Today’s desktop screenshot from the Appleviews Flickr Pool is by taipan_snake titled Interloper Desktop. I chose this desktop for the week because of the simplicity of the buildings and the setup of GeekTool and Adium.
He used GeekTool for the date and time.
The Bowtie theme he used is the Zukunft Bowtie Theme by janik at DeviantART.
Download the bowtie theme here: http://janik.deviantart.com/art/Zukunft-bowtie-theme-109443279
The icons are The Kohbens Iconset by Roberto Urso.
Downloaded The Kohbens Iconset here: http://www.robertourso.com/goodies/goodies.html
The wallpaper is interloper by ether at DeviantART.
Download the wallpaper here: http://ether.deviantart.com/art/interloper-153447829

To view taipan_snakes other work on Flickr, click his favicon (to the left).
Well done taipan_snake! Remember, to be included in the Appleviews Group Pool, you need to upload your work!

For this weeks desktop, my husband created this desktop. He wanted to create something different (hence think differently) by using animal prints and other odd items to the background. I used DragThing to make my frequently used folders on the bottom right (Helvetica font) and ecoute for playing music without having to open iTunes. For the calendar, I simply tweaked DateLine (using Helvetica font and customizing the colors). Please, feel free to upload your customized desktop to the Appleviews Flickr Pool….see the link on the right. Enjoy!

Another customization tool that I have seen being searched on the Internet is Cacti.

This is another tool that I do not know very much about. Again, I went directly to the source (http://www.cacti.net/index.php) to obtain information about it. The information below is from the Cacti web site.

Cacti is a complete frontend to RRDTool, it stores all of the necessary information to create graphs and populate them with data in a MySQL database. The frontend is completely PHP driven. Along with being able to maintain Graphs, Data Sources, and Round Robin Archives in a database, cacti handles the data gathering. There is also SNMP support for those used to creating traffic graphs with MRTG.

Cacti’s features consist of graphs, data sources, data gathering, templates, graph displays, and user management. The latest version of Cacti is 0.8.7e

LINKS:

Below is a list of links from the Cacti website.

Additional scripts for use with Cacti here: http://www.cacti.net/additional_scripts.php

The Cacti Manual

Cacti Documentation Site

Installation Guide For Unix/Linux

Upgrade Guide

Cacti Forum

FAQ

To download Cacti:  http://www.cacti.net/download_cacti.php

Spine (formerly Cactid) is a poller for Cacti. It is written in native C, makes use of POSIX threads, and is linked directly against the net-snmp library for minimal SNMP polling overhead. It is a replacement for the default cmd.php poller so it must be decided if using Spine makes sense for your installation.
For more information about Spine, go to this link: http://www.cacti.net/spine_info.php

To download Spine (Cactid): http://www.cacti.net/spine_download.php

This concludes this article about Cacti. This is another tool that I myself am not too familiar with. I am however considering trying out this tool to use with tracking the usage on this web site. We shall see. When I do finally work up the nerve to try it out, I will be sure to post an update as to my experience with this amazing tool. If there is anybody reading this who has expertise or has tried this tool and wants to share their experiences and tips, feel free to leave a comment and spread the wealth with our fellow readers!

Todays article is about the creative implementation of GeekTool and Yahoo Widgets by Zack. He has done an excellent job implementing these tools into everyday scenes. Check these out.
GRAFFITI
On this desktop, Zack chose to use Graffiti as part of his customization. He used several fonts in GeekTool for the clock, date, month, weekday, CPU, RAM, Uptime, Top Processes, to do list and calendar. He used Yahoo widgets for the battery and weather. Blending it all into the background. This design was also featured in Lifehacker.

