Friday’s snapshots are ready for prime time:

• Less is more, at least to Nai no Kami, submitter of this screenshot touting the custom “Less is More” desktop picture. Audion, tweaked with the Cutting Edge face, is dishing out tunes in the upper left. An icon from Perfect Yosemite’s Mondrian series is nestled in the upper right-hand corner. This is simplicity, period.
  
  
• This submission from Nick Mason touts Digital Blasphemy’s “Early Frost” desktop picture. Audion is tickling the eardrums in the lower right.
  
  
• A custom desktop picture featuring Laura Prepon and Alicia Witt debuts in this OS X Beta snapshot from Dave Oliver. SoundJam, equipped with a custom port of MacAmp’s Freece LCD skin, is serving up music in the upper left-hand corner. Fizzilla, the OS X version of the Mozilla browser, is running at top center. Several icons by Mark Simmons and others from Xicons are on display.
  
  
• Chase Turner contributed this snapshot showcasing a “Millennium” desktop picture in conjunction with Shurey’s All Blacks K-Scheme. A very interesting shot.

Captivated with the thought of sending your own snapshot? Read our submission guidelines and then hop to it!

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Tools of the Trade by Michael Coyle

I know from previous polls that many ResEx readers also maintain their own web servers. Ekim Software just released Socket Sifter 1.8 - Tool to communicate, listen or connect, through TCP on any port. In the hands of a cracker, it can be used to scan your machine looking for ports to exploit, but it's also a tool a webmaster can use to make sure the machine is secure.

I did a little sniffing of the ResEx server and discovered I had a few unknown ports open. With the help of the LinuxPPC User List, I learned how to close them, making the server more secure.

The image on the right shows which ports remain open: ftp, telnet, mail, and web - as few as is absolutely necessary

So if you run your own server, give Socket Sifter a try. You may be surprised at what you find. Hopefully before someone else.

User Contributed Splash Screens: by Michael Coyle

• We usually see his name in the ResEx Forum, but today bdog makes it onto the main page with his replacement Finder cursors.
  
  
• Tired of the old Stuffit Expander splash? Try this new one from Frank.
  
  
• Today we post the last of Mike Finch's three Interarchy Interfaces. This blue one is titled "Phusion".
  
  
• Scott Chitwood from Rampant Mac sent us a great looking MOSS. Stop by his site to see more of his creations.
  
  
• A very nice Ring Throbber for Explorer was created by Derk Uik.
  
  
  

Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly

Icon & Desktop News by Dan

Icons - Desktops: You're gonna love these 2 new Icon Sets, both Pixelpalooza contest entries, an Airport CSM icon makeover, 5 excellent Desktops and a cool Startup Movie. All on display for today's update.

• The students of O'Farrell Middle School get an early start on the road to becoming Mac Addicts with their "Creative Faces Super Pack" Icons. These 50 icons were created by children 11-13 pixel by pixel!
  
  
• Johannes Sacht's "FreshFaces Icons" are dedicated to people who stare into their computer far to long. See if recognize yourself as I do in this 10 character set.
  
  
• For those of you lucky enough to afford an Airport Base Station, Dan Semaya has reworked the Airport CSM icons to give them a touch more class. ResEdit required.
  
  
• "Apple Pill by Nicholas Spade, was made on a G3 Blue and White after reading a great Photoshop article on making Mac OSX buttons in the current issue of Mac Design Magazine. Comes in 1024x resolution.
  
  
• Garrett Walbridge boldly goes where he's not gone before with his second desktop composition "Disco". This one comes in 800x-1024x-1280x resolutions.
  
  
• David King sends this ironic snapshot of a scene that really happened in front of his house recently. Looks like PC On Call was having a Window's kinda day. PC_breakdown comes in a jumbo 1377x resolution, just in case you forgot why you don't own a PC.
  
  
• Raool, the creator of Ra's Page submits a stylish set of desktops for your consumption. The first of these is titled "Pixels", and comes in 1152x resolution with two variations included.
  
