Today’s desktop screenshot is by Cain Novocaine and I must say, it is awesome! I appreciate the detailed notes that he left on Flickr as to how he did this. Here are the notes from his Flickr page.

Not a significant change, but an evolution with some more uniformity and style. I consider this a strong fusion of the best visual elements of OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu linux. Feel free to copy it for yourself. I consider this theme done, GLASS HUD:

Main Elements

-**MENUBAR: Black Menubar(s) originally seen in Sweatshop Union’s Photostream. I also inverted all of the program icons I use in the menu bar (1. Locate the Application, 2. Right Click to Show Contents, 3. Replace or invert the current black icons, and save, 4. Restart the Application). I also used SECRETS to move the dock to the left side of the screen.

-**DOCK: Mirage for Snow Leopard to make the dock transparent. I also replaced the status indicators while I was at it with the status indicators from Adium Minimal HUD. For the dock icons, I used Opacity Folders with my own personal modifications.

The Easy Parts

-Adium theme is Minimal HUD, this is also where you can extract the status indicators (1. navigate to the file, 2. show contents, 3. copy contents) for your dock.

-Bowtie theme is Snowtie

-Wallpapers are from the DUST at fiftyfootshadows.net

The Boring Part

-GeekTool is used for the bottom bar, which is a 22 pixel tall black PNG as long as the width of your resolution. Its opacity is brought down to match the top bar. I also added a 1 pixel tall white border on top.

-Instructions on time, date, day, and weather can be found at this link. Remember to use the Lucinda Grande font at size 14 to match the menubar.

**The elements of this theme require replacing many default files of Snow Leopard. You should be fine if you back up what you replace, but I can’t guarantee any result for you.

Thanks Cain Novocaine for another great screenshot. To view his other desktops, click on his icon.

I use Google Reader for all of my RSS feeds. I have decided to venture outside of the usual browser and check out the various desktop newsreaders available. So, this week, I am focusing on some of the best readers.
Starting the list is NetNewsWire 3.1.7 by NewsGator (NNW for short). This is a really good reader, in fact it is top on the list. It has an easy-to-use interface and syncs with Google Reader.

PREFERENCES

General:

Reading Tab: Here is where you would decide if you want to show unread count on your Dock icon, choose how to display Updated items, like Mark as unread or Highlight differences. Also, you can decide if you want to collapse new items in Combined View layout or choose how many items to show per page.

Archiving Tab: You would choose to save news items as HTML files on your disk from here and decide how long to keep new items in NetNewsWire.

Browsing:

Behavior Tab: This is where you choose to open links. Your default browser or the NetNewsWire browser, among other items (see image).

News Items Tab: You can enable plug-ins, java, and JavaScript from here and choose your style sheet.
Web Pages Tab:  Again, you can choose to enable plug-ins, Java and JavaScript along with using a custom style sheet.

Colors:

You can change the colors in this section. It’s pretty self explanatory.

Fonts:

General Tab: Here is where you change the subscription, headlines, summaries, datelines and combined view title fonts.
News Items Tab: Choose the standard and fixed-width fonts and the minimum font size here.
Web Pages Tab: Again, you can change the standard and fixed-width fonts along with the minimum font size.

Posting:

This is where you change your settings to post to your weblog and Delicious. For posting to a weblog, you can choose your own application. For posting to Delicious, it offers you the choice to pick from the default browser, NetNewsWire, Cocoalicious, Postr, Pukka, or WebnoteHappy.

Downloading:

Feeds Tab: Change how often to refresh all subscriptions and concurrent downloads.
Enclosures Tab: Decide if you want to automatically download podcasts and add to the iTunes library or other enclosure settings in this tab.
Adding to iTunes Tab: You decide how your audio enclosure will be added to your iTunes library from here.
Downloads Folder Tab: This is where you set the folder for downloads to be sent.

Syncing:

Have NetNewsWire Sync with Google Reader by entering your Google Username/Password and merge the subscriptions.

ADDING FEED SUBSCRIPTIONS

If NetNewsWire is your default RSS reader, you can add a feed by clicking on the RSS icon in the address bar. You can add feeds to NetNewsWire by clicking on the RSS icon in the web site. Another way is to copy the link in your browsers address bar and click the ‘+’ (Subscribe) button in NetNewsWire to add the desired feed.

SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTIONS

NetNewsWire gives you the option to add Special Subscriptions. Your options are Search Engine, Tag, Local File, or Script. (I only tried out the Search Engine and Tag subscriptions.) Here is how it worked for me:

I clicked on File<New Subscription<Search Engine and typed in Apple and chose Yahoo from the choices offered (Blogdigger, Twitter, or Yahoo) and hit Subscribe. NetNewsWire brought up News articles about Apple from Yahoo and saved it as its own feed.
Then, I clicked on File<New Subscription<Tag and typed in geektool and selected from the choiced offered (Delicious, Flickr, and Technorati) and hit subscribe. NetNewsWire brought up all pictures with geektool as a tag and saved it as its own feed. Pretty cool.

PODCASTS

If you subscribe to feeds that contain podcasts, NetNewsWire allows you to either download the podcast to iTunes or to your designated download folder (to play on your own player). Here are a few of the sites that I get podcast feeds from:

http://www.podcastalley.com/
http://www.jordomedia.com/
http://www.podfeed.net/
http://podcast.com/

You would subscribe to these feeds just like you would a normal feed.

VIEWING YOUR RSS FEEDS

When you first open NetNewsWire, you will see the feeds displayed in a list on the left, along with the number of unread articles displayed next to each feed. When you select a feed, the panel to the right displays the articles in that feed. By default, the unread articles will appear bold. When you select an article, you will see either a summary, then entire article, or nothing (depending on the feed) in the panel to the right which is your preview area.

READING ARTICLES

When you double click on an article, it will open the full article on the feed’s Web site, which you can view in either your preferred browser or within NetNewsWire’s build in web browser. (You can decide which browser to use in the preferences.) You will also see tabs that can appear at either the top of the browsing area or as a thumbnail on the right side of the window, depending on your personal preference.
Another nice feature is the ability to use your keyboard’s arrow keys to browse your feeds. The left and right arrows move between the subscription and article lists. The up and down arrows are used to select a subscription or an article. Pressing return opens the selected article.

VIEWING FEEDS AVAILABLE FROM THE DOCK

When you right click on the dock icon, you be given a view of the unread count at the top, the option to Refresh All News, Mark All News as Read, Subscribe…, View items inside your Feed Folders, among the usual dock options. When you highlight a folder, the feeds available will be displayed. Hit your return key and it will open the item in the NetNewsWire browser (unless you have your preferred browser as default).

INLINE SUMMARIES AND DATELINES

You can choose to show summaries and datelines in the headlines to make going through your feeds faster. To do this, simply go to the menu bar and click on View<Layout and you can choose to show Summaries In-Line, Show Summaries Below Title or Show Datelines.

VERSATILE HEADLINE LIST

You can add date, subject, and creator columns to the headlines list and sort them however you choose. To do this, just go to the menu bar and click on View<Columns and choose from Source, Date, Subject, Creator or all of them. It’s your reader, so you can tweak it to suit your needs.

SORTING

You have a variety of sorting options.
To sort your list, you go to View<Sort By and then your options are Date, Source, Subject, Creator, Title or Arrival Order.
You also have the option to sort your subscriptions. You do this by choosing View<Sort Subscriptions By and then your choices are Name, Unread Count, Attention, Last Update, Manual Order or Sort Inside Folders Only.

SMART LISTS

Using smart lists are similar to your Finders Smart Folders or the Smart Playlists in iTunes. To create a Smart List, just click on the cog wheel located on the bottom left hand corner, you will then see a menu. Scroll up and click on ‘New Smart List.‘  A window will pop up for you to start creating your own Smart List. First, type in a name for you Smart List. Then you will go to the first drop down menu and choose from the following options: “Title, Description, or Summary,” “Title,” “Description,” “Summary,” “Link,” “Permalink,” “Creator,” “Subject,” “Comments URL,” “Flagged Status,” “Read Status,” “Followed Status,” “Subscription Name,” “Subscription Feed URL,” “Subscription Home URL,” “Enclosure URL,” “Enclosure Type,” and “Group Name.” After you choose the setting you desire, you will go to the next drop down menu and choose from the following: contains, does not contain, is, is not, starts with, or ends with. Then, if you want, you can add more settings by clicking the ‘+’ sign and go through the same drop down menus until you have the Smart List you desire. NOTE: You can also create a new Smart List by going to File<New Smart List or use the keyboard shortcut Option+Command+N.

