Icon & Desktop News: by Dan
Icons - Desktops: Yeah! We've got another selection of great icons and desktops to satisfy your hunger 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!
We love promoting your work! So, grab those pixel pencils, and send us your best creations!
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 case your haven't done so already, don't forget to read our submission guidelines before you start!
- Look out hot shot Icon makers, there's a new guy on the scene that will knock your socks off! Smooth Metal Icons by Rokey is an awesome set of fifty two system level icons that you WILL want to have. Not only do these stand out in OSX, but they look pretty darn good in Classic too.
- Excellent! FauxS-XP(Onyx)Bonus by Paul Bowyer is the fourth part of an extensive collection of icons designed for The FauxS-X Project. This volume includes forty three more system level icons (Mime types) created with amazing skill and style.
- Nice! Formes by FR4NK uses some fancy Photoshop styles and transparency to create this pleasing desktop available in 1024x resolution.
- South Bronx Baby by SoulRocka Nasty Nene " is another part of his "environments" desktop series. Nene notes that many people bad mouth the Bronx and say how bad it is ( they have seen too many movies ). But it's so funny and ignorant that they never stop by, check out, or feel the vibes and energy of "The Boogie Down" ( South Bronx ). Comes in 1024x resolution.
- MS Desktop by Matt S. is an original series of 8 images created around the 8 elements of the i-ching (eastern mystic oracle). These come in 1280x resolution.
- Caught by Curtis Layton was created in Photoshop from a screen shot taken from the movie "Snatch". This one comes in 1024x resolution.
- Can you say cheesecake? 50's Girlies Desktops by Steve Chambers is a six pictures set of "pinup" desktops from the Fifties era. These are available in 1280x resolution.
- FFCC Desktops by Cruciarus is a four picture set featuring characters from Square Enix's new game, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and "alien icons". These come in 1024x resolution.
News From Around the Web:
Mandolux has issued a new Bubble desktop titled Shadow. It's been more than five months since the last Bubble and today, there is a new one and it's available in giant and normal desktop sizes.
The Iconfactory is happy to announce the release of this week’s freeware icon collection from icon artist Anthony Piraino – Take A Hike. This fun and colorful icon collection is a perfect companion for those who enjoy camping and hiking in the great outdoors.
MacMonkies invites you to this week's Wednesday Desktop Edition! Brightening up your computer's complexion are 6 New Desktops from grnluvbug, William D. Thompson, Pictures and Adicons, Bob Wiley, FR4NK, and Victor Emert. Also included is plenty of fun from all around the web. All this Wednesday at MacMonkies.com!
At last the mighty burntcanvasdesign is back on the rails and rolling full steam. Alan is back with 12 new pieces site tweaks, and after popular demand a fixed icon set. The new work is available in desktop format and is in the galleries for you to check out.
The Creative Box has updated with "Blackout 2", a dark desktop with yellow outlines which symbolize the light.
Adam Dickson has updated his website at http://home.tiscali.nl/picturesandadicons/ with a new icon set 'Aim Men' and two macabinet themes.
Panic and The Iconfactory have updated the popular icon storage and organization software for Mac OS X, Pixadex, to version 1.5.1. Pixadex is to icons, what Apple's iPhoto is to images. Pixadex lets users collect, organize, sort and search thousands of icons quickly and easily.
The Iconfactory is pleased to present yet another volume of Smoothness. The ninth collection in Corey Marion's popular Smoothicons series adds Adobe Creative Suite app icons plus several other frequently requested items. In honor of the renewed popularity of poker that seems to be sweeping the country, Corey has added a few fun items to help transform your desktop into Las Vegas, without all the neon. We invite you to swing by The Iconfactory today and grab these latest freeware icons from theShowroom.
