Changing the Leopard Dock

If you don’t like the color or glossy look of the Apple Leopard dock you can change it. Basically all you have to do is to replace the various “scruve-x.png” files (x is l, m, sm, or xl) in the Dock package’s /Contents/Resources folder (please back up the original files just in case something goes ill). After that open up Terminal and type “killall Dock” at the shell prompt ($) to restart the dock. You can use the current images as a base or try these. Here is a Black glossy one as well Also if you are a fan of the Tiger Triangles try this tip.

Little Boo Peep, Some Sheeps and a Wolf- Happy Halloween!

Today, I did something new. I dressed up for Halloween! Yes I dressed up and drove to work in what is supposed to be a sheep costume. See our Dept. dress up for Halloween every two years and they talked me into it this year. I just could not resist the thought of being a sheep esp. since my boss was going to be little Bo Peep. I didn’t get much sleep last night coz I was waking up bursting into fits of laughter thinking about my Boss walking around town as Little Bo Peep. Anyway, once I got to work it was fun, we were all dressed up and walked around to the rest of the Depts. handing out candy. We even hung out with some kids for a little bit and went to lunch afterwards. It was fun and now I understand why they get so excited about this… Two of the lades sowed all the costumes and everything.

Leopard & Transparent Menu Bars

It would seem that there is some sort of odd thing going on with the menu bars in Leopard. Some users are reporting that their menu bar is not as transparent as was promised. That was one of the weirdest things that I noticed after upgrading my menu bar did not seem to change at all. I was a bit concerned that something went wrong but I noticed some transparency in the pull-down menu and a quick look at the Apple support told me that perhaps my graphics card is to blame, although it seem that it is happening on some of the newer systems with newer graphics cards. So is this a bug or just a hardware incompatibility thing? I find it funny coz the transparent menu bar was one of the sticky points of Leopard for a lot of people. I was actually looking forward to it though and feel like I was robbed in some way by not having it. Oh well, guess I can consider myself one of the luck ones and move on to the other exciting features. My initial reaction to Leopard is thank goodness it installed without a hitch (transparent menu or no), I find the new icons kinda cheesy and miss my other ones except that I have to wait for Candy Bar 3 to update those. Time machine is nice and all but it seems to take way too long to backup your system on my PPC Mini it took over 5 hours to do a 20GB backup, not cool this will require me to leave the computer on overnight. Also its a bit harder to tell when a program is open the little blue lights on the transparent dock is just not doing it for me.

Leopard Upgrade

My PPC Mac Mini will be two years old tomorrow. Yes that’s right two years. To celebrate, I decided to go get my hot hands on a copy of Leopard and give it an update. First off I spent some time cleaning off some junk off my system and made sure that my external hard drive had enough space on there to use with Time Machine. My entire iTunes Library is on said external hard drive. After that I cleaned out a bit more junk and burned some files that has just been sitting there to DVD. Next I made sure that App Enhancer was uninstalled off my system since I remember that I was using Clear Docks and Shape Shifter after that I proceeded to backup my files just incase things didn’t go so well. I fired up Super Duper and let it run for a while, it was taking way too long and I was getting impatient so I quit the process and inserted the Leopard DVD. I clicked install and just followed the wizards to upgrade.

I didn’t time it carefully but it took a little over an hour to install on my 1.4 GHz PPC Mac Mini with 1GB RAM. Good thing I had a few things to do around the house otherwise it would have been most annoying to wait that long. BTW the last minute was the longest minute I’ve ever seen. I thought Windows lied to you about minutes… Anyway, all seems to be well and although I haven’t played with it yet I really like what they did with one of the programs that I use the most Preview. Its not a highly talked about feature but I can now crop and resize my photos in previews. The new 3-D doc is interesting, and the balloons are easier to read. I have to go relax now will write more later… think I’ll go check out what they have done to the DVD player app… I’m itching to see LOTR again.

Software

Playin with Pixels

One in a while “my inner child takes over” : ) and I just have to doodle. I usually use pen and ink but was playing with Pixelmator today and decided to test how easy it was to do this in Photoshop vs. Pixelmator. It took me a while to figure out which tools to use in Photoshop and I ended up creating some gosh awful thing that I decided not to bother with at all. It took me a few minutes to do what I was trying to do with Photoshop with Pixelmator (Pixelmator had an upgrade so I decided to install that first). Now I am no Photoshop junkie I’ve always found it a bit cumbersome to use and have shied away from it but I found Pixelmator easy and fun to use… There are tons of features and I don’t have time now to explore them all but overall I was impress with the speed and ease of use. Wish I could get Leopard today to test how fast it loads on there but I’m one of those who live in a place that won’t have it until after today. We don’t have a real Apple store around here bummer.

Out of Focus

I came home today without my car. First off I gotta complain just a bit. On my birthday a couple weekends ago I took my car in to get one of the wheels replaced. Next thing I know I get a call from the tire place telling me they have to replace all four tires. It cost over $4 big ones and I wasn’t happy about it but I figured fine winter is coming so better to be safe than sorry. After lamenting the fact that I got 4 new tires for my birthday I let it go and moved on. Today I took my car in for an inspection and the guy on the phone was like Hi sorry but we can’t pass your car for inspection because this is broken and that need fixing and blaaaah blaaaaaah (at least that’s what I heard after he told me how much the fixing was going to cost). I’m like wow another $6 big ones you say? He’s like I’m sorry do you want to go ahead and fix this? I’m rolling my eyes and thinking bad thoughts and huffin and puffin and wondering if I really have a choice… not like I have a spare car hanging around or anything. Anyway, I’m sorta not having a great October. I am thankful that I haven’t gotten into any accidents but with all the money I’m doling out of late it sure does feel like it. Guess I can’t complain, all new tires, wiper blades, springs and a bunch of other new stuff. Woop-te-dooo!

Can you Say Busy

I’ve been so busy the last few weeks I haven’t had a chance to throw anything up here. Should be asleep right now but there I am… Let’s see I had a birthday over the weekend. Had the tires on my car replaced, found out what it was like to eat your desert first before your meal (awful don’t do it), revised a website, did a lot of lunches with friends, saw a movie (loved it) and ran around town doing this and that. Oh yeah and there was work in my spare time as well. All in all its been an interesting last couple of weeks. Glad that’s over my life is getting back to normal and I can return those phone calls that I’ve been putting off on account of not much time to talk. Its odd that I usually have a phone on me all the time now but no time to talk on it coz I’m either driving or working or have other stuff in my hands.

Asbestos Removal

I came in to work earlier today to find yellow construction tape and a nice little sign that said danger on the door I usually use to enter the office. After wondering what the heck was going on I remembered that the boiler downstairs was being replaced. I found the sign interesting actually, coz all this time we’ve been walking by said boiler room which houses our heating and cooling unit and all this time it had asbestos in there. Nice he sign even said cancer and lung disease hazard. So if I get any of those diseases I guess I know who to blame huh!
Other than that it was a pretty ordinary day.