Get Extra for your OS

Upgrading RAM on MacBook

2008-09-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

I knew when I purchased my MacBook that the 512MB of RAM which it came with wouldn’t suffice for my needs. I held off until I could justify upgrading the RAM as I have the luxury of owning two Macs. I use my iMac for anything intensive and my MacBook as a second machine. As my iMac is home alone in Cork and I’m up in the “Big Smoke” of exotic Dublin, the time had finally come to upgrade.

And thus began a little bit of research into the matter of upgrading RAM on a MacBook..
The first thing you need to do is to find out what type of RAM comes installed on your MacBook. You can check this by clicking on the Apple Icon and by going to ‘About This Mac’. The second row will indicate the type of RAM you have. In my case I have 2GB 667 HMz DDR2 SDRAM (previously I had 512MB).

Once you know what you need to buy you need to find a reseller. Steer well clear of Apple when buying RAM. A quick search for RAM at Applestore.ie indicates that 2GB of RAM would cost me €290!
Crucial are by far the cheapest supplier of RAM. I purchased the same 2GB of RAM which Apple had priced at €290 for €70. That’s more than a 400% difference in price.

The Crucial website is extermely user friendly when selecting your product. They have a step by step ’shop assistant’ which guides you to the correct product before checking out. Be sure to avoid any confusion by double checking your processor type when selecting your model as there are Intel Core Duo and Intel Core 2 Duo types available.

RAM has never been cheaper so go for as much RAM as you can afford.

I ordered my 2GBs of RAM on a Tuesday evening from Crucial’s American based store and I had the package in my hands on a Friday morning in Dublin! I was extremely impressed with their speedy delivery!
The actual RAM installation was an absolute breeze. The only thing you should be made aware of are Apple’s use of tiny screws. You will need a screwdriver such as a Phillips size 00 screwdriver to complete the job.

There is an excellent guide on how to install RAM on a MacBook on apples’ site.
When placing the RAM within the slot be sure to apply firm pressure in order to get it into the bracket provided. If you place your fingers at either end of the inserted RAM and if you notice that you can slightly nudge the RAM then you haven’t applied enough pressure.
I have a single GB of RAM on my iMac and no doubt I’ll be upgrading that in the not too distant future as well.

Release "Recent Application" feature on Mac

2008-09-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

This tweak is very useful, i cant imagine why apple hasn't integrated it itself (there aren't lots of things apple hasn't thought about in its OS unlike windows where third party is necessary and no way to do without)

this tweak adds a recently used application stack to the dock and allows to see as a stack the recent applications you lunched.

in order to do that open terminal and use this command (don't use sudo!):

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

killall Dock

after the stack is in the dock you can change it to show one of:

"Recent Applications"

"Recent Documents"

"Recent Server" (no icons for some reason)

"Favorite volumes"

"Favorite Items"

also you can call the command several times and add as many stacks as you want so you can have "Recent Documents" and "Recent Applications" as etc.

a

Show "Date and Time" in menu bar

2008-09-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

The menu bar clock always annoyed me since even windows clock supplied more data, and the maximum i got from the menu bar clock beside the time was day.

well i found out that there is a way to make the date year and the whole shebang appear, this is how to do it:

1. right click the menu bar clock and choose "Open Date & Time ..."

2. click on the "Open International ..." button

3. select "Formats" tab

4. in the Dates section press "Customize ..." button, in the Show drop down select Medium

5. set your preferred format by dragging the appropriate "Time Elements" and clicking on them to set more details

6. then select all time elements at the text field by Option+A and copy by Option+C (or drag to select and right click empty space and copy)

7. press "OK" and then "Customize ..." at the Times section

8. from the "Show" drop down select "Full" (remove unwanted elements such as seconds or GMT...)

9. left to the time elements paste by Option+V (or right click paste)

10. press space to separate time and date and click OK

thats it you now have date in the menu bar clock.

Quick Silver

2008-09-03T14:50:00.001-07:00

I am not sure how i stumblled upon Quick Silver, but it should be the first App to be installed on every new mac.

Quick Silver is a utility that extend the Finder capabilities, it is a combination of a search engine (like SpotLight and GoogleDesktop) with right click abilities, and then some (Open, Delete, Rename, Mail to...).

the idea is simple (like all great things are), to allow a user from the keyboard to perform (almost) all actions on a resource (Application, File, Folder, Network share, URL, etc...)

there are many advanced abilities, several User Interface, and endless list of plugins,

Quick Silver is available for mac only, (windows users have replica like Launchy, and SkyLine) QS is available for download from these locations:

BlackTree - Home Site

SoftPedia - Mirror 1

MacUpdate - Mirror 2 (love macupdate)

VersionTracker - Mirror 3 (track versions. what a great idea)

hope you will love QS as much as i do.

Adding "New File" in Context Menu

2008-09-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Another feature that is absent (i don't really need it) from mac but exist in windows is the right-click "New file_type..." for instnce "New Text File",

well come to think of it thats about it! i never used the other file types, pictures? there are too many types to put there and i always used photoshop/msPaint etc in order to create one and even if i did create one i then go right away and open the application that edit them so what is the use? the same goes to word, power point and excel what ever.

so for the sake of argument lets assume we want the new txt file ability, so there is another add on utility that adds it self to the context menu More sub menu and allow create new document types from templates and it allows you to add templates and types of your own, and edit the one that exists, its really good and quite simple (as most good things are) it only copy the template to the place you clicked.

it is called "Nufile" it can be downloaded from here.

the installation is simple (next next next, or as mac version: continue, continue, continue)

and the result looks like this:

Add "Cut" Feature

2008-09-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

the most absent feature in mac is the right click->cut (on files and folders),

i wonder who is the jerk in apple that is keeping us from getting this feature,

PathFinder is a good replacement for Finder and it has cut feature,

but it lacks several features that the new Finder in leopard has, for instance Cover-Flow, quick look etc.

1. open terminal and write this line:

defaults write com.apple.finder AllowCutForItems 1

2. restart Finder, in terminal write:

killall Finder

or

right click dock finder icon with option button pressed (Alt/WinKey in hackintosh) and choose "relaunch"

to undo this simply execute the same lines only this time replace the value 1 with 0 like this:

defaults write com.apple.finder AllowCutForItems 0

killall Finder

but when you try it you find its just another "move to trash" menu item, well that didn't help,

that was when i decided to download the add on to context menu FileCutter

it

gives you the option to cut paste, move to... etc. but the annoying

part is that it is a sub menu inside a sub menu, in leopard all add ons

to context menu is added to the More sub Menu, and file cutter is a sub

menu in its own, so in order to cut you go 3 levels deep - yuc! i wish

there was a way to add cut directly to the context menu next to copy

feature without any mess

List of Download Mac File, Direct-Link Blog

2008-09-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

This are the blog/sites that containt much of Mac files, that you can download freely.

MacFiles - this site has Software,Ebooks,Tutorials,Fonts,Games,Plugins

FullDls - full downloads torrents links, this link is directly to mac sorted by seeders

Fink Project - The Fink project bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X.

Mecho DDL - Direct downloads apps games (mac and windows)

Lemon Share - great site with tons of mac apps/games/utils all free all cracked

Mecho Forum - has lots of mag apps/games direct links

No Mercy Mac - another great rapidshare for mac utilities, books, and software

Demonoid Torrents - free torrents site has mac section

Hacker-VIP - hacked premium Mac applications

Rapid Mac - another blogspot that share mac rapidshare links (games, apps, ebooks...)

Mac4Share - Links to popular macintosh software. Software for mac on rapidshare

Phaze DDL - best direct link site on the web got mac section too

Mac 10.5 System Source Code now Available

2008-09-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

Apple has published on her site the open source code part of its OS (code name Darwin).

The code can be found here, and it includes bootloader code, frameworks, bundles, and many kext.

Mac shortcut on keyboard button

2008-09-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

Every now and then i read of a keyboard trick or shortcut that i didn't know exist,

i have decided to open this post/thread to contain all my findings in this area,

it will be periodically updated instead of opening small posts regarding such shortcuts.

Show in Finder

Command+Click on an icon,shortcut or dock icon and it will open the Finder and locate the original location for that icon.

Make Alias

select an icon (folder, application, document whatever), and just click:

Command+L

iPhoto/iTunes choose library

Option+Click on the icon and it will display a "Choose Library..." dialog, in case you would like to split your libraries and save disk/partition space.

Switch between tabs in safari

Command+Shift+LeftArrow or Command+Shift+RightArrow

Open new tab in safari

Command+T

Open new window in safari

Command+N

Go To in Finder

Command+Shift+G

it will open a text-field dialog allowing any path to be clicked, and you can use tab to autocomplete just like in terminal, and if you won't press tab and just wait for a second or two it will suggest the correct word as you type.