Members of Adobe Exchange will almost certainly know Snapper McGauhey and his infamous Styles therein. After many hour slaving away in front of his computer Snapper has finally completed his large collection of Style CD's for Photoshop. Each
CD contains many styles for your graphic hunger. A broad variety of subjects are featured including wood, metal, carnival and nature styles and are all reasonably priced and up for sale at www.cafeshop.com/visualarts
So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
*The desktop and icon archive is updated three times a week. The work is actually done on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings for publishing the following day. If you want a news item posted the same day, try and get it to me before 6 pm on any one of those evenings. THANKS!
REALbasic: New, News, News, and Tons More of News by Seth Willits
 | Alright, here's a quick review of what's new over the last few weeks: REAL Software News REAL World 2004
REAL World has come and gone. REAL Software introduced a preview of a complete redesign of the REALbasic 6.0 IDE as well as a new product codenamed "Swordfish" dedicated to web development. Not much word on either has surfaced other than a few emails on the RB NUG. Targeted release date: "the end of the year." REALbasic Design Awards 2004
The design awards formerly known as the "Cubies" have been awarded to several products which I won't list here for brevity. Some interesting stuff. Check it out. REALbasic Items BizWize The Computer Manager - A game designed for school use, used to motivate students while covering a wide range of associated topics. It is often difficult to find a center piece program for classroom activities to revolve around but BizWiz fits the bill. Mac OS X and Windows. Znippetizer-X 1.6 - Znippetizer-X is a small tool, to help programmers, writers, scientists, lawyers and other people who need to quickly sort, organize and categorize things. Znippetizer-X has a small global floating window (with a Z in it), where you can drag any text. Any items dragged here are stored in a database, and grouped. Mac OS X. $15. IntelliScanner Pro - Designed exclusively for Mac OS X, the new plug-and-play IntelliScanner Pro USB Barcode Reader offers a complete solution for collection management, business inventory, and lending. $399. Requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later, USB 1.1 or 2.0. |
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Tools of the Trade by Scott Chitwood
iTunes Song Count Applescript
Here's an interesting forum thread at MacAddict where a reader has posted code that you can paste into Applescript to see your current song count in iTunes. After pasting the code into Applescript, compile it, then save it as an application. Bip, boom, bam! Pass your thanks to Miles for sharing his knowledge :)
Reader Help Desk: Looking For An Image
Aaron Little writes...
I hope you can help me. I’m trying to track down the rotating “wait” animation that’s part of the bootup process just below the boot image. It’s like the wait animation in safari tabs, only much bigger, and looks like a bunch of lines coming out from a center point, whose opacity varies in a circular pattern. I am stumped.
Please drop me a line if you know where this is located in the System files. The pic above is from Interface Builder, so it isn't something that can be brought into other apps via copy and paste.
Ninth Annual Apple Design Awards
The Apple Design Awards are presented annually at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, where the Mac technical community gathers to hone skills and learn best practices for delivering outstanding products with Apple technologies. For the first time ever, winners in all categories, except the Student category, get to choose their own prize; either the stunning 17-inch PowerBook G4 or the groundbreaking 64-bit Power Mac G5.
Check out all the details on Apple's WWDC2004 page.
ThinkTank Beta Group Reminder
April 1st, 2004 is the date that ThinkTank will begin the BetaGroup poll. BetaGroup will be a site devoted to developers looking for beta testers
 Have mercy Miss Percy! Another big round of new themes has hit the archive! |
 Gershwix 2.1 guiKit by mintar
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 1947 guiKit by Shiocop
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 Titanium 7.4 guiKit by John Tewksbury
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User Contributions by Scott Chitwood
It's easier than ever to contribute using our Browser Based Upload Page! If you contribute a file to any section of ResExcellence, you could win a PowerMax gift certificate worth FIFTY DOLLARS! It's easy and fun to win, look here to see how it's done!
Our PowerMax Gift Certificate Winner for February 2004 is Kevin Husted of Swizcore Studios for his Studio Pro v1.0.1 theme, congratulations Kevin!
Final Fantasy is the theme of the day in shuyinyamato's Boot Panel.
