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Today's News by Cletus™ CodeTek Studios, Inc. has released VirtualDesktop version 2.1.5. This is a really cool little program. CodeTek VirtualDesktop provides you with the capability to switch between desktops on your monitor as though you had separate monitors. CodeTek Virtual Desktop provides a GUI interface that contains your desktops arranged in a grid. Each desktop on the pager is a unique environment where you can accomplish your work. Windows can be moved between desktops simply by dragging them between desktops on the pager.
 Dockside 1.1 is described as a desktop companion application which provides quick access to a growing list of system and internet information monitors. Dockside supplies this information through a familiar 'dock-like' user interface. The following is monitored.
- System Information and System Statistics.
- Analog Clock with visual alarm.
- Calendar with month and day views.
- Timer with countdown and count up functionality.
Pith is the great little utility that will assist Safari in displaying the windows you have open is a little window. If Safari crashes, relaunch it, and Pith can recover the windows that were open. Veers ion 0.9.5 deals with the following issues. - Menu bug fixed
- Added windows submenu, access to same-frame and hide-others
- Added a bunch of preferences.
- Partially Localized in Japanese/Dutch
- Window Hot Keys
- Empty window list bug NOT fixed yet.
Dockless 1.1 will allow you to either show an application that is running in the Dock, or make it so it doesn't show up when running. This can be very useful for Login items that provide no real value by having them in the Dock.
uControl 1.3 will allow one to "take those useless keys " and reassign them to something more useful. The author states that it started out as a simple hack to remap the caps lock key to a control key, but has since evolved into a fairly sophisticated means of remapping many of the modifier keys on your keyboard to any other modifier keys you wish.
Benoit Widemann has released AliasMenu X version 3.0.1. Carrying over from Mac OS 9, this program adds customized menus to the menu bar. Each menu extra has a corresponding folder and the menu automatically reflects the folder's content.
Happy Birthday to me! Cletus was born 39 years ago today! :)
Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan
 Icons - Desktops: Yo! We've got another great selection of icons and desktops to feed your need for desktop decoration. Starting off with (6) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". Take your time going, and hurry back!
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 a piece of cake!
- Looking for something a little different to put all your files in? If so, then check out Box Icons by Sdf. This is a great assortment of fourteen different "containers" to put things in, such as baskets, stackable tubs, and file cabinets.
- Aqua Aqua everywhere. Bob Ossin found himself getting sick to death of all blue folders on his desktop. Using Iconographer and Photoshop, he transformed a small number into Silver X Folder Icons. These probably would look good with some of the newer graphite themes we are seeing for OSX.
- Dream Theater Icons by David Tracey features five current members of the progressive metal band, Dream Theater, and one former member as well. Dream Theater was formed by John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Kevin Moore, and John Myung in the late 1980's.
- It's been some time since we have seen new artwork from Manny Velazquez . Welcome back! "Wings of Light" is the next addition to the fine "Metaphysical" desktops series, and comes in 1024x resolution.
- Lizard Skin by Peter J. Sucy is another set of desktops inspired by the Gravity Well image from the BBX theme created Max Rudberg. The download includes two desktops @ 1280 x 1024 resolution, one with dock areas the other without.
- The kind folks over at Digikitten keep on sending us loads of great desktops to share with ResExcellence readers. By way of introduction, one of Digikitten's missions has been to provide a free place for digital artists to display their work without having to pony up for a server. Art Skool by Jeremy is the next great desktop from this ongoing display, and is available in 1024x resolution.
- Paul Detzler sends us two photographs of a colorful sunset as viewed from his balcony. He thought they looked nice (almost like the Abstract photos included with Mac OS X), and that they would make great desktops. He was right! These come in 1024x and 1600x resolutions.
- Eight Ways by Kevin Bohnert is a cool looking black and white geometric composition. Comes in 1024x resolution.