  
• Josh Bishop has more up his very creative sleeves than just icons. "Green Creation" is the first of a number of his desktops to be added to the Archives. This one comes in 1152x resolution.
  
  
• Steve Sobek wasn't satisfied with using the same old Startup Screens, so he created this nifty Startup Movie complete with sound to amuse you while you wait.
  

News From Around the Web:

Announcing the anticipated release of Iconverge 2 : poetry in pixels. Nearly 100 unique icons make up this amazing collaboration! Iconverge has assembled a most talented group of icon designers to converge on a single theme.

Check out http://www.zdnet.co.jp/download/mac/. It's a Japanese ZedNet ftp site that's loaded with unusual programs.

Magdign a most unique and complex site, updates with new icons and desktops.

Flax Creations updates with five new fractal based desktops.

GirlieMac updates with some new stuff. AquaFresh icons and YummieSaver screen saver.

Layne Karkruff of BlueSkyHeart has a new desktop picture posted titled "Hybrid".

Colheres posts "cor de rosa", a new icon set by Luisa.

Tray's Trove has been updated with Eight new desktops posted (1-14-01).

So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!

Complete Cable Management For The Home & Office.

1/16/01

Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly

Satisfy your snapshot cravings with Tuesday’s round:

• This snapshot from an anonymous contributor showcases an old IIsi. The memory frugal iCab browser is running in the background along with the equally conservative Musashi email client: all in 9 MB of RAM. Those were the days…
  
  
• Arena Design’s “iMac Ruby” desktop picture and Butt O’Sigh’s Goinsane K-Scheme debut in this gorgeous contribution from Pablo Mingo. Audion, equipped with the Emerald face, is tickling the eardrums in the lower right.
  
  
• This OS X Beta snapshot from Kevin Redington sports RAILhead Design’s “Fire” desktop picture. Windows 98, emulated with RealPC, is displaying schematics in ElectronicWorkbench. Audion is serving up music in the upper left-hand corner.
  
  
• Jeffrey Ryan contributes this OS X Beta screenshot filled to the hilt with translucency. Two semitransparent terminal windows are overlapping Internet Explorer. SoundJam, tweaked with the AquaX skin is dishing out tunes in the upper left-hand corner.

Captivated with the thought of sending your own snapshot? Read our submission guidelines and then hop to it!

Joe Szedula updated John Murden's BBEdit script for fixing up HTML documents and converting characters like & to the html equivalent & (Download new script)

I took your script and make the "tell" portion into a handler. I then set it up so the user could either double click on the script to launch it and it will prompt for a file just like yours did or drop folders or files on the script and it will clean each text file. If the folders have folders those will be cleaned as well.

This script will compromise security on your computer, but it will also make your life easier. You decide. If you are using Apple's Keychain manager mainly to remember passwords on a system where security is not a concern, then this simple script by Jonathan Woolson may be for you. Placed in the Startup Folder, it unlocks the Keychain at boot.

tell application "Keychain Scripting"
unlock keychain "your keychain" with password "your password"
quit
end tell

Replace "your keychain" and "your password" with the same info from Keychain Access control panel. Save as Classic Applet into your Startup Items folder. The Keychain will no longer pester you for a password, ever. CAUTION: This will, of course, give your password away to anyone to anyone who gets a hold of the script. Placing the script in your Startup Items folder will leave your Mac physically compromised to anyone who can get access to it.

Click here to learn more about Toast 6 Titanium

(Cletus' plane was delayed returning from Macworld. Moving back to the top to fill in is Michael)

Polling Place by Michael

Over one third of ResEx readers take their photos digitally. That's a high percentage, but I would not have been surprised if the number reached 50%. Here at the Coyle House, we never pull out the 35mm film camera, preferring the Epson digital. For many months, we used both cameras, but with the high quality of prints, we leave the old camera in the drawer. The one remaining weak-link in my digital photo studio is the fact that the Epson 740 doesn't use the new long term inks. Hopefully, I can remedy that situation right after I'm done saving for my Titanium. :)

ResEx Desktop Editor Dan Flax and I were recently discussing the older style Desktop Patterns (ppat resources). One of us believes that everyone is using desktops. The other believes we may be surprised at the number of pattern users. We agreed to let the Polling Place settle our friendly wager. The week, the Polling Place asks, "Is your desktop image a pattern or a picture?"