Hey looky here, something for Classic users! Dennis's Desktop sent us a DragonballZ MOSS.
CAC Software sent us a handy little app that displays the info for the current song in your iTunes playlist, aptly named iTunes Info.
The Online Mac SuperStore
Software Update by Scott Chitwood
Things are a bit on the quiet side so I'm going to sidetrack a little if you don't mind.
The Little Things
Everyone who uses Mac does so in a way to best suit their individual work habits and I'd guess that almost everyone has a little list of must have third party add-ons that they just couldn't do without. Those add-ons could be a number of different things; Applescripts, contextual menu items, special utilities or a full blown application. It doesn't matter if these items are well-known or not, if you find them useful that's all that matters. Here's a partial list of my goodies...
- FinderIconCM 1.2. Before we had Mac OS X Hide Itoh put out some of the best icons in the Mac Community. FinderIconCM is a contextual menu item that allows you to copy and paste icons without having to do a File > Get Info command. Very handy for quick changes. It can also store up to 80 of your favorite icons for on the fly pasting.
- QuickImageCM 2.2. This is another one of Hide Itoh's contextual menu items. QuickImage can generate an icon based on the image content of a file - very cool for adding custom icons to downloaded web images, photos, old Photoshop files and Illustrator documents too!
- Pacifist 1.6.2. While I don't launch this one on a regular basis, when I do need to open a .pkg and extract a file Pacifist handles it quick and easy.
- Déjà Vu 2.6. Backing up files is almost too easy with Déjà Vu. I've got six folders that get backed up to a second internal disk on an overnight schedule every day; Developer, Library, System, Applications, Users and my ResExcellence back-up folder.
Next Time I'll Do Some Research First
I finally broke down and bought iLife '04 on Sunday so I could start toying around with GarageBand. Since I don't have a DVD drive I loaded up our 800 mhz QuickSilver G4 into the car, drove to the mall and lugged it on in to the Apple Store so the guy at the genius bar could do the install for me. I had heard software installs could be done at Apple retail locations for an extra ten bucks so I was a little surprised that the actual cost was thirty dollars - but I'll take the hit there, should have picked up the phone and called first. The other thing I didn't realize was there isn't an audio in port on the QuickSilver model I have, so I'll have to grab a Griffin iMic to make that happen.
Buying Your Next Mac, Software Title or Accessory Online
I was able to budget some of the family tax return this year to upgrade my copies Photoshop, Illustrator and GoLive to CS editions. So where to buy from? That was an easy choice, PowerMax! Our advertisers here at ResExcellence do a great amount for us by supporting us with their ad banner revenues so giving back to them makes me feel good. I do sincerely hope that you give them a chance when the time comes for your next purchase. You might even find something cool like this set of QuickSilver G4 Speaker Grille Covers.
Send us your press releases!
Polling Place by Scott Chitwood
The question was; Do you use a font management app?
I'm kind of torn in two on this one. At home, I'm fine with FontBook, it lauches quick enough on our 800 mhz QuickSilver G4 - currently have 369 fonts loaded. In a large graphic design or pre-press environment I would have to go with something more powerful that allows for greater control of what fonts are "live" at any given time. Suitcase is the third party app used by most of our readers, although many who commented in forum bemoaned the loss of of Adobe's ATM Deluxe.
I did manage to overlook at least one other font management app in our poll selections, Alsoft's MasterJuggler, a product that won "Best of Show" in July 2003 NY MacWorld. FontReserve was bought by Extensis (makers of Suitcase) last year, so future support for it is questionable at best.
With less than 25% of our readers using a third party app to manage their fonts it would be interesting to know how many people who visit ResEx are in the graphic design/pre-press industry.
The question is; Do you work in graphic design or pre-press?
Our poll question this week was suggested by Tim Zulweski of CricketBowDesign, thanks Tim!
Do you have an idea for poll question that you'd like to see us ask? Send it my way!