- Do you work in a place that looks like this? I hope not for your sake. Floor, by Michael Kraft is a filtered photograph of a long corridor located in a famous (unnamed) German TV Station. This one comes in 1152x resolution.
News From Around the Web: Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com has released a new Bonzai/Taran desktop
titled Dai. It is a picture of a bonsai tree bathed in Sunlight and in front of a fence for effect. This is a must-have desktop. MacMonkies warms up your weekend with 3 new icon sets. This Friday's featured sets include some great icon work from RAD.E8's Sascha Höhne, Hein Mevissen of miX the piX, and James Cukr of cukr7 productions. News, UI's and Fun is what you'll find this Friday at MacMonkies.com. Grab a look! MiXthepiX has updated the site with 2 NEW icon sets. One is a Star trek set and the other is a server icon set! Longhair's Lair finally finds a new home: New desktop images were added recently, and more are due to be posted sooner or later. Live Pencil updates with new singing live animals, more emoticons, desktop icons and much more to make you smile. Timeoutofmind.com publishes three new desktop backgrounds. There's a new desktop picture at Bombia Design: "Smiley".
Burntcanvasdesign studios updates with a whole load more work coming up from the D-day beachs. Some more black and white photos for a out of sync update are on tap as well. Alan couldnt resist giving you viewers something new to look at, and he has a surprise up his sleeve very worth checking out. The surprise is a sneak preview at a set of icons he has been working on.\ Pictures of the Hoover Dam arrive at Hoeslyvista! Eight photos of the famous hydroelectric power source situated on the Colorado River find a new home in the Desert Southwest Gallery. So click on over and have a look. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
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Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle MacOS X Hints has posted an update to the modification that moves the swap file to another partition. This trick gets more complicated with every update of the OS, but if you are short of RAM you may want to give it a try.
George Krueger is so clever. He sent this tip for Konfabulator. If you duplicate and rename the included Weather Widget ("Weather 1", "Weather 2", etc.), you can run multiple copies of it showing the weather in different cities. Visit George's web site. It's loaded with cool Mac stuff. Kei Kinoshita has updated his popular Theme, Siemple para X for better compatibility with MacOS X. He has also added a new variation called Siemple Metalica. Check them out.
User Contributed Splash Screens. by Michael Coyle It's easier than ever to contribute using the new Browser Based Upload Page! If you contribute a file to any section of ResExcellence, you could win a PowerMax gift certificate worth $50 ! (How?) - Five new Mighty Mouse Cursors have been added to the archive!
- A pair of nice Tech Boot Panels was created by Gabe Gendreau.
- To make the iTunes widgets match the new recessed style of Mac OS X 10.2.3, Gastón Cukier created this little makeover.
- A beautiful mountain panorama is featured in this Giant Boot Panel from Robert Mauro. He doesn't say where the image was taken, but I want to take my next vacation there!
- Latorre Models put together an Aqua Progressbar for Safari. It's a little bolder than the standard Apple supplied version.
- Fans of Marvel Comics artwork will want to see these four Boot Panels from Bob Coogan.
- What better name for a progressbar than Safari Grass. Now you really can watch the grass grow while a slow web page loads. :-)
Today's News by Cletus™ The results of the iCan Giveaway are in. Below is a listing of all ten lucky winners of a free registration. Congratulations go out to them from ResExcellence and David Lloyd, author of iCan. He further writes: Many thanks for all the suggestions, some have already made it into a yet-to-be-released beta. Others, will be seriously considered for future versions. Some, unfortunately were either not possible or viable with iCan. He also sent in the result of the favorite theme question of the contest. 1. Snow.E2 (23%), 2. Snow (21%), 3. OS X Wirebasket (15%), 4. MMTrash (11%), and tied at 5 were— iCan Bonus (9%) and Toilet (9%). If you see your name below, you will have, or soon will receive your free registration for iCan.