Wallpaper:
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/949/train_with_graffiti.html
Dock Information:
www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
Font Information:
Degrassi	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=degrassi
Time 65pt Date 36pt Uptime Text 18pt
Searfont	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=searfont
Month 48pt
Vandalism	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=vandalism
Weekday 36pt RAM Text 24pt
Garage Shock (Condensed)	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=garage+shock
Calander 17pt
Turntablz Bold	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=turntablz
To Do List 14pt Uptime 13pt Top Processes 12pt
Graffiti Treat	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=graffiti+treat
RAM 24pt CPU 24pt AM & PM 36pt
Graffonti 3D Drop	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=graffonti
CPU Text 24pt
Geek Tool Commands
Top Processes	top -FR -l2 -o cpu | grep -v 0.0% | cut -c 7-24| sed -n '15, $p'
Time	date "+%l:%M"
AM & PM	date +%p
Date Number	date +%d
Month	date +%B
Weekday	date +%A
Calendar	cal
To Do List	Create a text file with TextEdit but make sure you click Format>Make Plain Text before save. Then select the file in path in GeekTool.
Uptime	uptime | awk '{print "" $3 " " $4 " " $5 }' | sed -e 's/.$//g';
RAM	top -l 1 | awk '/PhysMem/ {print "" $8 " "}' ;
CPU	top -l 2 | awk '/CPU usage/ && NR > 5 {print $12, $13}'
Text, Uptime, CPU, RAM	Another text file, remember have to Make Plain Text before saving
Yahoo Widgets
Weather Widget	widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/widescapeweather
Battery Widget	widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/wdscp-battery
Icons
iCal	www.blocksoft.net/iconical.html
Folders	http://jr050680.deviantart.com/art/Pry-System-95517859
Hard Drives	http://thvg.deviantart.com/art/Slick-Drives-95235862
Others
http://rimshotdesign.deviantart.com/art/Milkapp-26790473
http://kano89.deviantart.com/art/iPhoto-08-93032097
http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/details.php?id=1980 (alumi icons)
Coversutra for iTunes integration – www.sophiestication.com/coversutra/

SPIDERMAC

INTERESTING BOOK DESKTOP

I’ve been working most of the day to come up with this design. My husband is extremely proficient in PhotoShop. For this desktop, I wanted something to show what my idea desktop would look like. I also wanted to show my love for my husband, hence the love note in my moleskine. So I gathered as many pictures as I could from Google Images and incorporated them into the desktop. I arranged everything to my liking and my husband worked his magic with PhotoShop. I used GeekTool only for the small calendar and the Month, Day and Year. This is what the outcome is. Enjoy!

-TINA

UPDATE:

I just made a few changes to this desktop. I had removed a few items and added a few items. Then, I added some Yahoo Widgets to it. The widgets that I used are the Pictures (which change every five minutes), the calculator, the clock, yahoo mail and a tiny post it note (by the plant) which allow you to add stickies on your desktop. Here is a screenshot of the new desktop:

[starrating template_id=4]

I’ve been working on a new MacBook desktop design. I wanted to have a customized desktop screen with the look of a home office that I’d see my Grandfather in. But, at the same time, I wanted to add something new to bring it up-to-date….My husband offered the suggestion of adding a New MacBook Pro laptop with a screenshot, and Voila! He worked his magic and here is the outcome…
(click the picture to view larger)

Here is the work that was involved in building the desktop as you see above.
First, I looked for all the images. The desk, the armoire (I wanted to make the desk and armoire merge together to have it look like a hutch is on top of the desk), the 2 old framed photos, the 2 tiffany lamps, the chair with the blanket, the plant (which was duplicated – to have on each side of the desk), the desk blotter, the ink pen, the ink jar, the grandfather clock, the cat, the vase, the DaVinci Anatomy of Man art, the Last Supper picture, the antique phone, the antique typewriter, the coffee cup with steam, the old map, the old framed map (above grandfather clock), the stack of papers, the stack of books….I could go on and on. Every single item was found on Google Images.
I drove my husband crazy….every time he would get things arranged on the screen, I’d find more items to put into the room. LOL. For those of you who work with PhotoShop, there were 40+ layers involved in making this a beautiful piece of art. It took HOURS for him to get it Just Right.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the outcome and will probably keep this background for a couple of weeks. Leave a comment and tell me what YOU think about this desktop! Thanks for visiting!!!
-TINA

I’ve decided to wait on upgrading my Mac OS X (Leopard) to the newer version Snow Leopard. Why? I figured that I would wait for Apple work out some of the bugs before I upgrade. I am also making sure that most of the apps that I have on my Mac will work on the new Snow Leopard before upgrading. So, I have been modding my MacBook (you know, the screen, the docks, the icons, the folders, etc.) and came across Magnifique.

What is Magnifique?

Magnifique is a nice little app for theming your OS X. Best of all, it is absolutely FREE! Here are a few examples of some of Magnifique’s features: (Click on the link to see the image of that item.)

• It includes a free theme manager from within the application.
• It saves themes that you have downloaded for easier applying when you’re ready to change Finder or Dock themes.
• Magnifique also offers developers an opportunity to convert their themes into a Magnifique (.mfq) format and provides support for their distribution through the website.
• It has a preview pane for viewing themes before installing or applying new or downloaded themes. (note: not all themes offer previews.)
• Easy to activate themes from within the app via the ‘Restart Finder’ or ‘Restart Dock’ features. (Although if you are running any applications during an installation, you may have to restart those applications.)
• It allows you to mix themes with the Theme Mixer.

Those are the main features of this application. You’re probably wondering how to install the theme and use it. Not to worry, here is a brief explanation of how to use the Magnifique application.

When you launch Magnifique, you want to download some themes. These are located on the bottom of the Available Downloads on the bottom left panel of the screen. From this panel, you can choose which theme you’d like to download (this does not apply the theme, it just downloads it to your ‘My Themes’ panel above the ‘Available Downloads’ panel). When looking through the available themes, you will be able to preview what the theme will look like in the preview pane to the right side of the screen. Once you have downloaded the theme you like, it will appear in the ‘My Themes’ panel. Just select the theme from that list and click ‘Apply Now.’ It’s that easy!

Now you will be presented with a dialog box in which you can either apply the system theme (which themes the windows, menu bar, etc.), apply the custom mods (which are applications mods to match the theme, like QuickTime or iTunes), and/or apply the Dock theme (which themes your Dock) with the chosen theme. Then, you click ‘Apply Theme.’ If you ever want to revert your revert your Mac back to its normal state, just press the ‘Uninstall Theme’ button in the bottom right corner of the window. Then just restart any open application or re-log in to see the changes. Another nice feature that I forgot to mention is the ‘Theme Mixer.’ It allows you to choose different elements from different themes and apply them as one custom theme. You know, a window theme from one, the custom application mods from another, the dock from another. Then, you can save the theme and apply it to your Mac.

Some words of caution:

Remember that there are potential risks when theming your Mac. The files that are necessary for theming could harm your Mac. Make sure you keep a backup of your files. Magnifique is an interesting application and should be used with care. If you apply a theme and it damages your default OS X theme, there’s not much you can do, so again…..make sure to backup, backup, backup.

I use Magnifique for many of my desktop customizations and haven’t had any problems; but, again… you must backup your files! Thanks for reading!

-TINA

To download your copy of Magnifique, click the icon below to go to the website.

Today’s desktop customization theme is by Chazz. The reason I chose this theme is because of the personal feel it gives. Also, it isn’t cluttered. It has the feel of a real desk.
Here are the tools that Chazz used to create this one-of-a-kind desktop.
To change the menubar, Chazz used the program Magnifique with the Mistkikons Dark Theme.
To change the dock, Chazz used the Summer Dock theme.
For the background, Chazz started with a wooden background. Then,  got a .psd of a film strip and a book. Chazz filled the book with pictures and text. For the plant and iPhone, Chazz got them from the internet and traced them out.
To see more of Chazz’s work, check out these links:  (click on the picture to be directed to the site.)