SpotLight search from keyboard

Ctrl+Space

"Show icons as" in Finder from keyboard

Command+1 up to Command+4

Delete without drag to trash

select the files/folders you want to delete and press:

Command+Backspace

"Empty trash" from keyboard (when Finder in focus)

Command+Shift+Backspace

Open Special folders

when finder is the focused application:

Command+Shift+H Home

Command+Shift+D Desktop

Command+Shift+K Network

Command+Shift+U Utilities

Command+Shift+C Computer

Open FrontRow

Command+Esc

Help Menu

Command+Shift+? Help

Block select in Terminal

Option+Click+Drag it will select block in the terminal

Back and Forward

Command+[ Back

Command+] Forward

it will work in Safari and Finder (not sure where else)

Menu with keyboard

Ctrl+F2

Dock with keyboard

Ctrl+F3

Rearange MenuBar

Command+Click+Drag

you can rearrange and also remove by dragging out of the menubar

Eject all removable media

in order to eject all removable media (CD, DVD, etc.) Simply:

Press and Hold F12

Hide current window and focus the next

if you hold down Option and click on a window the current window will hide,

if you reach to a point where all windows are hidden (or one is still visible),

then you can move between windows (even by clicking on the dock icon) and only one window will be visible at any given moment.

Option+Click on next window

Ctrl+Alt+Del on Mac

the combination is Command+Option+Esc

in hackintosh its: WinKey+Alt+Esc

it will display the open applications and you can choose to quite or force quit

Minimize Window

Command+M

Hidden menu commands

some menu will change their strings and keyboard shortcuts,

or even display hidden menu item if you hold down the Command or Option key while the menu display.

for instance right click Finder Dock icon and press Option (if already displayed will show "Hide Others" instead of "Hide") if pressed during right click will show hidden "Relaunch" menu item.

another example is to press the apple menu and hold down the Option key, it will change "About this mac" to "System Profiler" the shutdown,restart and logout to immediately do the action without a dialog and time wait period.

another example: in Finder hold down Option key and the Quick look icon will turn to slideShow icon.

QuickLook Full Screen

Command+Option+Y

Auto Hide the Dock

Command+Option+D

Search in dictionary (for Cocoa Application)

Zoom In: Command+Option++

Zoom Out: Command+Option+-

the complete list of OS X keyboard shortcuts found here.

How-To Install and Boot from new kernel

2008-09-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

This post will display how to install new kernel, and it will also display how to boot from alternative kernel, plus some trouble shooting advices.

1. what is a kernel?

Kernel is the core and center of the OS, it interface the hardware and it is the nearest code to hardware there is, it gives the OS and the applications services on the computer (such as CPU, memory access, threading, networking, filesystem etc.) for further reading you can refer to my dev blog post: Kernel Basics.

the reasons mostly comes from bug fixed, features added to hackintosh and not available with the version you are using, or just to know you are up-to-date (any new post in insanelymac, netkas or on the net will relate to your version), if you are not confidant in your abilities to update the kernel, then avoid it until you must, it can crash your system (although can be easily reversed)

EFI supported kernel are available at netkas blog links from the irc channel.
you can also download the latest kernel and its relevant kext from the open source darwin project, compile it, and patch it using netkas EFI patch using this procedure(for more advanced users - not recommended).

once downloaded (probably from netks blog) backup your current kernel (/mach_kernel), copy it to the root file system and rename it to "mach_kernel", fix permissions, and your done.

now for the step by step procedure:

a. download the binary mach_kernel file into a folder (for instance desktop)
b. copy the file from downloaded folder (e.g. desktop) to the root folder

open terminal
write: sudo -s
enter your password when prompt and press enter
cp ~/Desktop/mach_kernel_9.2 /

c. backup your current kernel by renaming it

mv /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_9.0

d. rename the downloaded kernel to the mach_kernel file name

mv /mach_kernel_9.2 /mach_kernel

e. fix permissions and reboot

chown 0:0 /mach_kernel
chmod 755 /mach_kernel

5. how to boot from alternate kernel?

if you do not trust the downloaded kernel, you can ask darwin boot loader to load from a different kernel file, just by stating the full path of the kernel as the first parameter in the boot prompt.

for instance if the downloaded kernel name is: mach_kernel_9.2 then you copy it to the root of the files system using finder or terminal, (from command line: cp mach_kernel_9.2 /).

next, in the boot prompt you write: /mach_kernel_9.2 -v

i added the -v so you can see where other parameters goes.

6. what if something goes wrong?

you can easily reverse the procedure, first you can use the boot from alternate kernel, and booting into the backed up kernel (/mach_kernel_9.0 as first parameter to darwin boot loader).

second you can boot from the install DVD into single user mode, mount the file system and rename the new kernel, copy the backed up kernel as /mach_kernel file name and reboot (i will add a post regarding single user boot, mount, and other unix shell commands needed for the procedure).

Tweaking Mac Theme

2008-09-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

Is there a possibility to tweak Mac theme? (why would you like to?)

well, according to many articles there is no way to do it since OS X has released.

up to Mac OS 9 mac OS was a UI tweakers paradise, but since OS X was released all tweaking abilities, API, and related utilities was discarded, not supported, hidden using private access etc. (example for such article), later when Leopard arrived even OS X applications that some how managed to work (mostly by accessing unsupported and private APIs) stopped working.

OS X Tiger 10.4.x had several applications like: WindowShade X, ShapeShifter, FruitMenu, ofcource no application is worth without a good theme/visual style/icons... collections.

here are some sites to support these applications:

Max Themes

Interface Lift

Win Customize (although mostly for windows still icon is icon, wallpaper is wallpaper)

what about Leopard?

since Leopard is built out of applications such as "Dock.app", "Finder.app"..., and the applications are folders and can be browsed using "Show Package Contents", you will find in almost any application (or kext or bundle or action or ...) a folder named "Resources", it will contain images, plist XML files, Strings, etc., color, font, size definitions, sounds, icons etc. will reside here as a resource.

if you change many of these OS characteristics you end up with a different look and feel or theme of leopard.

for instance you can check the content of resources folder found at Finder like this:

goto folder "/System/Library/CoreServices"

right click file: "Finder.app"

select "Show Package Contents"

from the new finder window go in to folder "Contents"

enter folder "Resources"

you can find and replace the file "burnableFolder.icns" with other icon

from that point on your icon will display differently.

but since we don't like to work manually, we need some theme tweaking apps/utils, luckily that is exactly what i am going to cover.

CandyBar

first application is CandyBar the most popular application that knows how to change icons, dock icons, system icons, browse icontainer, etc.

you open up a window that display icons that your current system has and icons that you can replace to. you can add icons of your own, downloaded, you can at any time restore the default icon of each changed icon, it knows to relaunch the dock/finder application when needed (if you allow it), there is a trial version, and it is really easy to use.

you can change the look of your dock for instance as displayed in this post.

here is my resulting Dock:

here are several example of my tweaked icons using CandyBar:

DockColor

next is DockColor, a very very straight forward application, it doesn't get simpler then this.

it is a color picker with a image displaying the Dock surface, you choose the Dock color you want and press apply, thats it (beside of allowing by entering your password).

take a look at the result:

Palette

another good application to change the dock colors is "Palette" it has the ability to control the dock colors with more details such as color opacity, surface image opacity, if the dock frontline is colored with the same color etc.

Palette can also change gradually the translucency of the menu bar (10.5 and 10.5.1 only), use round corners for the menu bar, and change stack icons. the only annoying thing is that the trial version leave text on the dock (i would prefer time period limit) so it is unusable for this purposes.

here are several dock examples:

LeopardDocks

"LeopardDocks" started as a site that display how to tweak the dock and then uploaded many examples and designs, then they came out with LeopardDocks application (was written by "William Spong") that allows you to change the dock look and feel, by downloading a zip file from the "LeopardDocks site" and plug them into the application and change your dock.

one more thing you can do with LeopardDocks is to add a separator between running applications and permanent dock icons, well actually it is an icon that is invisible so you can move it around and even drag it out side of the dock in order to remove it from the dock.

Stacks Drawers

if we are talking about the dock then you need to take a look at the "Add Drawer to Stacks" post that display how to add drawers to the stacks. also i stumbled on this post that is very detailed on the graphical side of creating the drawers.

Displaperture

this application is very weird, its probably for Mac veterans, way back when apple display screen had round corners, not sure if on purpose or outcome of old technology, well if you are one of the old mac users and miss your screen round corners, or just think it's funky then download it from here, run it, choose the corners you would like to be round, scroll the slider to the amount of roundness it needs to be, and press quit. next time you run the application the round corners appears and the application window will not. if you want to setup or quit, just double click the application icon again and the window appears.

what about some content?

well there are a lot of sites that supply icons, wallpapers, stacks icon and application pimping sets. here are some examples:

WebShots

Inner Mind Media

Apple Icons+ScreenSavers

McDo Design

Louie Mantia

GUI Styles

Free Wallpapers

Icons.cx

Dockulicious

Pixel Girl Icons

set of icons

UsingMac

we can also add some command line defaults tweaks:

remove Finder Buttons background

write in terminal:

defaults write "Apple Global Domain" CUIAllowDebugPrefs 1

defaults write "Apple Global Domain" CUIDisableArtFile 1

killall Finder

instead of this:

you should see this:

if you decide to do that you can manually change colors of Cocoa applications in mac (like Finder, Safari, etc.)

you need to go to the folder:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AquaUI.bundle/Contents/Resources

and you can edit and change colors of PNG files especially with the word Material in the files name, the previous written terminal commands cause the mac to work using the vector graphics engine that draws its resources from this folder, the material files help mac to decide how a certain color looks if light is dropped in front of an object and what gradient color to use in each corner and angle, also other files used for layers and transparency (alpha) etc.

look at this example called Milk-Like look and feel created by another user on this post:

also look at this example a more darker look and feel (notice the close resize minimize buttons):

Note: this will hit your performance badly.