FLAGGED ITEMS

You can flag items in several different ways. One way is to have the article you want to flag open. You can either go to the menu bar and click on News<Mark<As Flagged OR use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+L OR right click on the article in the article list and click on ‘Mark as Flagged’ OR customize the toolbar and place the Flag in the toolbar for one-click access.
What is cool about flagging items is that they stay forever or can be removed once you mark them as unflagged.

CLIPPINGS

Clippings provide special folders for ‘storing’ articles you want to read later. When you’re viewing an article that you want to clip, just click on the Add To Clippings button (if it isn’t in your toolbar, you can add it by customizing your toolbar), or by pressing Command+Option+S. or just drag the article to the Clippings folder.

LAYOUTS

You can view your feeds articles in either the Traditional view where the preview area appears below the article list (sort of like Mail’s email preview), Widescreen view where the preview is on the right, and finally, a Combined view, which display each article below its title in a scrolling list.

TABS

When viewing articles in tab view, you can choose to have vertical tabs with the thumbnails or the horizontal tabs (no thumbnails).

STYLES

You can choose from dozens of visual themes that determine how articles are displayed within NetNewsWire from fonts and font sizes, layouts, colors, and more.

POSTING TO WEBLOG

NetNewsWire makes it easy to post to a weblog. The first thing you would want to do is choose which weblog you prefer to use. You do this in the Preferences under Posting. You can either use MarsEdit or you can choose whatever desktop weblog application you have. Then, after making sure your settings are the way you want it, choose the article you want to write about by hitting the return key to open the article in the browser and then you click on the Post to Weblog button in the toolbar. From your weblog application, you can make changes as necessary. If you just click on add to weblog without opening the article, it will open the link along with the summary in your weblog application.

SYNCING

The selling point for NetNewsWire is the ability to sync with Google Reader. Not to mention, that if you have NetNewsWire on your iPhone/iPod Touch, you can sync with those as well.

TRACKING CHANGES

NetNewsWire has the ability to track changes when articles are updated. If a site creates a new version of an article, any deletions are displayed with a red strikethrough type and the new additions are displayed in green.

REPORTS

You can view reports that show how much time you give to a feed and which feeds haven’t been updated (which you can decide the timeframe for the report), to help you decide which feeds are worth keeping and which are out the door. To do this, you go to Window and click on either Dinosaurs, Most Attention, Least Attention or Bandwidth Stats (they are all in the same pop up window). Once the (Dinosaur tab) window is displayed, you can change the number of days for feeds that haven’t been updated by just typing in a number. To view the most/least attention, just click on the Attention tab and then you can sort the list by clicking on the Score column (with the arrow on it).In the Bandwidth Stats tab, you can view the results any way you want by clicking on any of the column headers. At the bottom of all the tabbed windows, you have the option to Open Home Page, Reveal in Subscriptions or Unsubscribe.

SCRIPTING

If you know how to create a script (AppleScript, Perl, Python, or shell) that generates an RSS feed, a Script subscription will periodically run the script and display its results. I am unfortunately not that script-savvy so I do not know how this function works.

AD-FREE VERSION OR FREE

You can pay for an ad-free version (which I believe is $14.95) or try NetNewsWire for free which has all the features as the paid version with the exception of a small ad on in the lower left side corner of your screen. You can get your copy by clicking on the icon or go to http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/ for the download and more information.

IPHONE APPLICATION

There are two versions for the iPhone. The paid version, which is $4.99 or the FREE version (which I use).

I have compiled a table of the keyboard shortcuts available for download. Click the PDF icon to download.