| Richard Stessman | Jolin M Warren | | Jonathan Achiron | David Zweben | | Michael Griffith | Manfred Becker | | Gordon Byrnes | Dustin MacDonald | | Ishtiaque Omar | Andrew White |  John Schilling formerly StimpSoft? fame, wrote in to say he has not been completely idle when it comes to coding software. Good to here this John. jschilling.net is his newest home. He writes: I don't think I'll bring back StimpSoft, but I still like to code! He goes on, "My newest application is called iBob iDobbs. It's totally useless. I mean totally. It puts a floating Bob Dobbs head on your desktop that belches famous quotations. I dunno, thought some of your readers might like it. Most probably wont, though." Download from his site.
A-Dock X 0.8.6 is an application switcher utility. It behaves like a drawer, supports drag and drop, lets you quit or hide applications via a contextual menus and also has skin support. Version 0.8.6 adds support for smooth icon animations while moving favorites. The front application's icon offset is now an option.
RocketLauncher 1.4 was released and is an advanced menubar application and file launcher for Mac OS X. No word on specific changes. But I assume it was made better with this release.... :D
The great CMM Ittec has been updated to 1.7. This CMM allows you to do any number of things in the Finder. It gives you immediate access to all of your files and folders, applications, and open windows. You will no longer need to clutter your Dock and Desktop. For a full list of changes and how to's stop by the webstie here.
A really nice menu bar clock called FuzzyClock has gone into 1.1beta1 for testing. Some of the great new features they are checking out are: you can now assign a color to the time, set a font and have more choice on the programs localizations
This is a beta-release, it may contain bugs! They ask you contact them directly with any problems you may run into.
ChangeDesktop 2.4.1 keeps your desktop picture fresh at the intervals you pick. Several changes with Remote Access is found in this update. Also changes is the preference where by if Desktop auto-changes are suspended, and a manual change is initiated, auto-changes will still be suspended after the manual change completes.
The life saver for some, AquaFix 2.0, is now available. As the description states, if you end up totally messing up you Aqua interface, this little gem will restore it back to Aqua for you.
Trash It! 2.7 by NoName Scriptware is an AppleScript that force-empties your Trash. It's especially useful if you have files or folders in the Trash with permissions set incorrectly. Version 2.7 adds the following: Checks for BSD Subsystem on launch. If it's not installed, will alert you to this fact. Checks the validity of your Admin password, and on error, will ask you to reenter or to log out and back in as Admin User. General code enhancements.
Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan
 Icons - Desktops: Yo! We've got another great selection of icons and desktops to feed your need for desktop decoration. Starting off with (6) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". Take your time going, and hurry back!
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 a piece of cake!
- Bill Cochran does creative audio work for WNUA 95.5 in Chicago when he’s not busy searching online for interesting images. Now, thanks to this new set of eight Audio Gear Icons and the previous collection (Audio Gear Icons 01-05-03) created by Michael Coyle, senior post production engineer at the Chicago Recording Company and publisher of ResExcellence, his dock is full of images he can relate to. Way to go!
- What a great idea! Make your Own Icon Kit by Lisa DeBruine includes icon making instructions, base icon templates and some visual aids to get you well on your way to creating the pixelated masterpieces of your dreams.
- If your burn a lot of your own software CDs, you definitely will want to check out this collection of twenty one custom CD Icons by Ron Curry. Included is an extensive read me file detailing some of the finer points of using them.
- Wood Grain by Peter J. Sucy is another set of desktops inspired by the Gravity Well image from the BBX theme created Max Rudberg. The download includes two desktops @ 1280 x 1024 resolution, one with dock areas the other without.
- The kind folks over at Digikitten keep on sending us loads of great desktops to share with ResExcellence readers. By way of introduction, one of Digikitten's missions has been to provide a free place for digital artists to display their work without having to pony up for a server. Subliminal by Midnightz is the next great desktop from this ongoing display, and is available in 1024x resolution.