Change Finder Background

open Finder Window

right click an empty area

choose "Show View Options"

from the lower part (Background) choose Color (or image)

click on the white color box and choose color

press "Use as Defaults"

close the popup

Note: this will work only in Icon View!

Change Selection Color

from the apple menu goto "System Preferences"

enter "Appearance" tab

change "Highlight Color" to whatever you want

Example of two results i got:

Make menubar Translucent

2008-09-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

this is the way to enable or disable the translucency of your menu bar (10.5.2):

1. from the apple menu choose "System Preferences..."

2. click the "Desktop & Screen Saver" icon

3. check or uncheck the lower check box "Translucent Menu Bar"

Change Logon Screen with JPG images

2008-09-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

Do you ever whant to change your Login screen? now the time to appreciated it.

The login screen background is found here:

/System/Library/CoreServices

and can be replaced using any jpg image you find on the web, do this:

1. open terminal cd to that folder ("cd /System/Library/CoreServices")

2. write: "sudo mv DefaultDesktop.jpg DefaultDesktop.orig.jpg"

3. enter your password and press enter

4. copy some jpg you downloaded from the internet to that folder using Finder

5. rename the image using terminal to the name: "DefaultDesktop.jpg"

6. chmod 644 DefaultDesktop.jpg

7. chown 0:0 DefaultDesktop.jpg

8. logout or reboot

Top 15 Hints for Apple Mac Leopard

2008-09-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

It’s been almost a month since Leopard was officially released, and in that month we’ve had some time to play with the OS and get to know it. Here are the Top 15 Leopard Hints we’ve come across this past month (in no particular order).

Collect all windows in one Space When you are in the birds-eye view of Spaces (F8 by default) press the ‘C’ button to collect all open windows into a single space with a nice effect. And if you hold down shift when you hit the ‘C’ key, it will happen in slow motion.

Zoom PDFs and Images in Quick Look If you are browsing PDFs or images in Quick look mode, there is a fast and easy way to zoom in. Simply option-click the window and it will zoom in, and shift-option click and it will zoom out. Alternatively, you can hit Cmd = to zoom in, or Cmd - to zoom out.
Enable the Path Bar in the Finder Go to the view menu in the Finder and click View Path Bar to see the hierarchy of where your file is. You can also control-click or right-click on any of the folders in the path bar, and perform actions on them.
Quickly send a window to a Space Leopard supports “bumping” your windows to other Spaces. Simply drag your window to the edge of your screen, and wait a second. The window will fly over to the adjacent space.
Address Book Effects Now Address Book has the ability to add effects much like Photobooth. Simply click the edit button for one of your contacts, click the pictures, and then click the little “swirl” style button. This allows you to apply many different effects to your photos.
Quickly access System Profiler When diagnosing someone’s mac, you want to get to System Profiler as fast as you can. A little shortcut is to hold down the “option” key on the keyboard while pressing the Apple in the menu bar. The ‘About This Mac’ will turn to ‘System Profiler...”.
Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock You can add a recent applications or documents stack to your dock very easily. Just pop open terminal and enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add ‘{ “tile-data” = { “list-type” = 1; }; “tile-type” = “recents-tile”; }’

Then simply do a KillAll Dock command to reset your Dock, and your new stack will be there. Right-click it to set what you want it to have recent-things of.
Auto Remove Printer after Print One of my pet peeves with Leopard is that the Printer will not automatically quit after it prints. Well, all you have to do is right click on the printer icon in the dock, and hit the “Auto-Quit” option. This will automatically quit the printer after a print job is complete.
Disable Spotlight from the menu bar If you want to get rid of Spotlight from the menu bar, simply open terminal and run:

sudo chmod 0 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

To re-enable it you just have to run:

sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

Permanently Delete files from Time Machine Backups While navigating Time Machine, go to the present view, and click the little gear icon in the toolbar of the Finder while you have the file you want to delete selected. Simply click the option to Delete all Time Machine backups of this file, and the file will be gone forever.
Quickly enable or disable sharing for a folder If you want to quickly share a particular folder with someone on your local network, click the folder, and hit Cmd-I to bring up the “Get Info” window. From there, simply checkmark the “Share Folder” button, and others will be able to access it over the network.
Unlearn words from the Dictionary Words that you have added to the system dictionary such as “Yurechko” can be unlearned easily in Leopard. All you have to do is right-click on the word that you want to unlearn, and click the unlearn button. This only works in some applications.
Use Expanded print Dialog by default Leopard comes with a very handy expanded Print View which allows you to see previews of what you are printing (very handy for printing websites), however, you always have to click the little arrow button to view it. It you want this expanded view to be the default, simply open Terminal and run:

defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

If you want to set it for all users, run:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

Switch to lowercase labels in the Finder’s sidebar Many people don’t like the capital letters in the Finder sidebar. In order to change these to lowercase, navigate to

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/

Duplicate the LocalizableCore.strings file for backup, and then edit lines 50 to 53 to make them lowercase.

“SD5” = “Devices”; “SD6” = “Shared”; “SD7” = “Search for”; “SD8” = “Places”;

Save the file and the open the Terminal and type: ‘killall Finder’
See detailed Airport information Leopard’s wifi capabilities have been dramatically improved. Now, it is even easier to get more information about the access point you are connected to. By option-clicking on the wifi menu bar item, you can see the MAC address, channel, signal strength (RSSI), and even the transmit rate. very handy for mobile users.

Download Mac Leo4All ver: 3 Final 10.5.2

2008-09-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

What is Leo4All?

Leo4All contains the Leopard operating system and is modified by Eddie11c. This universal release can run on both AMD/Intel systems, and is currently available only for systems that can support EFI. A non-EFI release is in preparation.

The Download Link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/117570392/Leo4allv3final.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117574535/Leo4allv3final.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117578740/Leo4allv3final.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117583069/Leo4allv3final.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117587071/Leo4allv3final.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117590922/Leo4allv3final.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117594071/Leo4allv3final.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117597200/Leo4allv3final.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117600258/Leo4allv3final.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117603485/Leo4allv3final.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117606577/Leo4allv3final.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117609803/Leo4allv3final.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117612840/Leo4allv3final.part13.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117615382/Leo4allv3final.part14.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117618000/Leo4allv3final.part15.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117620524/Leo4allv3final.part16.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117623372/Leo4allv3final.part17.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117626037/Leo4allv3final.part18.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117628262/Leo4allv3final.part19.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117630411/Leo4allv3final.part20.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117632517/Leo4allv3final.part21.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117634589/Leo4allv3final.part22.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117636757/Leo4allv3final.part23.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117638788/Leo4allv3final.part24.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117640648/Leo4allv3final.part25.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117642442/Leo4allv3final.part26.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117644235/Leo4allv3final.part27.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117646124/Leo4allv3final.part28.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117647944/Leo4allv3final.part29.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117649682/Leo4allv3final.part30.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117651400/Leo4allv3final.part31.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117653004/Leo4allv3final.part32.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117654573/Leo4allv3final.part33.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117656129/Leo4allv3final.part34.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117657828/Leo4allv3final.part35.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/117565909/Leo4allv3final.part36.rar

Show the forbidden menu in Safari

2008-09-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

How many of you noticed this feature? not sure why it is left, it looks like a developer debug menu left behind, but it is cool and very good for developers that wants to try html/JavaScript fragments, and debug/performance tune their web application. And sure, this is not Forbidden menu!

from the "Safari" menu click on "Preferences" then goto tab "Advanced" and check the lower checkbox named "Show Develop menu in menu bar".

next you see the "Develop" menu and its options at the menu bar.

with this menu you can open a snippet editor that allows you to key in html/JS snippets and see the behavior immediately.

another thing you can do is control the way that safari identifies to the web site, a lot of clients supported.

more you can disable/enable cache, images, styles, JavaScript, etc.

another option this menu provide is and error console that provide a log for errors that occurre during page display or ajax call.

next we have the web inspector and network monitor that allows to inspect what a page is downloading (images, JS, CSS, etc.) and how much time is spent on each component.