Even though NetNewsWire has a few things to learn about, it is a really useful tool. My favorite features are that it syncs with both Google Reader and my iPhone, I like that I can use my keyboard throughout the interface, it has many useful tools like setting up folders, along with the smart folders and much more. This is by far my favorite desktop reader application. If anybody out there wants to share their experiences and tips about NetNewsWire, please leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

This VISION desktop took hours to get just right. @philipbrunner had gone through several versions and tweaks to get to this final version. I decided that I wanted my own icons with text to create an even look on my Finder and dock, so Philip created the .psd file for me to use and I created icons for practically all the applications on my Mac, which also took several hours. So now I have almost 200 custom icons. Yay! But why stop there? I then decided that my dock wasn’t good enough. Again, Philip came to the rescue and created this dock that is sand gradients on a clear dock. Perfecto!

I use my MacBook most of the time and I seem to use the max amount of hard drive space. So, I tend to backup everything to clear some space. Sometimes, more than once. I occasionally forget if I had done a backup or not, so I backup the same things, just in case. I decided to search the Internet to see if there were any programs that would allow me to see what I had backed up, to avoid backing up the same data over and over again. I wanted the program to display the information I needed to know, such as the name of the item backed up, a picture of what was backed up, etc. and found the application DiskLibrary. I had checked out a couple of other applications, but this one does everything I need. If you have lots of files on external disks (like I do), and want an easy way to search for your data, along with visual cues of thumbnails, this application does it!

So, what does DiskLibrary do?

DiskLibrary helps you organize your images, movies, PDFs, music, and many other types of files you have stored on external media (see below for a list of the main supported file types).

Adobe Illustrator (AI) – thumbnail and metadata
Adobe Photoshop (8bps, psd) – thumbnail and metadata
BMP (bmp, bmpf) – thumbnail and metadata
GIF (gif) – thumbnail and metadata
HTML (html) – thumbnail only
JPEG (jpeg, jpg) – thumbnail and metadata
Mac Icon (icn, icns) – thumbnail only
Microsoft Word (doc, rtf) – metadata only
PDF (pdf) – thumbnail and metadata
Picture (pct, pic, pict) – thumbnail and metadata
PNG (png, pngf) – thumbnail and metadata
Postscript (EPSF, EPSP, EPS, PS) – thumbnail and metadata
QuickTime Image (qti, qtif) – thumbnail and metadata
RTF Rich Text Format (rtf, rtfd)
TIFF (tif, tiff) – thumbnail and metadata

DiskLibrary indexes the file structure of your CD, DVD, network volumes, USB flash drive or internal/external hard drives.

DiskLibrary also has the ability to create thumbnails for your image files along with thumbnails for album artwork for your AAC/MP3 files (see below for a list of the main supported file types).

AMF Movie Importer (m4a, m4b, m4p) – thumbnail and metadata
MP3 (mp3) – thumbnail and metadata
Windows Media Audio (WMA) – metadata only

When importing files, DiskLibrary gathers metadata for you (see below for a list of the main supported file types). NOTE: Perian plugin required for some formats.

AMF movie importer (m4v) – thumbnail and metadata
AVI (vfw) – thumbnail and metadata
DivX Movie (avi, divx) – thumbnail and metadata
Flash Macromedia (swf, swfl, flv) – thumbnail and metadata
MPEG (mpg, mpeg) – thumbnail and metadata
MPEG-4 (mp4, mp4g) – thumbnail and metadata
QuickTime Movie (mov) – thumbnail and metadata
Windows Media Video (wmv, wmp) – thumbnail only

Once you have data imported, you can use the Smart Catalog function to store your search results, like you would in Finder.

Let’s say you have imported .zip or .rar files. DiskLibrary creates an archive view for these file types.

If you need to search for a specific item, you can use the Advanced Search to search in all your imported catalogs based on the file name, data, category, metadata, or file.

Another cool feature of DiskLibrary is the ability to use the Space bar to preview an item. NOTE: this Quick Look function is only available in Mac OS X 10.5.

What if you don’t like the thumbnail image that DiskLibrary created? You have the option to change it by using drag and dropping to create a thumbnail you desire.

DiskLibrary gives you the option to import third party databases. Some of the applications allowed for importing are CDFinder, DiskTracker, DiskCatalogMaker X, and FileFinder.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later and 150 MB free hard disk space along with Universal Binary for PowerPC (G4) & Intel processors.