- Doctors Orders! Corey R. Shaud updates a time honored prescription with a modern version of the old saw "An Apple a Day". Displaying this desktop will help keep your computer Microsoft free, and comes in 1024x resolution.
- Pink Floyd fans will enjoy Ken's Echos desktop collage. Just in case you didn't know, Echos is a collection of twenty six tracks on CD featuring the best of Pink Floyd's music.
- Shea Langner of Proteus Design sends us a handsome looking desktop she designed for future use on her website, now available here in 1024x resolution.
- Michael Hamlin submits a heartfelt desktop farewell to the crew of the lost Columbia space shuttle. This one comes in 1024x resolution.
News From Around the Web: MiXthepiX has updated the site with 2 NEW icon sets. One is a Star trek set and the other is a server icon set! Longhair's Lair finally finds a new home: New desktop images were added recently, and more are due to be posted sooner or later. MacMonkies rolls out 6 new desktops for this week's Wednesday Desktop Edition. Among your favorite pixel pushers are featured artists such as Bob Wiley, Michele Bugliaro, Rob Randtoul, Scott Chitwood, Steve Sharp, and Jack Juliussen. You can find all this and more this week at MacMonkies.com. Grab a look!
Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com as issued a new set of Giant Petals titled Rigmor. The desktop is a picture of a rose petal with texture set in a pinkish color. It is available in Giant (1920x1200) and Dual Monitor setups. Live Pencil updates with new singing live animals, more emoticons, desktop icons and much more to make you smile. Timeoutofmind.com publishes three new desktop backgrounds. There's a new desktop picture at Bombia Design: "Smiley".
Burntcanvasdesign studios updates with a whole load more work coming up from the D-day beachs. Some more black and white photos for a out of sync update are on tap as well. Alan couldnt resist giving you viewers something new to look at, and he has a surprise up his sleeve very worth checking out. The surprise is a sneak preview at a set of icons he has been working on.\ Pictures of the Hoover Dam arrive at Hoeslyvista! Eight photos of the famous hydroelectric power source situated on the Colorado River find a new home in the Desert Southwest Gallery. So click on over and have a look. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X
Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle Lars Wiegman has updated the QuicksilverR theme for 10.2.3. See a preview in the Archive then visit his site to grab the matching Audio skin and lots of other goodies. The newest addition to the ResEx Theme archive is Charles Ludwig's Silk Orange. Being the boring old man that I am, I generally don't go for the colorful themes all the kids are using these days, but this Silk Orange makes me feel like I'm twenty-one years old again. This theme comes with a nice system icon set and even a buttom makeover for Safari. Before you email me, the desktop picture featured in the preview is Sean Myers' Inside. Click the Preview!  | Thoughts on Themes and MacOS X 10.2.4. As you can see from the snapshot above, I'm not having any problems with themes and 10.2.4, but I have a couple ideas on what to avoid. First, use Theme Changer. Do NOT let Theme Changer install the Boot Image or Cursors. These are the two items I suspect are causing the problems. As always, be sure you have the newest AquaFix installed and keep a printout of the instructions close by.
Half a dozen new links have been added to the big ResEx list! Desktops, Icons, Fonts and more. Go get 'em.
 You know how when you're at work and you see a cool website and you want to tell your co-workers? Instead of emailing the link to everyone, use Bookie to share your bookmarks on a Rendezvous network.
It places a small icon and submenu in the menubar that allows you to see the bookmarks from Safari, Mozilla, Chimera, or Omniweb users on your home or work network.
Sao's Place has posted an excellenct series of tutorials on configuring Apple's X11, Fink, window managers, xinitrc files and more. He had tips that even an old Linux user like myself had never used!
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?) - Ten new Mighty Mouse Cursors have been added to the archive since Friday. Check them out!
- Those two crazy Pixar Monsters, Mike and Sully, are featured in a pair of Classic MOSS from Will Ernst. The download also includes an About this Mac replacement.