Automate Darmin's Boot Flag

2008-09-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

Are you tired from pressing F8, and writing -v cpus=1 -x -f etc? now you can rest, lets tell leopard to remember the setup we want.

login as "root" to leopard, from finder goto: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration then open for edit using your favorite editor the file: com.apple.Boot.plist

Note: you can also do this from your login using terminal like this:

sudo -s
write your password and press enter
cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
nano com.apple.Boot.plist

the boot plist file is an XML file, so next you find this section:

Kernel Flags

and in the String tag enter your flags as if you were entering them in the darwin boot prompt it should look something like this:

Kernel Flags

-v cpus=1

save the changes and reboot. In command lime you may also use vi instead of nano, in case you don't know how to operate them here are links to a dummy guide:

Beginner's Guide To The VI Editor

UBUNTU Nano HowTo

RapidoStart

2008-09-02T00:18:00.000-07:00

RapidoStart is an application launcher like QuickSilver covered in this post, only QS is more then shortcuts available faster and that is exactly what RapidoStart is.

you can donwload it from app4Mac, its free, eye candy, makes accessing applications, documents, folders, its tiger and leopard ready, after installation and execution a small icon hides in the corner of your screen.

you click on it in order to open RapidoStart, like dashboard it lands on your screen and gives you a square translucent box. (like in grid stack)

this box can be filled with alias (shortcut) to your favorites applications, documents, etc. by drag and drop icons to it.

there is also a search bar that can narrow your search and find the exact icon you want to launch, and of course a click on the icon will lunch the application/document/folder,

if there are many icons to fit one screen there is the same hidden icon at the edge of the screen allowing you to paginate/scroll the icons (this feature is really absent at stacks, beside plain old list stack),

you can control the pagination animation (3D Cube, Flip 3D etc.), you can decide if the screen contains 8,16,32 icons at a time, the animation it uses to appear and disappear, and you can categories your icons and browse them accordingly, all from a menu available at the lower part of the screen.

all in all RapidoStart is fast, neat, useful, sexy, do exactly what it was designed for, nothing more and nothing less,

there are some features needed and their absents is felt, like history, or recently opened, smart addition (if i add the application folder don't add it as a folder but add all the icons and later if another application has been installed add it automatically).

when i click outside of the application/grid/box it does vanish, much like dashboard (unless you choose enable always on top of other applications), or when you click on th X button,

on the down side you switch between categories using scroll rather then a drop down so if you have a lot of categories its disappointing, however it remembers the last category you browsed and it will display it when you call it to appear again,

when you click a letter it will not immediately narrow your selection or jump focus to the first icon starting with that letter, you need to click the search bar for that,

you cannot drag an icon out of the window in order to delete it like in the dock, but there is an X appearing if you hover on an icon and if you drag it, a trash will appear (but the trash cannot restore)

the most annoying part was that when you configure it to display 8 icons on a page, you can drag and move the screen as to where it will appear, but if you configure it to display 16, 32 and above it will freeze in the center position.

and for the last down side, there is a risky feature, that allows you to open/execute all the icons appearing in a category (not a page, category!), for some reason that feature appears as the first item of the menu, so you can imagine how angry i was to click it when i browsed applications (more then 100 apps) to discover there is no "Are you sure" dialog.

beside these few points its a great application its free,

its the addition you needed to leopard (unless you use QuickSilver),

I give it a 4 out of 5.

Server Administration Tool for Apple Mac

2008-09-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of Leopard Server 10.5.2 then you should know that there is such a release of leopard, a server side, note that there is no distribution yet for OSX86, but you can patch it using the old methods of brazilmac, also you can install some OSX86 release and then open the server dmg and install it (so i heard, never tried it).

but if it is the tools and apps that found on the server (and don't come with client leopard) you are looking for, then you can download the leopard server full version (about 6.5G) and extract the tools using pacifist and run them on your leopard.

apps included in the server release includes:

iCal Server

wiki

Podcast producer

Spotlight server

iChat Server

Mail services

Web Hosting

Directory

etc.

if you are looking for the cool blue aurora desktop image, it can be found here.

also if you would like to control your server from a remote leopard client then download the remote server admin tools, you can get it for free (apple give it away), it can be downloaded from version tracker at this link or directly from apple at this link.

after download has completed mount the dmg, and install the package it will install these tools:

Server Monitor

Server Assistance

Server Admin

Server Preferences

System Image Utility

Workgroup Manager

Xgrid Admin

here are the screenshots:

Update 10.5.2 make PS/2 doesn't work [Bug Fix]

2008-09-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

This is another thing that didn't work for me after updating to 10.5.2 on several computers, and several installations including laptop trackpad,

the solution is fairly easy, you need to restore your ApplePS2Controller and AppleACPIPlatform kext (Kernel Extensions).

so the first thing you need to have is the 10.5.1 kext here are links (in case you didn't back it up):
AppleACPIPlatform.kext
ApplePS2Controller.kext

the way to restore them is from the command line:

open terminal and write these commands:
sudo -s (press enter and write your password and press enter again)
mv /System/Library/Extensions/ApplePS2Controller.kext /System/Library/Extensions/ApplePS2Controller.kext.10.5.2
mv /Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext /Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext.10.5.2
these commands will backup your current 10.5.2 kext, just in case
next copy the 10.5.1 kext and set their premissions like this:
cp -R /ExtensionsBackup/ApplePS2Controller.kext /System/Library/Extensions
chmod -R 755 /Extensions/ApplePS2Controller.kext
chown -R 0:0 /Extensions/ApplePS2Controller.kext
cp -R /ExtensionsBackup/AppleACPIPlatform.kext /System/Library/Extensions
chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext
chown -R 0:0 /System/Library/Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext
Reboot

that's it, if you are suffering from any problem please post comments on this post.

X Lossless Decoder 20080816

2008-09-01T07:19:00.000-07:00

X Lossless Decoder 20080816 is an excellent free application for OS X, that decodes, converts and plays a very large number of lossless audio files. Supported audio files can also be split into tracks with cue sheets when decoding.

This release includes several bug fixes and downloads album art for you automatically.

FORMATS SUPPORTED

Ogg
FLAC
Ogg Vorbis (aoTuV)
MPEG-4 AAC (QuickTime/Core Audio)
MP3 (LAME)
Monkey Audio
Wavpack And Wavpack64
TTA, AIFF, WAV
Raw PCM
Apple Lossless
Support For Files Larger Than 2GB
Much More

Download it here

iCursor 1.40

2008-09-01T07:18:00.001-07:00

iCursor 1.40 is an excellent fun and free application for OS X, that allows you to animate your mouse cursor with particles that follow your mouse movements very smoothly. There are many effects that can be swapped out with others, and you can even create your own effects and share them with others.

USEFUL FOR

Users With Big Screens
Trouble Finding Your Cursor
When Giving Presentations
Users With Fading Eyesight
Users Who Love Eye Candy
Much More

Download it here

LimeWire X 4.18.5

2008-09-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

LimeWire X 4.18.5 is a free P2P Client for OS X. There are versions available for Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, Solaris and Linux.

FEATURES

BitTorrent Support
Firewall To Firewall Support
Proxy Support
Download From Multiple Hosts
iTunes Integration
Much More

Download it here

Skim 1.1.12

2008-09-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

Skim 1.1.12 is an excellent free PDF editor and note taking application for OS X, that is designed to make reading and editing PDF files very easy.

FEATURES

Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
Resize Notes
QuickLook Plugin Support
Smart Cropping Tools
Gradient Drawing
Add Circles, Boxes Or Notes
Highlight Important Text
Read In Full Screen Mode
Give Presentations
Save Password In Your Keychain
Much More

Download it here

Eternal Lands

2008-09-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

Eternal Lands is a free 3D online role playing game for OS X. There is also a version for Windows, Ubuntu and Linux available.

Download it here

AppCleaner 1.2.2

2008-09-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

AppCleaner 1.2.2 is an excellent free application of OS X, that allows you to completely uninstall applications from your Mac easily and quickly. It is not sufficient to just delete an application, since installing an application distributes many files throughout your System. AppCleaner will find all of the files associated with the application and safely delete them. It supports Tiger and Leopard.

FEATURES

German, Swedish, Polish Support Added (New)
Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
Improved The Search Function (New)
Shows History Logs
Delete Unwanted Widgets
Delete Preference Panes
Delete Plugins And Screen Savers
Much More

Download it here

Opera 9.52

2008-09-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

Opera 9.52 is an excellent free web browser for OS X that is fast, easy to use and feature rich. This release includes a total of 29 bug fixes.

FEATURES

Zoom And Image Control
Improved BitTorrent Performance
Voice Support
IMAP Support For Opera Mail
File Synchronization
Tabbed Browsing And Thumbnail Previews
Email, IRC Chat And Fraud Protection
Download And Password Manager
Much More

Download it here

Transmission 1.33

2008-09-01T07:07:00.002-07:00

Transmission 1.33 is a free BitTorrent client for OS X. This release corrects several memory leaks and crashes.

Note: Make sure you have installed the latest Apple security update 2008-002, in order to run the application properly.

Download it here

AirRadar 1.0.5, Wireless Scanner

2008-09-01T07:07:00.001-07:00

AirRadar 1.0.5 is an excellent free application for OS X, that scans for wireless networks and much more. You can view detailed network information, graph network signal strength, and automatically join the best network in range. You can setup a scan frequency, and have new open or closed networks have their name spoken, play alerts, or display notifications.

This release includes 5 new bug fixes.