How to start using DiskLibrary

Once you have installed DiskLibrary onto your Mac, open the application, then insert the CD, DVD, USB flash drive and click on the ‘File’ located in the menu bar and go to ‘Add Catalog.’ Or you can just use your keyboard and hit Command+N. A window will pop up and you just click on ‘Import.’ If you want to create thumbnail images, make sure to check the ‘Catalog Media’ box. Now DiskLibrary will scan through the volume’s file structure and create thumbnails. This may take several minutes depending on the number of thumbnails being generated.

Once you have a catalog, you can rename it by double clicking on the name, not the image, and enter a new name. You can also edit the catalog by going to ‘Edit’ and scroll down to ‘Edit Catalog,’ or just hit Command+I.  From here, you can change the name, media type, location (where  the item is at physically), change the category, and add notes.

To manage your categories, just click on ‘DiskLibrary’ in the menu bar, scroll down to ‘Preferences,’ or click on Command+, (comma), and go to the ‘Categories’ tab. Just hit the ‘+’ sign to add a new category and the ‘-‘ sign to remove a category.

There is much more information at the Obvious Matter website regarding DiskLibrary. You can download a trial version of DiskLibrary 1.9.4 or you can purchase for $39 (USD) from the Obvious Matter website (or click on the icon to be directed to their website).

I don’t know how I survived without DiskLibrary. It has helped me keep all of my external files in order and keeps me from creating duplicates. If anybody has used this application and would like to share their experiences or has questions about it, leave a comment and share the wealth.

Many of you know about QuickLook functions. For those of you who don’t know about QuickLook, here is what QuickLook is:

QuickLook allows you to take a sneak peek of entire files, including multiple documents and video, without having to physically open them. To do this, you just select a file in Finder and press the Space bar. You will then see a transparent window, showing you the contents of the chosen file.

You can also use QuickLook in Apple Mail. This is used for messages that contain attachments. To view an attachment without having to physically open it, just click on the Quick Look button.  You can even use Quick Look to view photos as a slideshow.

Quick Look works with most files on your Mac. These include images, text files, PDF documents, movies, Keynote presentations, Mail attachments, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to name a few. To view files, simply select the file and then hit your Space bar. You can even open the file from within the Quick Look window by double clicking and view a file in full screen. And you don’t even have to have the application that the file was created in to view.

Another really cool feature is that you can also listen to mp3s and .avi files by clicking the space bar and it will play.

To close the Quick Look preview, just press the Space bar again, or click the x in the preview window’s upper-left corner.

Here are a few tips from the Apple web site to get the most out of Quick Look:

• If you want to view more items, don’t close the preview window. Highlight a new file in the Finder, and it will be the next displayed item. You can use the up/down arrow keys to view the previous/next items.
• You can also view multiple-page documents in Quick Look. For files that are multiple-pages, you will see a navigation scroll bar along the preview window’s right margin.

There are also a variety of Quick Look plugins available on the Internet. Two really good directories with the best free Quick Look plugins are:

www.quicklookplugins.com

www.qlplugins.com

Here are the Quick Look plugins that I currently use:

BrushViewQL

BrushViewQL allows you to see the contents of Photoshop brush files.

ColorXML

ColorXML QuickLook is a simple QuickLook plugin which enables the display of XML files with indentation and XML syntax coloring.

QuickLook Folder View

Folder View allows you to see the contents of a folder using Quick Look. Just click on any folder, hit the Space bar and Quick Look will display items in the folder.

SneakPeak Photo

SneakPeak Photo displays detailed information of photos. On the top of the Preview window are basics like the type of file, its size, f-stop, focal length, color Sfile (sRGB, ProPhoto, etc) and a mini histogram. You will also see buttons which display Exif data, all the camera settings, a Loupe View with high resolution zooms and a larger Histogram to see the blueprint of your shot. If your photo is geotagged, you will see the coordinates and a nifty map of where the picture was taken, along with a link to a more detailed map online. This plugin costs $9.95 and there is a free trial available for download. Click on the icon to go to their website.