- A very cool Button Set for Safari was created by Jason Coloma. These replacements are all in Aqua Red.
- A long time ago, David Quakenbush submitted a Boot Screen and Login makeover using the Anime artwork of Satoshi Igarashi. Today's updated package is ready for MacOS X 10.2.
- Elias Sandoval believes that Milton Nascimento is one of the legendary Brazilian pioneers of beautiful music. These six MOSS screens show a stylized image of the artist.Elias Sandoval took a Greek Orthodox base relief picture that he scanned and turned it into a cool MOSS.
Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium
Today's News by Cletus™ Please check back on Wednesday for the list of winning names for the iCan Contest. There is a slight time warp between me and the author due to locations in the World. So it will take a bit longer to get the names this time around.
 SearchBar 1.1b5 was released. This is a nice little search tool that opens in a window on your desktop to allow you to search a wide variety of search sites. It can be brought to the foreground with a simple key combination (HotKey). Changes include:
- Pipe is encoded properly, a lot other characters are now also encoded properly.
- Fixed a minor issue with some xml based plugins.
- Added Merriam Webster OnLine and also Dir.com (French search site).
- Added basic Apple Help system (No content yet)
- Converted several search engines to the new xml based format.
Safari Menu is available in its infancy beta form as version 1.0b. It allows one to open Safari bookmarks from the menu bar. This means that you can go to any site you've got in your bookmarks with just one click. Additionally, you can directly go to any URL or search in the Google search engine. One known issue is that the bookmarks are not updated until you relaunch the application.
The newest version of Renicer version 1.1.8 from Northern Softworks has been made available. Their full description follows: The Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X allow users to assign priorities to processes with the Renice command. Higher priority processes get more CPU time and vice versa. The downside is that you have to use the terminal, and you have to know the renice syntax, process ID's, etc. Wouldn't it be nice to automatically adjust application priorities on the fly? Renicer is designed to run in the background, and automatically prioritizes whatever application is in front.
Cocktail 1.0b4 is truly a cocktail mixture that may allow replacement of many other applications. Best of all it is freeware. Below is a full listing of what it can perform for you: - Update prebinding information
- Run cron scripts
- Repair permissions
- Delete locked or inaccessible items
- Enable and disable journaling
- Delete archived log files
- Create symbolic links
- View log files
- Change network card setting
- Request new lease from DHCP server
- Force empty trash
- Recreate alias to Mac OS 9 desktop
- Remove cache files
- Customize look and features of Finder and Dock
- Easily optimize your system using Auto Pilot.
AquaMon, which is a system monitoring program, has been updated to fix a ghosting issue with text and window flickering. It also fixed an issue where filesystems size would be reported incorrectly and the client now attempts to auto-reconnect to a server when the connection is dropped.
Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!
Polling Place by Michael Coyle  We have a brave bunch of readers here at ResExcellence. Over 80% of you would still jump at the chance to go for a ride in NASA's Space Shuttle. I'd love go, but I wonder if by the time I had to strap myself into my seat if my intestinal fortitude would waver. Still, I think it's a good measure of the human spirit that so many of us are willing to take the dangerous trip. (Someday, I hope my kids get to go!)
LUV2SPD, THANXDAD, and the famous MAC-USER are all vanity license plates. I see dozens of them everyday on the ride to work. Sometimes it seems there are more vanity plates than standard ones! What about you? This week's Pollling Place asks, "Do you have a vanity license plate?" If you have a plate you're proud of, post a story in the forum thread.
Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly Monday’s snapshots are here at last: - A custom “Backyard Flower” desktop picture and a Desktop Girls desktop picture coupled with the Aqua Square Theme debut in this dual-monitor submission by Silas Cruse. XMMS, a music player for X-Windows, runs via X11 in the lower right of the first screen.