Download it here

MacTracker X 5.0.4

2008-09-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

MacTracker X 5.0.4 is an excellent free application for OS X, that provides detailed information on every Apple computer ever made. It includes items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions, expansion options and much more. Also included in the application is information on Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, iPhone 3G, iPod, Apple TV, iPhone, AirPort Base Stations, Newton and Mac OS versions. Search by processor type, date introduced, comments and much more.

This release adds 5 new features.

VERSIONS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

Leopard
Tiger
Windows
iPhone/iPod Touch
iPod Classic/iPod Nano

Download it here

Adium X, multi chat application

2008-09-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Adium 1.3 is a fast, free instant messaging client for OS X which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Yahoo! Japan, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime. It supports a beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer and more. It is fast, lightweight, customizable, and has been translated into 20 languages.

This release includes a large list of new features, improvements and bug fixes.

Download it here

Bootcamp

2008-09-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

BootChamp 1.0 is a free utility for Leopard that allows you to quickly boot into Windows.

How is this different than selecting your Windows volume from within Startup Disk in System Preferences? Using Startup Disk actually changes your startup disk permanently so that each time you restart, it boots into whatever you have selected. This application only requires a single click and your admin password, then it restarts your computer into Windows. It does not change your startup disk permanently.

Download it here

Yahoo! Messanger, on Leopard!

2008-09-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Messenger 3.0b3.126432 is a free instant messaging client for OS X. You can chat, send files and much more with each other. It also includes webcam support, calendars, mail, Growl notification and voice calling.

Note: This is a beta version.

FEATURES

Leopard Crash Bug Fixed (New)
IM Windows Live
PC To Phone Support
Phone To PC Support
Photo/File Sharing
Web Conference And Chat Rooms
Stealth And Webcam Support
Tabbed Conversations
Message Archiving
Much More

Download it here

WinClone

2008-09-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

Winclone 2.0.8 is a free application for Leopard only, that allows you to clone your Apple Boot Camp partition quickly and easily. Simply create an image as your would for a backup. Winclone will create the Windows partition, and restore the OS and the data onto the new partition.

FEATURES

Several Bug Fixes Corrected (New)
Clone FAT32 Or NTFS Partitions
Mount Images In Finder
Fixes Boot Issues Automatically
Creates Image Documents That Can Be Stored On Any Media
Clone Windows XP Or Windows Vista
Restore A 10GB Image In Less Than 10 Minutes
Much More

Download it here

Like HDTV--LiveStation

2008-09-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Livestation is an excellent free application for OS X, that allows you to watch hundreds of the worlds leading TV and web channels in the highest quality for free. You can also download versions for Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Download it here

The OSX troubleshooting utility

2008-09-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

AppleJack 1.5 is a free troubleshooting assistant utility for OS X. With AppleJack, you can troubleshoot your Mac, even if you are unable to load the GUI or do not have a Mac OS X Install Disk available. AppleJack only runs in Single User Mode.

To use AppleJack, restart your Mac in Single User Mode, by holding down the Command and S keys at Startup, and then type applejack or applejack auto - (which will run through all the tasks automatically) or applejack auto restart - which will restart your Mac automatically at the end of the processes.

NEW FEATURES

Leopard Compatibility Added (New)
Better Console Output (New)
Better Logging (New)

REMEMBER - AppleJack is designed to be run in Single User Mode ONLY at Startup.

Download this application here

Make Spotlight easier to read

2008-09-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

By default when viewing a Spotlight "all results" window or a Smart Folder or Search, the view is set to "icon view" and the file names are truncated, making it very hard to find the exact file you want.

You can switch the search results to "list view" but you may find that the setting doesn't stick. Well, there's good news. Under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, there's a way to make the view settings for all Smart Folders and the "All Results" search window stick.

1. Open the Finder.
2. Under "Search for" in the sidebar, click on one of the search items (for example, All Documents). (If you don't have any smart folders there, just do a Spotlight search and choose Show All.)
3. Switch the view to "List view" or whatever view you are comfortable with.
4. In the menu bar, click View > Show View Options, or press Command-J on your keyboard to open the View Options window.
5. Check "Always open in list view".
6. Close the view settings window, and then close the Finder window.

From now on, your search results will be easier to hunt through.

This hint only work with 10.5

MultiBoot using Vista

2008-09-01T03:10:00.000-07:00

I have promised to write these multi-boot procedures so here they are, this is the first of them, displaying how to multi boot OSX86 and Vista using the Vista Boot Manager.

in this procedure i assume that you have installed OSX86 first on a virgin computer and now you want to add Vista partition to it. (if you just want the procedure skipping, installing and fixing vista then jump to step 16)

1. Create a new partition that Vista will be Installed on using your favorite partition creation software (like Partition Manager, Partition Magic, GParted, etc.)

2. Install Vista as you normally do, just make sure you install it to the new created partition, identify it by its order number (first, second or third...) and by its size.

3. after vista is installed and working as you want it to (yea right), now its time to restore OSX partition to be bootable (so HFS+ Error will not appear), insert the Leopard/Tiger DVD and boot into single user from it (see here how)

4. mount your file system write : /sbin/mount -uw /

5. get into fdisk write: fdisk -e /dev/rdiskX (where X is the number of OSX HD starting from 0)

6. display the partitions table write: print or p for short

7. next make your OSX partition bootable (should be of type HFS+) write:
flag X (where X stands for your OSX partition number mine here is 2)
then write:
update or u press enter
write or w press enter
quit or q press enter
and reboot

8. you should be able to see the darwin boot loader and boot into OSX, if you get a blinking cursor, or HFS+ Error repeat the procedure.

9. now when you try to boot back to windows from the darwin menu you get error saying windows is missing winload.exe or corrupted.

10. repeat the procedure in steps 3 to 7 with one difference: flag the windows partition instead of the OSX like this:

11. now its time to fix vista partition, insert the Vista DVD and boot from it

12. in the next screen press next

13. press the link in the bottom "Repair your computer"

14. from the "system recovery options" dialog press "Repair and restart"

15. if it didn't help then you need a more advanced option, you can check this wonderful article on that issue.

16. next we add OSX86 Leopard to vista BootLoader menu from the vista start menu write cmd and right click it from the findings and choose "run as administrator"

17. at the dos box write: bcdedit /copy {current} /d Leopard this will cause the windows boot entry to be copied using the name leopard, it will reply with the GUID of the created partition entry, we will soon use it

18. you may see your entries by writing: bcdedit /enum active, it will reply with all entries like this:

19. next we set the new created leopard GUID to the OSX boot file write: bcdedit /set {YOUR_CREATED_GUID} PATH \chain0

20. lastly we copy the OSX boot file chain0 from the leopard DVD it is found in the root of the DVD to c:\ of Vista (in case you can't find it on your DVD download it here)

21. reboot, you should see the vista boot screen with Leopard entry that leads to booting OSX

you can find reference and information about bcdedit command line here.
tell me about problems that may occure and inconsistencies so i will update the post, i will also add more multi boot methods in next posts.

Open Mac Drive from Windows (Vista)

2008-09-01T03:08:00.001-07:00

If you have a disk or partition of windows that you boot from and you need to access your files (images, music, movies, etc.) on the Leopard or any other OSX drive then read on.

for this purpose you need to use MacDrive application, this application is installed on windows and can display Macintosh Hard Drives inside "My Computer" as if they are normal windows partitions, you can read, write, change and even delete files if you must.

the installation is very simple (next,next,next), and after it is done you reboot and you can access your OSX drives from the hackintosh dual boot, or from USB external Time-Machine.

1. download MacDrive
2. from windows install MacDrive
3. reboot into windows (make sure Mac drives are connected)

thats it, the MacDrives will be marked with a special icon indicating they are Mac and not simple windows HD.
after the install "My Computer" should looks like this:

Open and use Shared File and Folder from Mac

2008-09-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

This is a quick How-To connect to a share on a remote windows computer,

there are several ways to do everything, i hope some of you will post some comments and share your tips as well.

actually this trick works not just for windows computers, you can use this method in order to connect to any smb share (Mac, Linux, Solaris, Unix, Novel, Windows).

first we have to enable the smb protocol on the destination PC. click on the link in order to read how it is done on a Windows PC.
in order to connect to a remote computer (windows) do this:1. from "Finder" Go menu select: "Connect to Server"

2. a "Connect to Server" dialog appears

3. at the "Server Address" write: smb://SERVER_NAME/SHARE where SERVER_NAME should be replaced with the server name you want to connect to, and SHARE should be replaced with the share name you want to access.
4. press "Connect" and a connect progress dialog appears
5. if you did not specify a SHARE, then a share list appear waiting for you to select a share.

6. select a share and press "OK".

7. an icon of that share will appear on your desktop.

from this point on you treat this disk like any other DMG/Cd/DVD/USB Disk, if you have enough permissions you can write, delete, change, etc. to disconnect simply drag it to the trash.

