you would like to smooth out the look of your Quicktime Player, Toren Valimir sent a patcher.

If you would like to experiment with different types of textures on your application, paste the patterns into PICT ID #1024. Quicktime Player will use them as the textured background.

---

Robert Friede let me know that there is now a blue version of the recently released iBook Theme. (Note there is a new URL).

---

While it was mentioned yesterday on several news sites, just it case you missed it, the AppearanceHopper beta cycle has been moved up to version 5.

This update fixes a bug that would reset the desktop picture, and offers other minor improvements. Unfortunately, it does not run on 8.5 or 8.5.1.

---

Modify GoMac to name all your Internet Applications

(Cletus just received his Bachelor of Science Degree and is quite proud of himself!)

---

Use Contributions: (12/10/99)

• Robert Percival submitted a great looking Giant MOSS with a cool idea behind it. It's his vision of an OS/Startup manager.
  The preview doesn't do it justice. Download it and take a look.
  
  
• Featuring Moe the Bartender from The Simpsons, Claude Schrader sent this funny AIM splash screen.
  
  
• While I thought he was a Netscape man, Peter McHugh must have felt sorry for Explorer users, and put together a nice looking splash.

12/8/99

Jeremy Mates really wants to win the Thanks a Million contest. So much so that he wrote three Perl scripts to track the counter on the main page.

The real problem lies in guessing at how many additional hits will occur as people try to win the speaker system. Without this presumed "counter stuffing," the hits on your site follow a best fit line quite well, as the attached graph shows.

Using 61 data points, Jeremy plotted the data on a graph and extrapolated!

When he is not trying to slow the entropy of the known universe, he makes some pretty slick desktop pictures!

---

Jo sent word of a new Appearance Theme called iBook. While the site is in Japanese, it is definitely worth a stroll around.

---

This time of year, when I was thirteen, I would walk the railroad tracks plucking fat cat tails from the swampy water between the rails. But Eighth-grader Brian DePalo updated his web site, MacOS Resource Plaza. In addition, Brian added the sixth volume of his icon set for you to download, and a Newsletter for you to peruse.

---

Assign Hotkeys in KDE for launching Apps or scripts.

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Use Contributions: (12/8/99)

• Scott Alvarez sent an Explorer Splash featuring one of those leather clad Gap lads.
  
  
• Erik Barzeski's OE5 splash featuring Sandra Bullock has been updated. (I think six splash screens of the same person count as stalking here in Illinois!)
  
  
• A way-cool Netscape splash of a gothic griffin was submitted by Markus Magnuson.
  
  
• Owen created two nice looking ATM replacements for MacOS 9. Stop by his site to see more.

12/6/99

By a very small margin, readers are bothered by the banners at the bottom of the Sherlock window. I was expecting the results to be overwhelmingly negative, but a lot of people apparently feel like me - the banners are easy enough to ignore.

Speaking of Sherlock, here is a patch by Matthew Ward. The patch removes Sherlock 2's brushed metal surface, adds new 3-D Copeland style icons, and removes white channel windows; replacing them with Mac buttons which depress when selected.

The book is out of print, but if you have a chance before the movie comes out, you should read "The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov. Years ago after first reading it, I hoped someday it would be made into a movie, but after seeing the commercials, I'm a little worried they're going to screw it up! I guess I'll have to hold my breath and have faith in Robin Williams and Sam Neill. This week's Polling Place asks, "Have you read The Bicentennial Man?"

(If they would just make "Brain Wave" and "The Stars My Destination" into movies, my life would be complete!)

---

Last month, eighty-six generous people contributed and made ResExcellence a better place! Brian Milburn's name was pulled out of a hat and became November's lucky winner of Madden 2000?

---

RAM, VRAM, SRAM, who gives a DRAM! If this looks like alphabet soup to you, read RAM 101 from Macinstruct.

---

This interesting little AppleScript application, CleanRecentItems takes care of an error in Mac OS 8.5.x that makes the Recent Items folder get overloaded by a huge number of aliases in the course of time.

This will slow down Open or Save dialog supported by Navigation Services, because the System has to find the 10 most recent items out of several hundred from under the Recent Items.

You can modify the limits of CleanRecentItems with the Script Editor.

---

Use Contributions: (12/6/99)

• Charles Yeo submitted this StartupScreen featuring Neon Genesis.
  
  
• Another nice looking Betty Page splash was created by Jon Avery. This one is for Internet Explorer.
  
  
• Melissa Etheridge was playing in the background when Scott Chitwood created this MOSS tribute to her.
  
  
• Abraham Metta put together this Victoria Secret splash for Outlook Express.
  
  
• Another in a fine series of Netscape splashes by Peter McHugh is ready for your viewing pleasure.
  
  
• Steve the Mysterious Gardener created a cool looking MOSS with a QT4 kinda look.
  
  

12/3/99

Jeremy Hoesly has joined the staff of ResExcellence. Periodically, he will be writing reviews on the best user interface shareware for the Macintosh.

This week, Jeremy reviews the many features of Snitch, a super Get Info program.

