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Today's News by Cletus™  Folder Icon X 1.5 was released yesterday. This very popular icon tool is an Mac OS X-native application providing a simple way to create a customized folder and document icons by placing another icon on a standard plain icon. It fully supports the "drag & drop" feature and can load any icons from any files, ".icns" documents and folders. Version 1.5 adds the following nice features:
- The contextual menu can now paste icons from the
Template folder to desktop selected items.
- Icons inside the Template folder are listed in the contextual menu in a hierarchical manner.
- Save As Icon Document command of Folder Icon X.plugin can save "icns" files without custom icons.
- Bugs of last two Generic Icons command were fixed.
Sky 1.2 will allow one to download images of the sky to be used as desktop backgrounds. Pretty cool!. The view of the sky can be at any point on Earth.
Trash It! 3.01 is the newest release of this AppleScript to force empty your Trash Can. The change in this version is: Allows the user to run Trash It! as if there were trash even though there might not be trash. This alleviates the problem where Trash It! may miscalculate the contents of the trash or links to the trash have become disassociated from the system.
Icon Machine 3.0 is another great icon making tool from David Catmull. Icon Machine gives you the ability to easily use your unique and expressive ways to create custom icons, personalizing the look of your Mac. Major changes since the previous release are: - Fixed a crash that happened when pasting images copied from Preview
- Fixed text in non-32-bit icons (it wasn't being drawn at all)
- Switching between image, mask, and transparency views ends a text editing session
- Fixed 32-bit text in image-only mode
- Fixed garbage created by the Fix Mask command
- Fixed a cosmetic problem with the grayscale slider (it didn't erase right when the dropper tool was used)
- Fixed redraw after Paste Icon Family in OS 8/9
Change Startup Disk will bypass the system preferences and allow you boot into 9. This release has several fixes in it.
QuickAccessCM gives you excellently fast access to frequently used files and folders. Thanks to Tomasz Kukielka for the PR. The prime access point modules are: - "Quick Access" with items for quick opening
- "Move To" with folders into which you often move things
- "Copy To" with folders into which you often copy things
- "Make Alias In" with folders in which you collect aliases
Northern Softworks has released Jaguar Cache Cleaner 1.7. Version 1.7 of JCC adds a number of new features and improvements. JCC can now kill/restart the Dock, or kill/restart the Finder. When JCC kills these items, they stay dead for the remainder of your work session. JCC can now also function in non admin user accounts.
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!
- Tommy Buckley submits a handsome set of nine different Road Signs Icons to help you navigate around your desktop.
- While there's no theme to Jason's X Icons, this set of ten different icons are simply a fun assortment looking for a home on your folders and files.
- Different stokes for different folks... Terry Baker says a power force motivated him to make this set of seven "alternative" Pinup Icons for OSX. I'll bet you just can't imagine what that might be.
- Twist by Ed Allen of EA Design continues an amazing new series of 3-D desktop pictures on display here. This one comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
- Altimit Desktops by Ross were inspired from his personal interest in Bandai's new Playstation role-playing game ".dot Hack-Infection". This way cool set of four desktops display @ 1280x resolution.
- David Lopez submits a nicely done digital collage titled Checkmate. This one is available 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. Dangerkitten by Chelle is the next great desktop from this ongoing display, and is available in 1024x resolution.
- Chris Vincent sends us an inspirational desktop to meditate on. "Pure Desktop" comes in 1024x resolution.
- Eye of the storm by Peter J. Sucy is another set of desktops inspired by the Gravity Well image from the BBX theme created Max Rudberg. This is the first in a new of series of Gravity Well takeoffs. The download includes two desktops @ 1280 x 1024 resolution, one with dock areas the other without.
News From Around the Web: Check out the new True Soft iContainer at Bombia Design. Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com has issued new Vector-based desktop is titled Christy: Be Yourself and once again, another desktop inspired by Christy Smith of CBS’s Survivor. The Iconfactory would like to remind icon artists that the deadline to submit an entry to this year's annual icon design contest, Pixelpalooza, is Midnight e.s.t., Monday, March 31st. To date, Pixelpalooza 2003 has garnered 70 entries in its three icon submission categories, OS X, CandyBar and Classic. Traditionally, the final week of the contest sees the most new entries, so we invite everyone to stay tuned to the Pixelpalooza contest pages for the latest original content fromicon artists the world over.