Access NTFS Partition [R/W] from Mac

2008-09-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

This post is written due to a readers question (i added the email and the response as a comment to this post),
he was having problems writing to NTFS (Windows Hard Drives), if you have dual boot or connecting USB Hard Drives that have NTFS File System and want to access it from within OSX for writing purposes then read on.

if the HD is plugged or mounted after the system has loaded (for instance a USB disk on key) then you get a read/write access and can do whatever you wish to that USB Flash Drive.

but if you have a Disk connected and already have an NTFS file system on it then it will be auto mounted at boot time but it will give you read only access. for instance i have a vista partition dual booting with OSX and from within OSX it looks like this:

so what you need to do is to install two simple utilities:
MacFUSE (Mac File-System User-Space) it support the file system of many kind in a kernel-level so they integrate from the OSX almost natively.
NTFS-3G a driver that support the linux FUSE spec and can be run on-top of the MacFUSE Plugin and support the NTFS from within Mac OSX.

the steps are very easy:
1. download MacFUSE
2. run MacFUSE Core.pkg
3. download NTFS-3g (make sure to download the "Mac OS X DMG Package")
4. mount the DMG file
5. run NTFS-3G.pkg
6. restart

thats it, the final result should look like any other drive like this:

if you would like to uninstall NTFS-3G follow these steps:

from the NTFS-3g DMG execute the script: "Uninstall NTFS-3G.command"
press "Open" on the appearing popup
in the terminal that appear enter your password and press enter
wait until this message appears: [Process completed] and then you can close the terminal

if you would like to uninstall MacFUSE follow these steps:

open a new terminal and write: sudo -s (and press enter)
enter your password and press enter
paste these two lines and press enter after each one of them
lsbom -fls /Library/Receipts/MacFUSE\ Core.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom | colrm 1 1 | xargs rm -v
rm -rv /Library/Receipts/MacFUSE\ Core.pkg
reboot

your computer will come up without NTFS-3G and without MacFUSE.

here are the Install screenshots in case you need them:

MacFuse Install Screen Shots:

and the NTFS-3G Install Screenshots:

Type rest of the post here

Story line of GUI, Microsoft and Apple

2008-09-01T02:44:00.000-07:00

Douglas Engelbart, an American engineer working at the Stanford Research Institute, dreamt up the idea of a mouse driven graphical user interface back in 1960s. Researchers working for Xerox in Palo Alto California were inspired by Engelbart's work, and they went on to create a machine called the 'Alto' in 1973. Eventually the Alto project led to the 'Xerox Star 8010 Document Processor' which was released commercially in 1981 for US$17,000 (about $40,000 in today’s money). Although interesting historically, only a handful were actually manufactured.

1981 Xerox Star. The first commercial GUI computer.

1981 also saw the release of the IBM PC. At that time the market for personal computers was highly fragmented with dozens of manufactures competing in both in the home and business markets. The first IBM PC was too expensive for the home market, but it proved a huge hit with business. "You can't get fired for buying an IBM" said many, but the PC quickly developed a more important attraction - open standards. Failing to realise the importance of the operating system, IBM purchased one from Microsoft. As a result other manufacturers were then able to copy the IBM hardware design and ship their 'Clones' with copies MSDOS purchased directly from Microsoft. As a result, even without IBM's approval or participation, their PC became an open standard with virtually unstoppable economies of scale. By 1990 IBM Compatible PCs captured an 80% market share, today it runs at greater than 95%.

One of the many IBM PC compatibles that flooded the US market

IBM PC & Clones Market Share

Although IBM PCs running MSDOS dominated the market, Apple will be forever remembered as the innovative company behind the first mass market GUI based computer.

Steve Jobs, co owner of Apple Computers, visited Xerox in 1979 and left extremely impressed by the Alto. Over the next several years he hired many Xerox engineers, and invested many millions of dollars developing a marketable GUI based computer. In 1983 Apple finally released the $10,000 'Lisa'. It was far too expensive, failed completely, and Jobs was forced to resign - but a year later Apple was able to launch the much cheaper and highly successful Macintosh. Although Jobs took the idea of mouse and graphical user interface from Xerox, there is no doubt that his team at Apple contributed a very great deal to development of the GUI (eg: Overlapping Windows, Dialogue Box, Trash Can).

Before GUIs, users relied on complicated key combinations and typed commands to control computers. Steve Jobs focused on bringing computers to the masses by making them friendly, fun and easy to use - and he succeeded.

1984 Apple Macintosh, first home GUI computer:

1984 Mac GUI:

Screenshot of the included MacPaint

The development of the GUI made the Apple Mac popular for Graphical Desktop Publishing, but the IBM PC clone was still able to maintain market dominance. Meanwhile Microsoft worked on a GUI of it's own, and in 1985 it released an add-on to MSDOS called 'Windows 1.0'. However, this first version of Windows came with no useful compatible applications and its general functionality was limited by legal challenges from Apple. After defeating the law suites (Bill Gates defended them with the claim “hey you copied from Xerox”) it was able to release the much improved Windows 2.0 in 1987. That same year, two important programs written to work with Windows 2.0 were released: Microsoft Excel and Desktop Publisher Aldus PageMaker (the latter had previously only been available on the Apple Mac). Some computer historians date the release of PageMaker, the first appearance of a significant and non-Microsoft application for Windows, as the beginning of the success of Windows.

1987 Windows 2.0

It is interesting to compare the GUIs at this stage.

Windows could run applications side by side and had minimization and maximization buttons. Although the $10k Apple Lisa supported multiple applications, up until Operating System 7 in 1991 the Macintosh could only run one application at a time.

Apple applications shared a common menu bar in a fixed location at the top of the screen - a design which remains today. Windows, by contrast, demanded each window maintain its own interface. The Apple approach saved screen space and made applications easier to write, but in future years it has suffered two major disadvantages. First, applications running in a window on a big screen could appear a long way from their menu bar. Second, applications had reduced interface flexibility, eg advent of 'Skins' and the new Office 2007 Menu system. Today, the Microsoft approach is the standard used by non Apple GUIs such as Linux etc.

Apple used the common menu bar at the top of the window to launch applications, but Microsoft instead chose a 'Program Manger' application that contained icon shortcuts to programs and other folders. The Microsoft approach allowed for the hierarchical organisation of large numbers of applications / shortcuts (which was not possible with the simple Apple Menu), but it also contributed to clutter and complexity as the user opened folder after folder in search of his target. In 1995 Microsoft completely replaced the Program Manger technique with the 'Start Menu'.

Apple adopted a friendly icon based approach to browsing the hard drive but Windows employed a vertical tree based application called File Manager. The vertical tree approach is much more effective, but novice computer users often struggle to understand it. This difference is one of many that reflects a divergence of design philosophy in those early days - while Steve Jobs of Apple concentrated on making his system friendly and aesthetic, Bill Gates and the brilliant geeky programmers living on caffeine at Microsoft concentrated on power and technicalities.

To see the difference in aesthetic design compare two early text editor applications from Apple and Microsoft.

1985 Text Editing on Apple & Windows

Steve Jobs named his first computer after his daughter Lisa because it was so easy to use. Looking at the screenshot above one wonders if Bill Gates could have used the same name for Windows 1.0, not because it was child’s play to use, but rather because it looked as if Steve's daughter ran his graphic design.

It should be said that although Apple and Microsoft were among the first to market, all the remaining vendors were also working on GUI at this time as well. The screenshot below shows an interesting example from a British company called Acorn. This GUI had something approaching a task bar showing active applications, an idea that would make its way into the Windows and Apple GUI some years later.

1991 RISC OS 3.0, A GUI with task bar

Another interesting GUI comes from NeXT. After Steve Jobs was forced to resign from Apple, he founded NeXT and started developing very trendy, powerful and expensive Unix workstations. His first GUI is pictured below, it shows a 3D effect on the windows, icons and menus. Two years later Microsoft adopted a 3D look as well.

1988 NeXT GUI with 3D looking Windows and Icons

Both IBM PC Hardware and the Microsoft Windows GUI suffered one huge disadvantage compared to the Macintosh – they needed to retain complete backwards compatibility with older software. As a result it wasn’t until the advent of the powerful Intel 386 processor and the release of Windows 3.0 that Microsoft’s GUI really took off.

1990 Windows 3.0

1991 Apple’s System 7

1992 Microsoft Windows 3.11

Of course, the popularity of Windows went hand in hand with the availability of Windows applications. Perhaps Microsoft’s most remarkable feat was to leverage the GUI skills acquired whilst developing Windows in the production of Spreadsheets and Word Processors.

The screenshot below shows the first version of Excel released in 1987 for Windows 2.0 which completely outclassed the market leading Lotus123 spreadsheet both in terms of GUI and core functionality. Almost overnight Lotus started loosing market share and within a few years it was little more than a memory.

1987 Excel 2.0 for Windows

1988 Excel 2.1. The start of the grey borders and 3D effect.

1991 Excel 3.0. The first application to use a modern toolbar

By contrast, in 1991 Word Perfect released Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS and Word Perfect 5.1 for Windows. Word Perfect was the biggest application of it's day, but the company failed to adapt quickly enough to the popularity of the GUI. The screen shot below shows the famous but complicated 'Reveal Codes' feature which was rendered essentially obsolete by WYSIWYG editing.