Icon & Desktop News: by Dan
Icons - Desktops: Yeah! We've got another selection of great icons and desktops to satisfy your hunger 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!
We love promoting your work! So, grab those pixel pencils, and send us your best creations!
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 case your haven't done so already, don't forget to read our submission guidelines before you start!
- Incredible!!! FauxS-XP(Onyx)Vol.3 by Paul Bowyer is the third part of an extensive collection of icons designed for The FauxS-X Project. This volume includes twenty seven more system level icons (Mime types) created with amazing skill and style. Keep your eyes open for more volumes in the coming weeks.
- How about a jazzy little ensemble of Instrument Icons by Two Nerds and a Jock to liven up your computing environment.
- Moody by Gavin Robb lives up to it's name. This excellent piece of art and poetry comes in 1280x resolution.
- Very Cool! Alien Apple Desktops by FR4NK struts some fancy Photoshop footwork with nice textures and styles. This one comes in 1024x resolution and in two variations.
- Fire by Matt S. is part of an series of 8 original images created around the 8 elements of the i-ching (eastern mystic oracle). This one comes in 1280x resolution.
- Nice! Designed for his 15' Powerbook, Gray Matter by Jimmy Faivre comes in 1280x resolution.
- The folks over at Digikitten keep on sending us loads of luscious desktops to share with ResExcellence readers. Housing some of the most fantastic digital artists on the globe, you are invited to come by and join them, play some Photoshop Tennis or many of the other digital pixel games they have. A Gray World by Bella is the next great desktop from this ongoing display, and is available in 1600x resolution.
- Curtis Layton presents an intricate composition he created from scratch titled Paper. This one comes in 1024x resolution.
News From Around the Web:
The Creative Box has updated with "Blackout 2", a dark desktop with yellow outlines which symbolize the light.
Adam Dickson has updated his website at http://home.tiscali.nl/picturesandadicons/ with a new icon set 'Aim Men' and two macabinet themes.
Panic and The Iconfactory have updated the popular icon storage and organization software for Mac OS X, Pixadex, to version 1.5.1. Pixadex is to icons, what Apple's iPhoto is to images. Pixadex lets users collect, organize, sort and search thousands of icons quickly and easily.
Mandolux has issued a new giant dual monitor desktop titled PANCHO (as in Pancho Villa) and it is a vector-based giant dual monitor desktop in grunge style. Even though the previews for this desktop may look like a crappy wallpaper, you have to download it to really see how wonderful this new addition is. This is a must-download!
MacMonkies marks the end of a drab work week with 3 New Icon Sets for a ton o' GUI fun! New Iconist Black Widow introduces this week's Friday Icon Edition, followed by works from Miloszwl.com and Steve Smith. The best mix of new GOO, News, and Fun can be found this Friday at MacMonkies.com!
The Iconfactory is pleased to present yet another volume of Smoothness. The ninth collection in Corey Marion's popular Smoothicons series adds Adobe Creative Suite app icons plus several other frequently requested items. In honor of the renewed popularity of poker that seems to be sweeping the country, Corey has added a few fun items to help transform your desktop into Las Vegas, without all the neon. We invite you to swing by The Iconfactory today and grab these latest freeware icons from theShowroom.
Members of Adobe Exchange will almost certainly know Snapper McGauhey and his infamous Styles therein. After many hour slaving away in front of his computer Snapper has finally completed his large collection of Style CD's for Photoshop. Each
CD contains many styles for your graphic hunger. A broad variety of subjects are featured including wood, metal, carnival and nature styles and are all reasonably priced and up for sale at www.cafeshop.com/visualarts
So what's up WWW? Icons? Desktop Pictures? News? Inform us! We'll post it!
*The desktop and icon archive is updated three times a week. The work is actually done on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings for publishing the following day. If you want a news item posted the same day, try and get it to me before 6 pm on any one of those evenings. THANKS!
Blowout Deals!