Public voting in the People's Choice Awards will run from Sunday, April 6th, until Sunday, April 13th. Results of the People's Choice Award will be announced with the Grand Prize and Runner Up winners on Monday, April 21st, 2003 at The Iconfactory. Check out the whole new look along with a jaw-dropping set of landscape pics at Burntcanvasdesign Studio. Adam Dickson reports the relesase of eight new desktop pictures and four new icon sets (one of them a icon file makeover for stuffit expander 7X) on his web site at http://www.pictures.myweb.nl. Live Pencil updates with a new animation, emoticons, hidden images and much much more to make you smile. Hoeslyvista updates with two new additions to the Williamsburg Gallery and six fresh selections to the Flora Gallery. Go snag them! Timeoutofmind.com updates with three new desktops. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
Cropping Graphics with REALbasic by Erick Tejkowski  | Today we'll conclude with Part 4 of the Cropping Graphics tutorial. This time we'll add a Lasso selection and realtime feedback. (Continued...) |
Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium
Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle Way back in May of 2001, we posted a mod to allow multiple icon sizes in Mac OS X. The update to 10.1 broke the hack and it was all but forgotten until a reader at MacOS X Hints posted a thread stating the old hack works again in 10.2.4. Carsten Klapp, the author of the original modification, went back to the ResEdit resources and tweaked them for Jaguar. The resulting download will once again add multiple icon sizes to the Finder! The original article has been updated. For changing Boot Images, Matthew Rushing is a big fan of BootImage Pal. This utility will take a TIFF and convert it to a RAW and ACT color table that can then be used by Startup Syringe.
Lars Wiegman has updated the smooth Quicksilver MacOS X Theme to work with 10.2.4. The download contains two variations: with and with Brushed Metal elements.
 A new version of AOL Instant Messenger means a new version of AIMX 4.5 Banner DESTROYER™. Download yours today and help AOL/Time/Warner inch a little closer to bankruptcy. Wait, that didn't sound right...
Codetek Studios has updated their popular Virtual Desktop! Version 2.1.6 adds the following: Improved Japanese Support (Thank you to Hiroshi Yamato!), added French Support (Thank you to Fabien Goy!), improved processor usage, fixed a bug where windows were disappearing from the pager, and it no longer "phones home" due to customer requests.
Five new sites have been added to the ResExcellence Link Page.
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?) - The next bunch of Mighty Mouse Cursors has been posted to the archive. Go get yourself dizzy looking at Wait Cursors.
- Dan Leeder created an iTunes skin that sort of resembles a Palm or Newton type skin.
- Looking like a smashed plate of glass, Stefanie Koerner created a cool Dock Poof.
- The Afro has made a comeback in this Photoshop splash by Daniele Foti. Hey Daniele, how about a mullet next time! (Or a bald-guy splash for me!)
Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!
Today's News by Cletus™ The MacMaid Contest was completed on Saturday. MacCandy and ResExcellence would like to thank all those that took the time to enter. I now have the names. Congratulations goes out to: Robb Timlin sent in word that he has updated Classic Window Management to beta 5 of version 1.0. This update fixes a slight incompatibility with the Application Switcher component of Keyboard Maestro. CWM now deals with background processes a little better to prevent unwanted window manipulations. This is a really nice program and worth looking at. You can also help with any bug reports during this beta phase.
LaunchBar 3.2.10 is the very popular launching utility. Type in a short abbreviation and select from the popups and off you go. It is also intelligent in that it learns your selections and begins to narrow done possibilities as you use it. If you would like to learn even more about it, Adam C. Engst from TidBits recently did a nice write up about it. Version 3.2.10 adds the following: - Configuration has been extended by a corresponding entry.
- The LaunchBar Help files have been significantly expanded. It's highly recommended to take a closer look at the documentation to learn more about LaunchBar and its numerous features.