1991 & 1992 Word Perfect

The table below shows the market share of Microsoft Word relative to its competitors. By 1993 WordPerfect was beaten, by 1997 Microsoft had captured a greater than 90% market share.

The Macintosh version of Word took market share away from competitors such as MacWrite even more quickly and more decisively. This is interesting because it’s inconsistent with the often repeated theory that Microsoft’s dominance stemmed only from insider knowledge of the underlying platform operating system. Insider knowledge was no help to Apple, first their MacWrite word processor's market share was burned by Word Perfect, then it was vaporised by MS Word.

Although Windows 3.1 was extremely popular it’s MSDOS heritage left it with several major flaws, not least of which was stability. For business users, who required less compatibility with legacy applications, especially games, Microsoft offered an alternative operating system called 'Windows NT'.

In 1995 Microsoft released an enormous upgrade that finally gave the home user a stable sophisticated modern mostly 32 bit operating system with protected memory and preemptive multitasking (features that would take another seven years to reach the Apple Mac).

1995 Windows 95

As well as huge under the hood improvements Windows 95 offered a radical new GUI. Microsoft introduced the 'Task Bar' which accomplished three things:

(1) The prominent 'Start Menu' at the far left of the Task Bar simplified launching programs or accessing OS features such as Control Panel. Instead of hunting for icons on the Desktop or in Program Manager all features were available in one easy to find place. Microsoft were proud of the Start Menu and it featured heavily in their advertising campaigns for Windows 95. Although the Start Menu has been a great success, novice users have never found it as easy to customize or navigate as the desktop and often continue to store some programs or documents there.

(2) Most early GUIs, including ones from Apple and Microsoft, minimized running programs to icons on the desktop where they could be lost amongst similar looking icons, or hidden from view by windows running on top of them. The task bar rectified this problem by putting all running programs into one highly visible place.

(3) The Task Bar also featured a system tray where users could see the clock and system applications.

Today the task bar with start menu, running applications and system tray is the standard used by both the latest Microsoft & Linux GUIs. It’s notable that while Microsoft was prepared to completely junk its Program Manager and replace with a Start Menu, Apple only reluctantly and gradually added a task bar to their system over the next several years. This fits with a generally aggressive tendency to innovate, assimilate, copy and redesign which is a major factor behind Microsoft’s success. Such extreme willingness to change is highly unusual, and is surely one of the principle factors behind Microsoft's position today as the worlds largest software company.

Windows 1995 perhaps marked the beginning of a new era at Microsoft in which it began to dumb down functionality in order to make products easier to use or better looking Apple style. For example, in Windows 95 Microsoft started hiding the tree inside their file open dialogues. Novice users can be confused by the tree, but it is a very powerful feature and hiding it reduces functionality.

Windows 3.11 File Open showing tree

Windows 95 File Open - With tree removed Apple Style

By Contrast: A Power User's File Open - Not Microsoft, Windows XP Era - The user selects "My Documents", C:, D:, "My Computer", "My Network Places", a Favourite etc and then the tree is shown going forward from that point.

Shortly after Windows 95, Apple released System 7.5. This release had the codename Capone, which was a reference to the gangster who put fear in Chicago – Chicago being Microsoft’s codename for Windows 95.

1996 Mac System 7.5.3. Notice the bottom 'control strip', the beginning of the Apple task bar

Apple may have nicknamed their operating system Capone, but in truth their market share had peaked at 12% in 1992 and had been in decline ever since. The advent of Windows 95 only heralded an acceleration of that process. See the pink line on the chart below – notice the increased rate of decline after 1995.

By 1997 Apple were is crisis and Steve Jobs, who had left years earlier to found NeXT, was brought back to rescue the company. Shortly after his arrival a new operating system was released.

1997, Mac OS 8

A year later in 1998 Microsoft released 'Windows 98'. It offered improved stability and hardware support but had few GUI changes. No screenshot is shown here.

Also in 1998 Steve Jobs of Apple Mac introduced the iMac. Although technically unimpressive both in terms of hardware and operating system it featured a new translucent plastic exterior, originally in Bondi Blue, but later many other colours. The iMac proved phenomenally successful, selling close to 800,000 units in its first five months and significantly boosting the company's revenue and profitability. Thanks to the iMac, fiscal 1998 was Apple's first profitable year since 1993. The iMac is now considered an industrial design icon of the late 90s. In 2001 the launch of the iPod further contributed to the popularity of the Apple brand and it’s PCs.

1998 The Stylish iMac Drove Sales

2001 Mac OS X

In 2001 Apple Mac released a brand new fully 32 bit modern operating system with a Unix-like core. This new version did not offer backward compatibility with older software but it has still proven a great success. To me, Windows 95/98, with it's angular 3D grey borders and controls, feels very bleak and dated compared to this new Apple GUI. Most people would say that aesthetically this OS put Apple well ahead and it took several years until the release of Vista for Microsoft to begin catching up.

In terms of GUI functionality, however, some users were much less impressed. Microsoft had long dominated OS and Application GUI design, but the near dead Apple still resisted too obviously copying. Perhaps Steve Jobs felt he could not be seen to be copying Microsoft; but BMW would never balk at fitting innovations such as anti-lock braking systems to their cars just because Mercedes got there first. For example: Microsoft had three buttons on the right of each windows for maximization, minimization and close. Apple added three buttons to the left but bizarrely altered their behaviour (Mac users generally have to close applications with Apple-Q). The bottom Dock came with huge icons and greatly reduced functionality compared to Windows 95/98. Apple also passed up a chance to abandon its unorthodox common top menu bar, single button mouse, lack of a delete key, treeless path browsing, underpowered application install/uninstall etc.

Apple is accused by many of emphasising form over function. Given that Apple's primary market is the home user or SoHo Designer this is natural - but some accuse them of taking the process much too far. Microsoft called OS X a "toy". However, it became an increasingly popular toy.

2001 Windows XP

A significant upgrade to the Windows system also came in 2001 with the release of Windows XP. This version offered a fully 32 bit core, many new security features and a convergence of home and business versions (no more Windows NT).

The GUI changed as well - an attempt was made to make the product generally warmer and more friendly. For example, colourful icons and descriptions appeared in inside folders ('Web Folders'). Interestingly, almost all large corporate users and home ‘power users’ disabled this new feature. Although Windows XP felt somewhat smarter and more modern than it’s predecessors, looking at the screen shot below, some will wonder why Microsoft didn’t try and make it a little less colourful and a little more stylish.

Here is my desktop (I still run XP on most of my machines):

2005 OS X Tiger

Notice the 'system tray' or 'menu extra' icons running at the far right of the top menu bar.

2007 Windows Vista

As I write this in December 2007 Vista has just celebrated its first anniversary. It is thought to be the worlds largest software project to date - estimated at 10,000 employees working for five years - perhaps a $10billion spend.

Apple Mac’s share of the home market has increased substantially in 2007. It’s clear that the Apple brand is going from strength to strength with increasing awareness and trust in its stylish products. Many people now believe: (a) Apple is better looking (b) Apple is easier to use (c) Apples crash less and don't get viruses (d) PC’s are for geeks who don’t mind tearing their hair out for days on end fighting with config files and driver patches etc.

Look at the average home user’s Windows PC and you usually find a mass of icons running in the system tray and programs such as Norton Anti-Virus crippling the machine. Personally I often find friends of mine have a PC problem they need help with – for example, a few weeks ago a friend couldn’t play CDs. It took me half an hour to figure out the problem - put one in the machine and three programs were trying to play the CD simultaneously resulting in strange clicking noises. The mass of poor quality software available and installed on PCs often makes them very unreliable and frustrating devices.

Vista did not solve these problems – in fact it made them worse. Vista turned out to be nightmare of software and hardware compatibility issues. Even famous application such as Windows Live Messenger, iTunes, Visual Studio 2005 and Outlook 2003 failed to run fully or at all under Vista and had to be patched. Although users were encouraged to upgrade an existing install of XP to Vista, doing so was fraught with problems and should probably never have even been allowed. Even brand new laptops running Vista and shipped by Sony turned out to be unstable. These enormous problems hugely fuelled the perception that Windows is unreliable and Apple Mac is a better choice. Apple even capitalized on the Vista problems by running advertising campaigns deriding Vista (eg "Apple - It just works").

The new Aero interface won some fans but it was no Mac OS X killer. To show off the transparency effect Microsoft increased the border size on all apps wasting screen space. Only Windows Media Centre really demonstrated the power of the fast GUI technology introduced into Vista - yet even that carried a glaring flaw:

Windows Media Centre - Good looking GUI buy why only show only 7 channels at a time? (significant functionality has been relinquished for the sake of aesthetics).

Microsoft said Vista was easier to use, but users having to relearn many GUI and OS features did not always agree. Complex settings were buried deeply to avoid accidental change which could annoy power users trying to find them. Microsoft started removing menu bars on applications making them look a little sexier (Apple Mac Style), but also harder to use. Jealous of Apple's reputation for style and ease of use, Microsoft is fighting back but so far the results combine the worst of both worlds - underpowered from Apple and ugly from Microsoft.

