http://desktopography.net/

I made some icons today for a set of maintenance hard drives I was putting together. I figured the unified gray was the best considering they were all utilities. The icons.

Ok so here are some neat things you can do with your Mac if you have one.
Modifier Keys:

• ⌘ Command/Apple
• ⌥ Option
• ⇧ Shift
• ⌃ Control

Most of the cool animations in the OS can be slowed way down to look cool. For example, push the yellow button at the top corner of your window. This is the minimize button. It sucks the window into the dock. If you hold down shift and do this, it does it all slow. Cool huh? This works for a lot of things. If you have Panther, it works for Exposé. Tiger, Dashboard. Leopard, Spaces. There are lots more, but you can figure those out for yourself.

In most web browsers, you can ⌥-click any link and it will download the linked file. Let’s say someone has a link to an MP3 song in their blog. I know, I know, that never happens but for sake of argument, let’s say they do. You can option click on that link and it will start downloading that file instead of opening it in the window. Works for pages too. Keep in mind, this only really does you good if you get linked DIRECTLY to a file. If you try ⌥-click download google.com for example, you won’t get pictures on the homepage because you’re only linking to google.com, not the pictures that are on Google. This trick works in Safari, Firefox, Shiira and Camino. Opera, not so much. Similarly, you can open your Downloads window (⌥-⌘-L in Safari) and paste a link in and it will download the same way. This might only work in Safari. I didn’t test.

Screen shots. This is a common question, how does one take a screen shot on a Mac? Well, it’s quite simple. ⇧-⌘-3 for a full screen shot, ⇧-⌘-4 for a selection. Those are the basics. There’s also a really cool one where if you do ⇧-⌘-4 and then hit the space bar afterwards, you can take pictures of select elements. Like a single window, or an icon. Try it out and you’ll see. You can also use the Application Grab found in your Applications/Utilities folder if you don’t like using your keyboard to take these. Those picture show up on your desktop as Picture 1, Picture 2, etc.

Disk Images. I see people use disk images wrong all the time. Granted, they aren’t really intuitive. I have yet to figure out why Apple went with disk images instead of zip files or sit or whatever. Either way, they’re obviously here to stay and they’re good. So…
You may have downloaded something that looks like this at some point: Firefox for example comes in one of these. So do thousands of other applications. This is a disk image (.dmg stands for disk image). If you open it, it makes one of these: What the heck is that? It’s a disk. Not like one that you stick in your computer, but a software version of that. Basically, all you need to do, is take whatever you want form the disk image off and put it on your computer. If it’s an Application, put it in your Applications folder. Note: Copying it to the dock isn’t enough. 90% of the time, it’s just an Application. Sometimes there are installers on them. In that case, you can just run the installer from the disk image. Once you’re all done, Eject (⏏) the disk by dragging it to the trash. Then you can throw away the disk image because the contents of it are already on your computer. If you are seeing a disk pop up every time you launch an Application or Document you did it wrong :(

Ok that’s all for tonight. I’m surprised I had so much of that sitting in my head. There’s much more I just have to remember it all when I want to post.

Lookout Point - Danny Elfman - Fable OST

I had foot surgery a couple of days after I got home. Thank goodness. It was long overdue and they are healing up quite nicely.

I didn’t see rain for something like 10 weeks so I was getting anxious. However, the Northwestern US delivered just as expected. It’s been drizzling for a couple of days and there was a downpour today for a while. That’s one thing I will never miss about this place. You really can’t beat growing up in a rain forest.

Thank you all for the spell checking, grammar corrections and general error rectification. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I won’t have a career centered around the English language. I think I’ll stick to computers.

I think there was one more thing… but I forgot.

Let’s make fun of science

Last Saturday was my parents retirement party so congrats to them! We got 72 people into our backyard which isn’t impossible, but it’s not easy. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but I got to see some people that I havn’t seen in a while and had some decent conversations once I got past the “Yes I’m still in school, LA was great, kthxbye” bull shit.

I’ve also been working at store in Portland, getting my mac chops up. I got the opportunity to screen share (see near the end of the page) recently and let me tell you… that is some awesome technology! It helps remote troubleshooting a lot. Half of the time is spent figuring out where the person is and what they are doing so you can tell them how to take the right steps to fix the problem. I’ve taken lots of calls where all I have really said is, “Remove the printer, then add it again exactly the same.” That call, can take up to half an hour. It’s crazy. Maybe I’ll talk about that for a bit.

I’m gonna do my best not to complain here, but there are some things everyone needs to understand about computers. Most importantly, I think, is that computers don’t care about you. They don’t care how many important e-mails you have, how many priceless photos that you can’t recreate, how many awesome tracks you have in your iTunes… they don’t care at all. So when you lose all your data, even if all you did was treat your computer with the utmost care and respect, it’s your fault if you didn’t back up. Period. If you don’t know how, tough. The computer still doesn’t care. You have to figure out something or be prepared for sadness and anger when you loose all your files.

I made it sound like I was going to list off a bunch of stuff. I lied. It got complain-y. Maybe I’ll make it a semi-regular installment. For now, I must go work and prepare for the fall and tomorrow. Busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy

Site redesign coming soon when I have a chance to breathe.

Cath… - Death Cab For Cutie

What’s next… Well, I’m going home for 3 weeks to work at the usual mac job, celebrating my parent’s retirement, then it’s back to school in lovely Boston, MA. That’s what I really can’t wait for. I love home and I love my family, really I do. But my heart is in Boston. I have just fallen in love with that city too much. I’m moving into an apartment September 1^st to hopefully start getting some roots there and maybe gain residency one day. If you want the address, just contact me. So it is will sadness that I leave LA but excitement that I will come home with.

For those in sunny Los Angles, thank you and see you later. For those who live in the Northwest, see you tomorrow. For those in Boston, see you all soon.

Afterall - William Fitzsimmons

In other news, if you haven’t seen Dan In Real Life, you should. It’s a great movie. I watched it again last night and it makes me laugh and somehow, I feel as if I can identify. Not that I am 40+ with 3 daughters or anything, but I sort of picture my self being like Steve Carrell’s character one day. Who knows.

Six Packs Revisited (Bonus Tracks) - The Get Away People

I have conquered a new mile stone in programming. Object Oriented Programming. It’s a big step to take, a rite of passage if you will. I’m really proud because I’m all self taught. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a course on this. Granted, it’s taken me 21 years to get here, not a semester, but I’ve done it. Hopefully I will do more.

For lack of a better name I present to you Ring Trick and his colorful friend, with an equally stupid name, Ring Trick (color). Ta-Da!

The Horror - RJD2

So what am I up to a year later as far as games go? Well, I’m currently playing Fable. It’s a light weight RPG. A decent sized world but not too big. It’s all set paths too. You can’t really go exploring like you can in some games. I also got a hold of Oblivion. I’ve barely started, but that reminds me a lot of the WoW landscape in terms of depth. It’s even more expansive actually. Easily larger than any city (proper) in the US. Also you can just pick up most anything. Here’s a skull, there’s an arrow stuck in the wall, there’s someone’s ring from there finger… you know, stuff you totally need.

These both sound addictive, and to some extent they are. I spent a lot of hours on Fable the first weekend I got it. And I’ve barley done anything in Oblivion and already spent an hour or so. However, both these games are single player. There’s not Massively Multiplayer Online world to get sucked into. I can pause whenever I want for any reason. It really takes a lot of stress off the game.

I am also playing an online game… kinda. It’s Dungeons & Dragons which is usually played on a table with dice. However, I found an IRC server that I can play on. Getting people together for a game is quite a challenge sometimes and there’s always someone who will play there. I have been sucked into that kind of game for hours on end and not been able to leave, kinda like WoW. But 1. I don’t have to play 2. it’s a lot more work than WoW so I have to have the energy and 3. the whole style of playing is way more laid back so if I need to leave for sleep/just because, I can.

Lily Allen - Knock ‘Em Out
Check out the rest of this album. It’s good.

And there’s so much more too.

GO HERE AND WATCH THIS TOMORROW!

Make the internets crawl.