MaBaSoft has posted Application Wizard 1.1.1 which is stated to allow you to do a variety of actions such as open, quit, show, and hide single applications or groups of applications. "With Application Wizard you can also force applications to quit and relaunch them, start and stop Classic, relaunch the Finder and the Dock, log out, put your computer to sleep, restart it and shut it down. "
A constant companion of mine is PTHClock 2.3.1 which overs a slide out calendar for quick reference. It also provide nice customizing options for the menu bar clock and has replaced Apples default clock on my machine. This release fixes a crash at login.
Macaroni has been updated! It is described as an automated system maintenance for Mac OS X. Macaroni is a tool which handles regular maintenance for Mac OS X, including the Mac OS X "repair privileges" process as well as Unix-style maintenance. Some of these tasks normally run in the middle of the night, and don't get run unless you leave your Mac on all night. Macaroni now repairs itself when necessary, to recover from file corruption and keep maintaining your Mac.
Desktop as Screensaver 1.0 is an AppleScript that makes your screen effect your desktop picture. It is put out by NoName Scriptware.
Heat bumped Meteorologist to version 1.2.6. This program places a weatherman in your menubar. I love it. Check this page out for a full list of changes to version 1.2.6.
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!
- In the Tool Shed Icons by Kooldez are dedicated to his old man: for teaching him how to fix things around the home himself, and for teaching him that for every job, there is a specific tool. This excellent set of OSX icons includes fourteen different hand tools and a dozen different power tools.
- Smallville Icons by Joe H. are based on the T.V. tale of a teenage Clark Kent in the days before he was Superman. It is the town where he came from where very strange things started happening with his arrival in a spaceship in the midst of a meteor storm of green rocks.
- Any Brits online? You've got mail! This single icon made by William Lindsey Cochran is based on the venerable British mailbox or Pillarbox (an icon in the truest sense of the word in British culture), inspired by the French mailbox of Nicolas Castellan.
- How does he find the time? Our webmaster and Sound Engineer for Chicago Recording Company Michael Coyle created a handsome looking ProTools 6 desktop for his oft used Powerbook running MacOS X. The pattern is repetitive, so you should be able to customize the image size and cut-and-paste to fill in the image. This one comes in 1280x resolution.
- "Cycles" by Manny Velazquez is the next beautiful addition to his "metaphysical" series of desktops, and is available for download in 1024x resolution.
- Is it real or is it Memorex? Until I perused the read me file for Still Lake through a lens by Patrick Patoray, I was wasn't sure if this desktop was a real photograph or a 3-D imitation. As it turns out, this cool image was created using a new piece of software called Terragen, and is available in 1024x resolution.
- Jason "Hooptie J" Kennedy sent us an awesome collection of four different wallpapers to deck out your desktop. Three of them are titled "Tribal" desktops, and the fourth is a brilliant geometric pattern. All four are available in 1280x resolution.
- How about a little sugar and spice naughty and nice? Dean's Desktops by Sean Dean includes two different images, featuring the sultry Eliza Dushku and bad girl Winona Ryder. Both of these are available in 800x and 1024x resolutions.
- Metroplus by Bob Booten is a collection of four different desktops inspired by the Fritz Lang's bizarre cult classic movie "Metropolis." These are available in 1152x resolution each.
News From Around the Web: The Iconfactory would like to remind icon artists that the deadline to submit an entry to this year's annual icon design contest, Pixelpalooza, is Midnight e.s.t., Monday, March 31st. To date, Pixelpalooza 2003 has garnered 70 entries in its three icon submission categories, OS X, CandyBar and Classic. Traditionally, the final week of the contest sees the most new entries, so we invite everyone to stay tuned to the Pixelpalooza contest pages for the latest original content fromicon artists the world over.
Public voting in the People's Choice Awards will run from Sunday, April 6th, until Sunday, April 13th. Results of the People's Choice Award will be announced with the Grand Prize and Runner Up winners on Monday, April 21st, 2003 at The Iconfactory. Check out the whole new look along with a jaw-dropping set of landscape pics at Burntcanvasdesign Studio. Adam Dickson reports the relesase of eight new desktop pictures and four new icon sets (one of them a icon file makeover for stuffit expander 7X) on his web site at http://www.pictures.myweb.nl. Live Pencil updates with a new animation, emoticons, hidden images and much much more to make you smile. Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com issued a new a new collection of desktops titled 'Steevil' Hoeslyvista updates with two new additions to the Williamsburg Gallery and six fresh selections to the Flora Gallery. Go snag them! Timeoutofmind.com updates with three new desktops. www.xanthic.net releases the second set in an awesome series of icons titled "Ti Cons." Fresh Pixels at Colheres: Two new desktop pictures and a March Calendar. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
REALbasic News by Erick Tejkowski | | - zegsRuler 2.0
- Pulp 1.1
- Valentina
- Logical Vue
- Toolbar Buttons
- CodeSpacer
(Continued...) |
Support ResExcellence By Visiting Our Sponsors!
Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle James Thomson, the author of DragThing, needs your help. He has posted a poll to gauge your opinion on whether or not to continue support for a the Classic version of DragThing. Go vote!
Daniel Labriet sent a link to his funny little application that claims to cool down your hot Mac. It's a virtual fan that sites on your computer desktop. It's quieter than the internal fan on all Apple computers. :-).
Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes has posted several new AppleScripts in the past week, all free to download. - Stop Track - uses a special track to stop iTunes and cue the next track.
- Rename Files - assists with renaming files based on your arrangement of available track tags.
- Audition End of Track - starts playing the selected track from the last 15 seconds.
- iTunes FMP Database - imports iTunes track data to a FileMaker Pro database, scripts and template all included.
- playlistbot - uses drag-and-drop to create playlists with associated folders.
- CD Label of Selected Playlist - assists with creating printable CD Labels with iTunes and AppleWorks.
Brandon (Carbon) Muhlach has updated his two multi-colored themes. Grab Watercolor 1.5, available in four colors, and FatalE 0.92. This last theme has a new black version. Both themes have been tweaked for MacOS X 10.2.4.
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?) - Today's Mighty Mouse Cursor archive update contains a few double sets! These are worth a look.
- A cactus filled Photoshop splash was submitted by Daniele Foti.
- He doesn't say where this beautiful picture of a lighthouse was taken, but CoolJoe converted it to a nice Camino splash screen.
- A Skull and Crossbones grace this MacOS X Boot Panel from Rene. The download contains two versions; with and without text.
- This Safari Progress bar from 2Cool2Name also contains elements to replace the Google search progress bar.
Today's News by Cletus™ Please check back on Wednesday for the results of the MacMaid Contest. It takes a while to go through all those messy desktops! :)
 Safari Enhancer 1.5.3 is now available. Safari Enhancer is an application for enabling several hidden features of the Safari web browser beta. Safari Enhancer currently enables three things: The debug menu, Minimum font sizes, and Internet Explorer bookmark importing. Version 1.5.3 adds the following:
- Compatible with Safari v67 (unreleased)
- Compatibility with v64 dropped
- More intelligent checking that right application is selected; your copy of Safari can be named anything now.
- This version should work better on Japanese/Korean/Chinese/Vietnamese systems
- Japanese localization activated again and German localization removed by reason of being extremely outdated.
AliasMenu 3.0.2 is a control panel that adds customized menus to the menu bar. These menus work like the Apple menu: Each menu has a corresponding folder and the menu automatically reflects the folder's content. The menu name can be replaced by a custom mini-icon, to get a nice layout or to save room in the menu bar and add more menus. Version 3.0.2 adds the following: Can now open documents whose icons are hilited in the Finder, and select on the fly which application to use to open them.
A-Dock X 0.8.7 was released on Friday. A-Dock acts like the Dock in Mac OS X. It contains several additional unique features. Changes included: - Added a "Copy path to clipboard" command in the submenus.
- Some animations are smoother.
- Added support for custom poofs effect.
- Added a Rendezvous item for browsing local servers.
- A-Dock's resources are now 100% nib-based, so localization will be easier than ever.
- Three new defaults Themes : Roses, YellowFlowers and RedFlowers thanks to Raniero Cappitta.
- Dragging an item from a FTP server onto a folder in A-Dock didn't work. This has been fixed.
ParaDocks 2.0 is described as a reincarnation of the Classic application launcher found on OS 9, but is also integrated with the OS X Dock. Paradocks creates a floating window containing the icons of all currently running applications, and allows you to easily switch between applications by clicking the icons. Version 2.0 makes it possible to start/stop tracking any running applications.