(Welcome Jeremy, and no, you can't have the corner office...)

---

Several readers have noticed that if you change the Large System Font, the login comment (under Welcome to MacOS 9) becomes all pixelated.

To stop this, you need to use a scalable type face, a truetype font for example. If you like the Espi Sans family, I recommend Nu Sans, a shareware font worth every penny.

---

A beta version of AppearanceHopper 1.9 is available for you to download.

It allows you to: set the font, size, and style of the System Fonts; access the "hidden" scroll bar options; set the style of alias names, and turn off the arrow badge on aliases; and modify the Application Switcher palette, all in one user-friendly control panel.

The new look is much easier to navigate and if now works without opening the Appearancde control panel.

---

Change your cursor under KDE and Gnome.

In KDE, the default cursor is so... X; and in Gnome it reminds me of the white pointer from Microsoft Windows. Here's a simple command to give you a left or right pointer in the Mac style cursor. You can even make it colorful! (Continued...)

Wanna take a look at my latest LinuxPPC desktop?

---

Basile's idea
Archive computer Haiku.
Consider it done.

(you wouldn't believe how long it took me to write that!)

---

David Emmons sent one of the oddest Applescripts I have ever seen. In effect, it makes Microsoft's Internet Explorer a slave to Netscape Communicator.

Now if we could only write a script to make Microsoft a slave of Apple....

Here is a script I wrote to have Communicator tell Explorer where to go to. I use Communicator by habit, but IE has a cool Web archive feature I like. The solution is this Applescript that will send IE to the site Communicator is looking at so that you can archive. With a little more work, you could even add the capability for IE to save the page by itself.

tell application "Netscape Communicator™"
set theHit to URL of window -1
end tell

tell application "Internet Explorer 4.5"
GetURL of theHit
end tell

(Added to the Sloppy Applescript Archive)

12/1/99

You can't get it at download.com. Can't get it at info-mac! The only place you can download the newest version of Drop Drawers is right here at ResExcellence!

Sig Software has chosen ResExcellence as the exclusive distributor of Drop Drawers 1.1. In addition, software editor Cletus Waldman has an exclusive interview with Gideon Greenspan, the program's creator, and details of a special offer where ResExcellence readers can win a free license of the product.

---

Lazerware software has updated OSA Menu to version 1.1.2. This update provides MacOS 9 compatibility. To be honest, the older version was working fine on my computer. He probably made a really small change from 00100110001101 to 00100110001100.

While I consider OSA Menu a must have utility for organizing your AppleScripts, I can do without the super long menu descriptions.

To remove the phrases: "Open <application name> Folder...", open STR# ID 1024 and delete the text in items 4 and 5.

---

One more Haiku item:

Edward Ponikvar: Some time ago, I was looking something up in the index of the Retrospect 4.1 manual. The index contained an entry for "Haiku"; curious, I turned to the designated page. Scanning the text about Restoring From Backup didn't mention anything about haiku. Upon closer inspection of the screenshots, however, I discovered the following files on the example storage set:

Henson and Peary
Like melting snow to flowers
Make way for Balto

I checked the older manuals; version 3.x had two entries:

Admiral Peary
Discovering the North Pole
Lost toes to frostbite

...and the file being backed up in another screenshot has the title "Big Book of Haiku".

Nice to see a tech manual with a sense of humor. I might even start reading manuals if more companies did this.

---

Ho, ho, ho. What do you know! The elves at RAILhead Fonts would like to announce that they will be donating $5 from every purchase in the month of December to the US Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.

All the info is posted at the RAILhead Fonts website, on the "Specials" page. If you can, buy a font or two, and help some kids that are less fortunate than others around the world have a better Christmas.

---

The JSA (Japanese Scheme Archive) is a site where you can view uncommon Kaleidoscope schemes.

---

Beta 3 of the next release of T-Minus Ten is available for download. The only difference between this version and beta 2 is support for Mac OS 9's Multiple Users feature. This feature allows multiple users to use a single computer with each user having his or her own set of T-Minus Ten tasks.

If you are not using Mac OS 9 or have not turned on the Multiple Users control panel, then you should not notice any behavior difference in T-Minus Ten. In any case, the author would appreciate testing of this version with or without Multiple Users because of the internal changes made to accommodate this new feature.

---

If you think cache is something you get out of an ATM machine, then you need to stop by MacInstruct and read Matthew Cone's new tutorial. "A Newbie's Guide to Cache".

---

Link Netscape's Throbber to your Email Helper Application

---

Use Contributions: (12/1/99)

• Chris Lopez submitted a cool Giant MOSS called Grendel.
  
  
• Based on the new MacOS 9/Sherlock2 look, Bernhard Feurstein created a MOSS with matching ATM.
  
  
• The TimelessBetty Page returns, this time gracing a Hotline Splash made by Jon Avery.
  
  
• Peter McHugh has send a couple of nice Netscape splashes for you to consider.
  
  
• Matching the style of his previous Netscape version, Chris Friend created an Iconic Splash screen for Explorer.