Macworld 2001 by Michael

Titanium. My Mac is always a Powerbook. My first was a Powerbook 140 and I currently have a 2000 Pismo. This latest addition was the buzz of the show. You have probably read the specs by now, so I'll only add a few comments. While it's a beautiful machine, something a little speedier than a 500 Mhz G4 would have been nice. And my only other gripe is that there isn't a curve to be found in the design. Compare the Titanium to the Vaio, and Apple's portable looks derivative. Before you start slamming my mailbox, let me be clear that I'm not comparing OS, CPU, or screen size, all I'm saying is this: When I'm commuting on the train with my Pismo on my lap, it's clear from four rows away I have a Powerbook. Something in which I take great pride. With a Titanium on my lap, the guy in row seven thinks I bought a new Vaio. Of course, I'm still saving to buy one...

MacToday magazine announced at the show that they changed their name to Mac Design. The print version has a great tutorial on creating Aqua Buttons. It's not online yet, but there are two others on "Removing Red Eye" and "Creating Temporary Brushes in Photoshop 6.0".

REAL Software was running demos of the latest REALbasic 3 beta. They had Macs loaded with VirtualPC showing the cross compiling abilities of their software. I wish I had the time to dive into REALbasic. I think it's an appropriate topic for ResExcellence. Please contact me if you would like to write for ResExcellence regarding REALbasic. Maybe we can put something together!

For you Applescript gurus, Late Night Software was at the show. Script Debugger 2.0 is their super editor, a replacement for Apple's Script Editor.

While strolling past the OmniGroup booth (makers of Omniweb, OmniPDF, and more for MacOS X), I met ResEx contributor Rick Roe from Icons.cx. Like all ResEx readers and contributors, Rick is a nice guy, so stop by his site and view his cool icons, desktops, and goodies.

Hey! Who's that in front of Apple's Corporate headquarters in Cupertino? Why it's Cletus™, Dan, and Michael. Thanks to an Apple employee who is a long time reader, we were given an opportunity to tour the campus (authorized by a superior so it was all on the up-and-up). It would be impolite to discuss what we saw, but it was most impressive and reaffirmed my belief that Apple works hard to make the best computers. Oh, BTW, personal note to our tour guide. Don't forget I left half my meatball sandwich in your trunk!

(Thanks to Jeremy for staying behind and holding down the fort. Fortunately, we didn't need him to wire us any bail.)

Tools of the Trade

Well that didn't take long. Less than one week after its release, we have our first iTunes Skin thanks to Joshua Ochs. While it's a subtle change, Joshua shows that by editing the PICT resources, you can customize the look of the application.

You won't be able to change the shape of the window or move buttons, but most of the widgets and buttons are ResEdit resources that you con copy into your favorite imagining program for modifications. And thanks to an unknown Apple developer, the PICT resources are named for easy identification.

Powerbook slow to wake from Sleep? While at the show, I commented on how fast MacOS X wakes from sleep. While MacOS 9.1 is faster than its predecessors, it can still take up to 30 seconds for it to wake. The solution? Turn off Appletalk. Doing so dropped my wake-from-sleep time down to 6 seconds. Still not as fast as the 2 seconds for MacOS X, but much better than 30 seconds!

User Contributed Splash Screens:

• Do you like metal? Cold brushed aluminum? Mike Finch created another great looking Interarchy Interface that's right up your alley.
  
  
• ResEx regular Alan Janes blewup the Starship Voyager to prove his point in this Internet Exploder splashscreen.
  
  
• We have another cool Toast skin. This one is from Nicolas Cardot.
  
  
• Do you use iView? Andrew Todd make a nice looking splash replacement for you.
  
  
• Jeffrey Ryan created a splash screen for AIM that's looks great. I like it because it doesn't have that little yellow logo running logo-man! :)
  
  
  

Snapshots by Jeremy Hoesly

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