GyazMail which I mentioned last week has been bumped to a new beta version 0.9.9.6. GyazMail is an e-mail client software for Mac OS X. GyazMail is developed from scratch to be a simple, easy-to-use e-mail client with many features, based on the Cocoa framework. Currently it is in early development stage. Changes include: The "Mark as read when"...in the Previewer options has been added in Display preference. The format of a reply template in Compose preference has been changed. The navigation toolbar items have been added in the main window and the message viewer. The problem that attachments are not forwarded has been fixed. Some processes about attachments have been improved.
Have a Press Release? Software or General News? Submit it here: Suggestions!
Polling Place by Michael Coyle  SCSI is dead. Long live SCSI. :-)
With the arrival of Firewire 800, there is a buss that may be able to challenge the throughput of ULTA-SCSI. Most Macs ship with a rather slow ATA internal drive. If you work with multitrack audio or edit digital video, then to keep things humming along you probably have SCSI drives attached to your computer. SCSI drives have their own CPU brains. They don't bog down the main CPU negotiating throughput, but they will cost you a few more pennies. SCSI drives are why "The Little Server That Could", the ResEx server, can run on a PowerMac 7300/200 and still push 10G of data each day. I have a hat, pen, mouse pad, polo shirt, and over a dozen t-shirts all of which are blazoned with some form of the Apple Logo. When I sat down and thought about it, I have a surprising number of articles promoting Apple. How about you? This week's Polling Place asks, "Do you own clothing emblazoned with an Apple Logo?"
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, (2) 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!
- Lucha Libre Icons by Alberto "Beto" Chavez are based on the masks popular Mexican Luchadores (wrestlers) wear while they fight.
- Need a little bit more mame and destroy from Alberto "Beto" Chavez? Check out this set of twenty eight WWF Icons featuring a number of the more popular wrestlers.
- Show your patriotic spirit by displaying this USA Flag by JKB on your monitor. This one comes in 1280x resolution.
- Wide Open Wide Open by Ed Allen of EA Design continues an amazing new series of 3-D desktop pictures on display here. This one comes in 1024x and 800x resolutions.
- Snow desktops by Shade is a cool looking set of four "easy on the eyes" wallpapers with two different themes.
- Think Aqua by David "Tagmors" Edlund is a simple yet nicely done "think different" desktop. If you look closely, you will notice that inside of the apple is water filled, an image he says was inspired by the modern technology. Comes in 1024x resolution.
- Scary Monsters by Matt N. Originates from David Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters and Super Creeps. This one comes in 1024x resolution.
- Loz Fresco by Ken is a Photoshop filtered image gleaned from the great video game "The Legend of Zelda" by Nintendo. This one is available in four different resolutions.
News From Around the Web: Live Pencil updates with a new animation, emoticons, hidden images and much much more to make you smile. Mando would like to inform you that http://www.mandolux.com issued a new a new collection of desktops titled 'Steevil' Hoeslyvista updates with two new additions to the Williamsburg Gallery and six fresh selections to the Flora Gallery. Go snag them! Timeoutofmind.com updates with three new desktops. www.xanthic.net releases the second set in an awesome series of icons titled "Ti Cons." Fresh Pixels at Colheres: Two new desktop pictures and a March Calendar. The EA Design campus updates with an completely new look. A re-fit of the design workshop (New website) EA Design also updates with 6 new 3d pieces and 6 new 2d pieces. New atmospheric pieces and landscapes and 2d thought pieces. A new section has now been added to the site called OS X GUI which focuses on Boot Panels for the time being but will cover a wide range of OS X goodies! So pop on over and take a look around the new pad! Burntcanvasdesign Studio updates with an entirely new style with 6 new 3d pieces at last. Simple and effective, focusing on atmosphere - these really are artworks. Flax Creations updates with six new icon sets. This is the beginning of the new Aqua Fusion Icon series, which ultimately includes over 500 individual icons. The complete set of Aqua Fusion Icons were originally designed for use with Linux KDE, and can be found @ KDE-Look.org . Keep your eyes open here for many more sets to follow for use with OS X. So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
Calendar & Appointment Scheduler for Mac OS X
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