SneakPeak Pro

SneakPeak Pro allows users to view Illustrator, InDesign, Swatch Exchange (ASE), EPS, and Freehand documents in Quick Look.
You can also view fonts, images and colors used in many CS3 and CS4 documents. You can preview your graphic files in Cover flow, see previews of graphic documents within any open dialog box, and much more.

This plugin costs $19.95 and there is also a free trial to download. Click the icon to be directed to their website.

I have found Quick Look to be really useful but adding the plugins mentioned above make it even more useful. If anybody has any other plugins, experiences, or ideas about Quick Look or plugins for Quick Look, please feel free to leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

Lately, I have been in a nostalgic mood. Maybe it is because I have been sifting through all my thousands of old digital pictures. Every now and then, I go through my pictures to see how much my daughter has changed over the years. Also, seeing myself change. I’ve decided to once again, make sure that I have all of my pictures backed up on DVD, external hard drive and online storage. Which brings me to the subject of online photo storage. One of my favorite sites is shutterfly, so I decided to write about what shutterfly is and what they offer. So here we go.

Shutterfly is a site that offers easy ways to enhance, share and store your digital photos. Not to mention that they offer reasonable prices on prints. Not only can you print 5×7, 8×10, etc., you can create your own photo books, greeting cards, calendars, and much more.  They offer free unlimited online photo storage (which doesn’t require you to purchase a certain amount to keep from deleting your photos), free online photo software to organize, edit and share your collection, photo borders that enhance your prints (free), you can also personalize the back of your prints with messages for free, and much more. Oh, and they also offer a free iPhone app to upload your photos while on the go.

To sign up for shutterfly, just click on the ‘Sign up’ link and you will be directed to a sign up page. All you do is enter your first name, last name, an email address, create a password (then verify it), accept the terms and conditions, and hit the ‘Join Now’ button. When you sign up, you will receive 50 free 4×6 prints, of course you pay for any taxes and shipping and handling fees. But hey, that’s a pretty good deal.

Once you’ve signed up, log into shutterfly. You will see your home page, which consists of your recent albums, your projects, your shared pictures, videos and projects, your community and at the bottom of the page is more information consisting of links to basic account information like your account and order history, special offers, etc. On the right side of the page are links for shutterfly advertisements. On the top of the page in the tabs are My Shutterfly (which is home), My Pictures, Share, Community, and Store and then there is a search bar at the top right corner.

Here is a breakdown of what you may see in your shutterfly site:

MY SHUTTERFLY (tab)
Here, you will find your recent albums, projects, shared pictures, videos, and projects, and your community.

MY PICTURES (tab)
Here, you will find all of your pictures. You can choose to view your pictures from the hierarchical folders or from the thumbnail folders. You can upload more pictures on this page, edit pictures, organize them and much more.

SHARE (tab)
Here is where you can view your own share site information. That is if you have created a share site. To create your own share site, click on the Create a new site button on the top right.  You can also find information find information to get more out of your share site.

COMMUNITY (tab)
Here you will find public galleries from other Shutterfly users.

STORE (tab)
Here is where you will find items like Photo Books, Cards and Stationery, Calendars, Photo Gifts (mugs, picture frames, etc.) and more.

That pretty much sums up what shutterfly can do for you. I of course use other online photo storage sites like snapfish, Kodak gallery, photobucket, flickr and a few others. Shutterfly just happens to be my top favorite.  I have had wonderful experiences with the site and their prints come out excellent. Not to mention that they are very quick with the delivery.  That’s my take on shutterfly. To see shutterfly, click on the icon below. To download the free iPhone app, click on the iTunes icon below. If anybody would like to share their experiences with shutterfly, please feel free to comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers.

This week, we chose the desktop by taipan_snake titled Minimal Desktop. It has a nice and clean look and I also love the use of the dock, especially using spaces to divide certain applications. The wallpaper is ‘Minimal’ by thirteen-eightyone (http://thirteen-eightyone.deviantart.com/art/minimal-147371148) and the dock icons are Kobhens (http://www.robertourso.com/goodies/goodies.html) and he used GeekTool for the time (am/pm), and the date. Again, very nice minimalistic desktop taipan_snake.