Vista Photo Gallery: Wal-Mart GUI? Notice the valuable vertical screen space sacrificed to over sized top and bottom control bars. Steve Jobs and the stylish crowd at Apple always laugh at the ugly special buttons and stickers PC Laptop manufactures insist on adding to their machines- pretty much like this interface below.

Microsoft realised, rightly, that a security model to protect home users running as administrators required an innovative new approach not found on other operating systems. However, the many pop-ups and permission denied messages ended up aggravating users. Instead of one pop-up per task, several could be generated. Worse, users found even legitimate administrator access requests blocked on some occasions. IE7 ran in a new 'protected mode', yet many harmless controls still required prompts leaving many users feeling no further forward.

In summary Windows Vista suffered two major complaints:

(a) Unreliability - Unreliability also contributed to the Windows reputation for complexity (ironic because Vista attempted to be more user friendly). However, the painful memories will fade as time passes, service packs are released, and popular applications are fixed to work with it.

(b) Power Users Feeling Disenfranchised - Many Power Users who could disable Microsoft's previous user friendly GUI innovations (such as Web Folders, File Extension Hiding, Treeless Start Menus, Office Assistants, Adaptive Office Menus, even Microsoft Bob) are feeling increasingly disenfranchised by Microsoft's latest GUI designs.

Here is a quote from www.zabkat.com where a replacement for Microsoft's Windows Explorer called Xplorer2 is sold:

For a long time leading to the release of Vista, I was afraid that it would be the end of xplorer². As it turned out, quite the opposite has happened. All of a sudden the most popular search keyword is "vista explorer replacement" driving early adopters to my website... Where the hell is the menu bar in Vista's explorer? That must be the nadir of improvement ideas... But I can't complain :)

Mac OS X Leopard

Unlike Windows, which sees a major release every three to four years, new releases of Apple's OS X are much more incremental. Each yearly release usually carries a few headline improvements and lots of little tinkerings. After the many problems Microsoft experienced with Vista it is also now considering adopting a more frequent and less groundbreaking release schedule.

Designed to compete with Vista one of the things most noticeable about Leopard upon first glance is the amount of new eye candy. The desktop is empty of icons - the first OS to make that move even though it's been an obvious step since Windows 95. The new Dock (or Task Bar) shown exploding on the right of the picture above, allows for a folder of documents / programs, thereby addressing some of the shortcoming of not having a start menu (Power Users can remove all the application shortcuts from the Dock and add the Application folder to the Dock). The new 'Finder', which is the Apple equivalent of Windows Explorer, is also shown in the picture above. It has a new iTunes style cover flow mode which takes the user about as far from the old fashioned tree as one can imagine.

Apple did not have time to rethink the security model, as Vista did, in this release. Other major omissions compared to Vista in this release include Media Centre and HD DVD support.

Conclusion - Designers vs Geeks

Apple retains a devoted following because:

Steve Jobs has demonstrated the crucial role aesthetics and design play in public appeal. Just as huge PC Manufacturers such as IBM and DELL have failed to entice the public with designs as attractive as the iMac, Microsoft has not succeeded in making Windows as trendy and stylish as it is technically effective. Steve Job's top down management style delivers a clarity of vision and aesthetic standard few technology companies can match. Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS was blown away by the very first release of the stylish iPhone with its vibrating touch screen interface. Even without a sophisticated email service or a 3G interface consumers loved it. Indeed, in its first full quarter of sales the iPhone's market share is said to have climbed past Microsoft’s entire line-up of Windows Mobile smartphones in North America. Apple's superior design is not just hype. First the iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then Apple TV Take 2 - how can the tech giants fumble so often and so obviously? Microsoft, Google, Motorola and many other technology firms desperately need to shed their geeky cultures - think Ferrari vs Star Trek.

The enormous number of software applications that run on Windows is both a strength and a flaw. Few software companies have the skills required to build sophisticated consumer applications that can be installed and run flawlessly across millions of machines. Much of the software installed on Windows PCs is badly written and hard to use, and it damages the Windows brand. Similarly the wide range of hardware devices that run on the Windows platform is both a strength and a flaw.

Unlike Apple who were able to create a brand new GUI based operating system, Microsoft have maintained backward compatibility which makes their products more complex.

Compared to Microsoft, Apple have simplified products to enhance their appeal to the home user. Old Examples: Program Manager, Shortcuts, Tree Views, Application Install. A recent example: the way iTunes stores music. Although novice users will appreciate the low hassle way in which music is stored, many power users complain about limitations.

Finally it's much easier to feel passionate about a product with a small market share. The invention of panes of glass had an incredible impact on the standard of living by allowing light without cold into buildings. Nevertheless, the pane of glass is now so common, and so much an accepted part of our lives, that these days only the most philosophical are likely to be heard espousing the marvellous benefits of windows :-).

------------------------------

As a final though I leave you with some interesting screenshots showing the evolution of an Apple and Windows application over the years. It’s exciting to watch the aesthetic progression of our GUIs and to wonder what future years will hold. My only fear, as a power user, is that Microsoft will put Apple style ease of use and aesthetics ahead of functionality - I hope they can always remain at least on a level pegging.

1991 Mac

1997 Mac

2002 Mac

1985 Windows 1.0

1987 Windows 2.0

1990 Windows 3.0

1995 Windows 95

2001 Windows XP

2007 Windows Vista

Make XP (Vista) Look-Like Mac

2008-09-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to make your XP (or Vista) look like a mac?
this post will explain how to dress XP up so it will look and partially behave (not really) like a mac.

the reason i wanted to do that is: i wanted to enjoy the beauty of mac on my XP at work, unfortunately i couldn't convinced my boss that Mac is the correct platform for development :-)

Change the Boot Screen
so first things first, lets change the first screen we see when we launch the XP/vista the boot screen. in order to do that we need to download the application that replace it, and the Apple boot screen:

the result of the boot screen looks like this:

Granted its not a mac with the round circle but its better then XP boot screen.

Change Logon Screen
next thing you would like to change is the Logon Screen, this also done using Stardock utility, note that this is a Tiger logon screen, but i guess you can create easily a leopard logon screen, you can download it here:

Here is how it looks on my XP:

Change Explorer to Finder (overall look and feel)
next part i wanted Explorer to look like Finder, and start menu bar like leopard menu bar, there are several ways to achieve that, the most popular is Windows Blinds again a Stardock product, but fortunately there is also a free option called FlyAKiteOSX (this one is actually taking care of everything logon screen, logoff screen, explorer, start menu etc. but as Tiger)

FlyAKiteOSX home page (you got to see this site)
Stardock WindowsBlinds (change the visual style of Windows XP)
A Full Leopard Visual Style for WindowsBlinds
Mac OSX Tiger Skin for WindowsBlinds
and another skin of Tiger for WindowsBlinds (better one IMHO)

Here is the WindowsBlinds Configuration Window: (at the bottom you see the available visual style and a preview in the middle)

After you download the skin, you can import it using the "Add Visual Styles" button on the left, and after choosing the style press "Apply my changed" button on the left.

Install Apple Applications
next you would like to do (even if you will not change anything) you got to download the apple Safari browser and iTunes music player, beside making it more apple like OS these are very good (free) products that apple released for the Windows environments, they are not as good as on the mac (far from it) but still windows boring UI get some Mac injection of beauty. also if you would like to have a program like iPhoto then you should download Google's Picasa (if you haven't already)

Change Icons and Wallpaper
the obvious part is the leopard or tiger wallpaper that will complement the windows rigged OS, and a set of icons to replace "My Computer", folder, Control Panel etc. icons. if you are using FlyAKiteOSX that will make a complete makeover to your windows and you will not need any thing else (for a tiger look and feel), but if you have decided to try to achieve the full leopard look and feel then you will need Stardock IconPackager that will allow you to change every icon on windows.

Stardock IconPackager
Leopard Wallpapers
Leopard Icons pack (press the Download link from the upper menu)
Another Leopard Icon Pack (better one)

Sorry but didn't made screenshots for this part.

Install Leopard 3d Dock
Last but certainly not least, the Dock, what Leopard Mock up can be complete without a shiny sexy 3D dock. also here there is an option from Stardock named ObjectDock, but i think that the free RKLauncher is by far more beautiful and if you get the iVista version (yea, yea get that one) of RKLauncher you get the Grid and Fan Stacks like.

Stardock ObjectDock (nice, have a free version and a leopard 3D look as well but no stacks)
RKLauncher (O' Natural)
RKLauncher iVista version (get this one! in order to download press the image, and there is a video displaying the Dock behavior)

here are my screenshots Dock:

Fan (note the Drawers icons):

Grid stack (the stack background is transparent just like in leopard):

Add Expose and Spaces
lastly we need to add some behavior and to invest a little in the feel and not just in the look,
there are two more additions i used: one is the Expose like for windows and the other is the Spaces like for windows.
now this one was a little hard to choose since there are a lot of them, but i will not include all of them, but here are some i tried:

Expose:

Spaces:

and here are some screenshots of the end results:

Enjoy.

Asen

2008-09-01T00:43:00.000-07:00

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