UsingMac.com
Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users
Apple T-Shirts for Mac Geeks
I've seen some Apple T-Shirts but I like these 5 the most. Have a nice weekend!
Macs Rock - Teddy Bear
Batch Resize Images
While resizing all my images, photos and wallpapers, I came into this great trick to easily batch resize images that I've never read somewhere else before; You can simply use Preview to batch resize images.
Wanna know more?
90 More Nice Apple Wallpapers
Here again, UsingMac.com presents great stumble of Apple wallpapers for you to enjoy. I hope these Apple wallpapers can help you enhance your experience in using Mac. Maybe, just maybe, these great Apple wallpapers can impress your PC friends and turn them into Mac users. *evil smile*
50+ Nice Apple Wallpapers
Most of the time, simple and unobtrusive designs may increase your productivity while at the same time may help you get inspiration. Nice wallpapers can also be used for eye-candy when having your break. Here are several nice Apple-related wallpapers for you to enjoy. Happy scrolling!
Preview Tutorial - Resize at Ease
Why do you need to look for others when you've already had free, capable application shipped along with your Leopard?
As Usual, Find Image First
Some of the readers might have known that I like to find an image before starting my tutorial. Here is the chosen one :
Preview Tutorial - Extract Shape
With Preview alone, you can do the most basic image editing, such as Extract Shape.
Pick Your Image
If your image is in the form image type file, i.e. JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc, you can highlight the file and then choose Open With ▸ Preview (if Preview hasn't been set as your default application) or simply use Command-A.
However, if you want to pick your image from existing Application's icon, you can do these steps :
- Highlight the icon
- Copying it into clipboard (Command-C)
- Open Preview
- Select File ▸ New From Clipboard (Command-N)
I picked : MacBook Air which I just captured from Apple.
Mac - Pink Valentine
Mac, you're my Valentine..
Valentine, the day full of love and joy, won't be perfect without the existence of your Mac in your life. I think this should be the answer you can get from Mac fanboy-fangirl. You can also find several interesting, creative ideas and modifications on their Apple, themed "Pink Valentine".
Let's see what are those hot pink products.
40+ Mac Mods from Time to Time
Though Apple products have been really elegant-looking, people are still having the urge to change the looks and feel of their Mac, here are several Mac Mods from Time to Time:
Photoshop Trick - Tiny Background Images
If you've ever noticed, you would find out that some of the Desktop Pictures provided inside your Mac have relatively small size and dimension that can fill the whole of your widescreen. This is because those background images can be tiled when it's being set as Desktop Background.
In Leopard, you can find some examples of background images inside folder Mac HD (which is your hard drive name) ▸ Library ▸ Desktop Pictures. Ripples Blue.jpg is one of the small sized repeatable background images I'm talking about.
However, this kind of background images can be easily created. Let's see how you can do it.
Some Nice Leopard Wallpapers
New wallpapers dedicated to Leopard themes have been really hot among designers. And here are some nice Leopard wallpapers.
Leopard Preview Trick : Grab Icon
Responding my recent article Easiest Way to Grab Icon, Luke provides very nice trick that I believe putting it here will be helpful.
With a simple highlight and import, Preview can display exactly the displayed icon. Let's see how to do it.
Merry Christmas!
It's Christmas. From the bottom of my heart, I gladly share my joy with the hope that the words of peace and love will be spread around the world.
By the way, I've spotted several web sites that have changed their logo to greet this wonderful Christmas.
-
As expected from our uncle Google, four creative Christmas logos
for its site (as far as I know) have been created.
know.
- Yahoo!
-
Not willing to lose, Yahoo! also has created Christmas logo
with animation which can be seen on the site. I am afraid
I cannot display the whole animation here. Maybe, a sneak peak
can be snatched in.
The Army of Minis
Browsing around and I found out these funny and cool stuffs. Maybe you've ever seen these stuffs before; But, still, I hope you can enjoy it.
Strange Yet Creative Mods
iRobot
iCar
Leopard Secret - Vortex, Time Machine Background
Digging around my Finder and discovering this amazing background for Time Machine make me very proud of myself.
I don't have any devices available to access my Time Machine. However, I can tell from Mac OS X Leopard Guided Tour how does the Time Machine background look like.
Leopard - Change iCal Icon Color
Red and white is the original iCal icon color. Let's change it.
File with icns Format
iCal icon is stored in the file App-empty.icns. This file full-path is :
Macintosh HD ▸ Applications ▸ iCal ▸ Contents ▸ Resources
Adjust Color Using Preview
You are recommended to back up the original icon before doing some changes in the icon. Now, open the App-empty.icns with Preview. Next, you may use the new Preview tools Adjust Color and make the adjustments like below :
Leopard - Invisible Dock and Black Dock
Are you getting bored already with your monotonous looking Dock?
Invisible Dock
When I browse throughout my Leopard, I've found out that there are several image files in PNG format that control the appearance of the Dock. I tried to delete those files ( I made backup before that ) and I got invisible glass for my Dock. Let's see what are those files.
The glass where your icons sit is controlled by image files named scurve. It's separated into four files, scurve-sm, scurve-m, scurve-l and scurve-xl. I think scurve stands from super curve. I hope I'm not wrong. The one white line at the bottom of the Dock is controlled by an image file named frontline. A line that divide Dock into two parts is controlled by an image file named separator.
And all of them are located inside :
Macintosh HD ▸ System ▸ Library ▸ CoreServices ▸ Dock ