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Custom Exposé Glows for Download

2009-11-06T13:00:00Z

In our previous article: Daily Trick 47. Tweak Exposé Glow, we have brought forward the option to change your Exposé glowing effect. After few minutes playing around with the image sprite, I have come up with these various sprites.

In this article, I'd like to share the sprite with you. You can refer to the previous daily trick for the step by step guide on how to change the effect.

Inspired by Artless Processes - Customize Snow Leopard Exposé Glow.

Screenshots and download link provided after the jump.

Transparent Blue Glow

Transparent Black Glow

Transparent White Glow

Outline Hover Effect

Transparent White Rectangle Glow

Download Link

All of the images for creating effects shown above can be downloaded from this link: Sprites.ZIP (10.9KB).

If you have created some nice effects and want to share with the rest of UsingMac readers, you can email me the attached sprite: wendy[at]usingmac[dot]com. You can also drop few words on provided comment box.

Mac Application Updaters

2009-11-05T14:00:00Z

Sometimes, it's difficult to search and update to the latest Mac applications. This may hinder some people in using their Macs. In order to reduce the hassle searching for required applications, we can use application updaters, which will do the information gathering for us.

Some application updaters can be seen after the jump.

Bodega

Bodega is an application updater for Mac that collects information on available Mac applications and presents them nicely with a sleek and nice user interface.

Within the Bodega, Applications are categorized. Hence, you can easily browse through Applications and directly download them to your Mac.

Homepage | Download Link ↓ | License: Freeware

AppFresh

Having installed various applications to your Mac, it's always good to keep them up to date with latest version. This can be easily done by using AppFresh.

AppFresh helps you check for latest version and keep all of your applications, widgets, preference panes, and plugins up to date.

Homepage | Download Link ↓ | License: Freeware

App Update

Similar to AppFresh, App Update also tracks for latest version of applications installed on our Mac. However, App Update presents the information with a simple widget interface.

Homepage | Download Link ↓ | Kind: Dashboard Widget

Any Suggestion?

Perhaps, I've missed out one of your favorite application updaters. You can use the provided comment box to share with us. We will really appreciate it.

Daily Trick 47. Tweak Exposé Glow

2009-11-04T15:00:00Z

For Snow Leopard Users

If you have noticed, whenever you press F9 key to activate Exposé, you will see a rather different Exposé from Mac OS X Leopard. And upon mouse over on one of the item, you can see blue glowing effect.

Today, we are going to bring you to tweak on the glow color to your liking.

Step 1. Find the Image Sprites

Most of the time, the items that can be seen (let it buttons, icons, or other items) are located in the System folder of our Mac. The glowing effect of our Exposé is also using the image sprite stored in the System folder.

Here is the quick step to the directory containing the image sprites:

Open Finder and hit keystrokes Cmd-Shift-G
Type in the directory address: /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources
Then, hit enter to quickly jump to that directory (Resources folder)

Step 2. Move Them to Other Place

As you are now inside the System folder, the permission setting will stop you from making any direct changes to the files inside.

The workaround for this is to copy these two items to other place outside System folder, modify them, and move them back.

Here are the detailed steps:

Inside the folder, search for two image files, namely: expose-window-selection-big.png and expose-window-selection-small.png
Copy these two items somewhere else. And delete the original copy from this Resources folder
Now open these two images with your favorite image editor (e.g. Preview, Pixelmator, or Photoshop), change the color, and then save the changes
Move back these two images into your the same directory as before (Resources folder)

Step 3. Restart Exposé to the Effect

Finally to see the changes, you need to open Terminal and execute command line:

killall Dock

The above command line will restart the Dock for you as well as restart Exposé. After restarting the Exposé, you can now see the change in glow color after the modification.

The key to quickly do this tweak is to open several Finder windows. This will save your time from going through the whole process to search for Resources folder.

And, it's always recommended to make a backup for these two image files. Enjoy the tweaking!

New Design. The White UsingMac

2009-11-04T09:25:00Z

After several months of black-theme UsingMac, we've decided to transform into white-theme design. Perhaps, some of you might feel surprised by this sudden change, but we hope that you feel comfortable with our new design.

Why Do We Choose White?

Having browsed through most of the websites that contain guide or information, rarely can we see them using white-on-black layout. That's when we think of changing into white-on-black layout.

What Are The Changes We Made?

If you have visited our site before, you would notice that the look-and-feel of several places have been tweaked, for example: mini highlights on the top now is incorporated with simple round button, you can browse through those highlights by clicking on the button.

Besides that change, we have also made changes to

Logo → Now with simple text instead of image, for faster loading
Search Bar → Located at right most of our navigation bar
Sidebar → More appealing hover effect is added for better navigation
Comment Box → It has been enlarged and now accept line break

And the biggest change would be the change from Black to White.

What Do You Think?

We believe that we are still far from perfect. It's really appreciated if you can give us any constructive feedback or comment on this new design. Not only for giving feedback, you can also try out our new comment box.

Hope you enjoy this new experience with UsingMac.

Fave Mac App 3. Path Finder 5

2009-10-23T14:00:00Z

Path Finder is an award-winning file browser and management application for Mac OS X. This is achieved by adding on more useful features to the familiar user interface of Finder.

There are several features that I like to use while using Path Finder:

Multiple Tabs Browsing
Sometimes we might need to open multiple Finder window to drag-drop or browse around directories. Using Path Finder, we can combine all these opened windows into just a single window with multiple tabs.
Temporary Stack
Although the drag-drop technique has become my habit in boosting my productivity in handling files. Path Finder enhances this experience by adding temporary stack where we can have a temporary place for drag-drop process.
Dual Pane File Browsing
Often, we need to view different folders side by side. And the good news is, Path Finder provides the dual pane browsing ability for us. This feature of Path Finder is just too good to be missed.
Quick Preview
By default, if we want to show information of certain item on Finder, we will reveal the Get Info pane by hitting keystrokes Cmd-Opt-I.
However in Path Finder, we can just toggle on Preview Mode and we can have all important information the item has.
Recent Applications
Path Finder can also help us keeping track of up to 50 recent applications.

Even though it's quite pricey for an application, I still recommend using Path Finder. Path Finder really helps a lot in enhancing your Mac experience. For your information, there is 30-day trial provided for this application.

Screenshots are provided after the jump.

Homepage | Download Link: Leopard ↓ - Snow Leopard ↓ | License: $39.95

Screenshots

To get better understanding of Path Finder's interface, you can take a look at several snapshots of it that we've taken. You can click on thumbnail to see larger view.

Poll. Your Favorite Mac Desktop

2009-10-22T14:00:00Z

This article is intended to give exposure to other contestants that have submitted their works. The screenshots of their submissions are listed below. And you can cast vote on any that you like (you can choose more than one) at the end of this article.

Let's vote for your favorite Mac Desktop and support the one that you like!
Hint. You can use keystrokes Cmd-[↓] to quickly scroll down to end of page.

1. Radio Station

2. iMac on the Dock

3. Apple Color Spectrum

4. Garden

5. Black, White, and Red

6. Audio Technology

7. Daily Task

8. Outside World

9. Invisible Dock

10. Blue Moon

11. Blue Fractal

12. Clouds and Rain

13. Wooden Mac

14. Three Programs

15. Funnel OS X

16. Desktop Workspace

17. Login Screen

18. Custom Icons

19. Wall-E

20. Menubar Calendar

21. Andrew's Mac

22. Background and Dock

23. Mac Desktop

24. Avalanche

25. Advance Laboratory

26. Apple

27. iTunes

28. Clock Only

29. Halo 3

30. Blue Lightstream

31. Leather Dock

32. Spyda's Screenshot

33. DMC

34. Facebook Notifications

35. Fire Leopard

36. Linux Screenshot

37. List View

38. Color Bubble

39. Gay Bar

40. Stay Green

41. Mac Spaces

42. Desktop Calendar

43. Mach Desktop (Red)

Tweak Screencapture Behavior

2009-10-19T14:30:00Z

Normally, we will use keystrokes Cmd-Shift-3 or Cmd-Shift-4 to take snapshot with Mac default screencapture utility. And new in Snow Leopard, we will end up having a PNG image file automatically stored inside our Desktop folder with the name Screen shot … .

Those behaviors mentioned above are the default ones. We can easily change those with simple command lines.

Change Screencapture Filename
defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "New Name"
killall SystemUIServer You can change the value "New Name" to the name of your liking. And if you put the name as empty string (i.e. ""), you will get your screencapture named with the format: [current date] at [time], e.g. "2009-10-20 at AM 03.02.57".
Change Screencapture Location
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "New Location"
killall SystemUIServer Hint. You can drag-drop the folder to Terminal pane to get the folder location.
As seen in both command lines, the second line killall SystemUIServer is needed and used to restart the screencapture application. Only after restarting, changes will take effect.
Change Screencapture File Format
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type [new format]
killall SystemUIServer These file formats are available: PNG, PDF, JPG, JP2, GIF, TIF, BMP, PICT, and TGA.
Note. Replace the [new format] with one of those available formats, e.g. JPG.
Disable Window Shadow
When we used key combination [Cmd-Shift-4] + [Space], we will be able to capture a snapshot of window along with the shadow. The following command lines are used to disable the shadow. defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
killall SystemUIServer You can change -bool true to -bool false to enable back the shadow.
Capture from Terminal Command
One of these command lines can be used to capture from terminal: screencapture -c
screencapture -i ~/Desktop/snapshot.png
screencapture -io ~/Desktop/screenshot.png
screencapture -M ~/Desktop/screenshot.png
screencapture -P ~/Desktop/screenshot.png
screencapture -t png ~/Desktop/screenshot.png
screencapture -T 5 ~/Desktop/screenshot.png
screencapture -x ~/Desktop/screenshot.png The usages of each command line can be checked using: man screencapture

Personally, I love to play around with Terminal tweaks. If you have any other interesting tweaks, feel free to share with us; we provided a comment box for that. Have a good time screencapture-ing!

Daily Trick 46. Fast Exposé Shortcut

2009-10-17T14:00:00Z

Whenever you want to open the Exposé view of an application, usually mac users will advice you on using Hot Corner. However, we have a new trick here for you.

Open 'Application Switcher' with Cmd-Tab
Press Tabs until the app you want to perform Exposé to is selected
Hit the arrow key [↓] or [↑] and the Exposé for that app will appear

It's fast, quick, and totally free of mouse actions.
But unfortunately, this trick only works in Snow Leopard.

The Winners of UsingMac Contest 1

2009-10-15T14:00:00Z

After long consideration and development time to put up all submissions into our new gallery, finally we can announce to our readers the winners of this contest.

1st Place. Biology

Artist: Myles O'Neill

I am astounded by the modifications and extra touches that he gives to his Mac. If not for the Dock he left there untouched, I can barely figure out that this is a screenshot of a Mac.

Big applause to Myles for winning licenses of Pixelmator, Layers, and Concentrate.

2nd Place. Custom Dock

Artist: Cameron Osborn

I like the way the icons are placed; they're not placed in the normal Dock. Instead, the icons are placed in a custom dock, like the title implies. What a creative modification.

And what I like the most is the simplicity and minimalistic atmosphere from the Desktop. Thumbs up to Cameron. Congrats Cameron! You've won 2 apps: Layers and Concentrate.

3rd Place. Fan Stack

Artist: Prakhar M.

From a single glance, perhaps you would be attracted to the modified stack icons.

However if you look more thoroughly, you would find out that he also modified the LED lights of active applications into three lights (default is one). This is the creative part of his desktop setup.

And with this, he won a copy of Concentrate.

Other Submissions

You can also see other 80 wonderful screenshots of Mac Desktop and photos of Mac Setup on our new gallery at gallery.usingmac.com under the category Mac Fanboy Collection.

We've also put up 200+ gorgeous wallpapers on the gallery.

We applied a queuing system to the gallery where upon clicking on the thumbnail, the lightbox view will not appear immediately. Instead, the image will be put on the process queue. You can view the image after the load is finished.

Have a nice time browsing!

Fave Mac App 2. Adium

2009-10-07T15:00:00Z

Adium is an application that lets you chat with your friends across many chat networks easily at the same time. With Adium, you can connect to Yahoo!, MSN, GTalk, and many others with just one single chat client.

Adding to its value, Adium also provides us with interface to Twitter and Facebook. And if you can't past a single moment without chit-chat with friends, Adium suits you most.

Homepage | Download Link ↓ | License Type: Freeware

Daily Trick 45. Quick Manage Mail

2009-10-06T11:00:00Z

Throughout the whole time of using Mac, often we will spend time on checking and managing our mail. I personally like the default mail application for Mac: Mail.app.

In this trick, I am going to share with you some keyboard shortcuts that come in handy when we're going to manage our mailboxes, quick navigate mailbox, and handle message.

Managing Mailboxes

You will use these shortcuts often. You should quickly burn these into your brain.

Cmd-Delete → Delete selected mailbox item(s)
Cmd-Shift-L → Mark selected items as "Flagged"
Cmd-Shift-J → Mark selected items as "Junk"
Cmd-Shift-Y → Add sender(s) of selected items to Address Book
Cmd-Shift-K → Select all related messages

Navigating Mailboxes

And you can always use keyboard shortcuts Cmd-1 ~ Cmd-8 for quick navigation to other mailboxes.

Handling Message

In the case of handling message, these keyboard shorcuts would be very useful:

Cmd-R → Reply
Cmd-Shift-R → Reply All
Cmd-Shift-F → Forward
Cmd-Shift-E → Redirect
Cmd-Shift-B → Bounce

Hope these shortcuts will help you in increasing your productivity.

Daily Trick 44. Quick Exponential Math (10.6)

2009-10-05T09:00:00Z

I believe we all know that we can use Spotlight to do quick calculation, where we can do quick addition, substraction, and other simple mathematical operations right from within of the Spotlight window.

In Leopard, you can just type in pow(a,b) to find the value of a^b (e.g. 3^4 = 81). However, you can do it even faster with Snow Leopard by just typing a^b.

Note that you can always use key combination Cmd-Space to call up Spotlight box.

Daily Trick 43. Batch Resize Images (10.6)

2009-10-01T11:00:00Z

Although the steps needed to do batch resize images on Snow Leopard are more or less similar to those batch resize steps for Mac OS X Leopard, there is a simple workaround needed to perform batch open and resize images on Snow Leopard.

Batch Open Images: Workaround

The problem is, in Snow Leopard you will fail to open many selected images. So I came with this workaround to perform batch open images:

Select and Open One Image with Preview
In the Preview application, choose Menubar: View → Sidebar → Show Sidebar
or keystrokes Cmd-Shift-D
From Finder, Highlight the rest of the images and Drag-Drop them to that sidebar
Here you've successfully opened all images without fail

Batch Resize Images

Next to be done is to batch resize all of them.

Highlight all thumbnails shown on the sidebar
And then choose Menubar: Tools → Adjust Size…
Fill in the common dimension (size) in pop-up pane
After that, don't forget to save the changes by going to Menubar: File → Save All
or keystrokes Cmd-Opt-S

By ding this a few times, you will be able to perform batch resize without referring to this step-by-step guide.

Daily Trick 42. Quick Terminal Command

2009-09-29T11:00:00Z

If you're fans of single-liner for UNIX command, you can always use this quick Terminal command line execution trick to save the steps for executing Terminal command.

Here are the steps:

Ctrl-Click on Terminal icon sitting on your Dock
From the pop-up menu, choose New Command…
Type the command line you want to execute on the appearing window pane
And click on Run button for command line execution

With this trick, I am sure you can start to tweak around with simple command line, e.g. command line for New List View.

UsingMac Contest 1. Deadline Reminder

2009-09-29T08:00:00Z

Just to remind you all that the end of this month will be the deadline for UsingMac Contest. If you haven't participated in the contest, make sure to submit the screenshot of What's on Your Mac Screen and stand a chance to win fabulous prizes.