- A custom “Trapped Apple” desktop picture and Dragon Tongue’s new Bitsa Soft K-Scheme are showcased in this contribution from Will Ernst. Netscape, overhauled with the New Skypilot theme, is traversing the web near the bottom.
- This snapshot from Inkslingerz features a Deskmod desktop picture. Retrospect conducts a backup session in the center, while Stickies plays a QuickTime movie of TROOPS, a COPS-style series set long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
- John Reiner contributes this screenshot sporting a screensaver running on the desktop via BackLight. Safari displays the website of the company he works for.
See just how easy it is to contribute to ResExcellence! Give our browser-based submission upload page a whirl.
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan
 Icons - Desktops: Yo! We've got another great selection of icons and desktops to feed your need for desktop decoration. Starting off with (6) New Desktops, (3) New Icon Sets, and of course, updated "News From Around the Web". Take your time going, and hurry back!
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 a piece of cake!
- Portable Icons by Thomas Zackl of Blackintosh is a clever set of eleven different suitcase icons labeled for storing applications, documents, fonts and more.
- Dragon Icons by Yannick Housseau is a set of twenty five colorful dragons, mostly originating from Japanese or Chinese artwork, as well as from some modern tattoos styles.
- Souledge SD Icons by Tsuki is a set of ten samurai spirit icons from the popular pseudo-3d sword fighter video game by Namco.
- Sultry screen actress Julianne Moore makes a star studded appearance in this three desktop set made by Carl Grasso. These come in 1024x resolution.
- The kind folks over at Digikitten keep on sending us loads of great desktops to share with ResExcellence readers. By way of introduction, one of Digikitten's missions has been to provide a free place for digital artists to display their work without having to pony up for a server. Kangi by Chelle is the next great desktop from this ongoing display, and is available in 1024x resolution.
- Believe it or not, Spring is right around the corner! To prove it, Keith Boone took a cheerful photo of a Daisy in the morning with his Canon S30, and titled it Daisy Dew. This one comes in an off size 1702x resolution, but will scale down nicely.
- In Soviet Russia, the fool pities you! Soviet Fool by Cameron features wrestling icon (and B grade TV star) Mr. T. This one is available in 1280x resolution.
- Greg Elsberry sends us STS107 Remembered, dedicated to the lost crew of the space shuttle Columbia. Comes in 1024x resolution.
- Tile Floor by Paul Detzler is one of the first pictures he took when he got a digital camera. Thinking the pattern of the floor was pretty cool looking, he decided to turn it into a desktop picture for your enjoyment. Comes in several different resolutions.
News From Around the Web: Live Pencil updates with new singing live animals, more emoticons, desktop icons and much more to make you smile. Timeoutofmind.com publishes three new desktop backgrounds. There's a new desktop picture at Bombia Design: "Smiley".
Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com has issued a new Vector-based desktop titled Calma: Christy. Burntcanvasdesign studios updates with a whole load more work coming up from the D-day beachs. Some more black and white photos for a out of sync update are on tap as well. Alan couldnt resist giving you viewers something new to look at, and he has a surprise up his sleeve very worth checking out. The surprise is a sneak preview at a set of icons he has been working on.\ Pictures of the Hoover Dam arrive at Hoeslyvista! Eight photos of the famous hydroelectric power source situated on the Colorado River find a new home in the Desert Southwest Gallery. So click on over and have a look. MacMonkies adds extra heart thump to your Valentine's Day with 4 New Icon Sets. This week's eye candy includes work from Evan Kaufman, Harvey Lubin, James Cox, and Rene (of Happicon). Box o' chocolates? Heck no! Send your sweetie GUI goodies and more this week from MacMonkies.com. Check 'em out! A new website has unofficially launched for all you Comic Book readers out there. www.comicdesktops.com features desktops of all the main comic publishing companies and even some small press ones. The site is still in progress with much more to come. Think of this as a sneak peek, it's gonna be huge. Icons and Chat/Buddy icons will be online soon as well. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
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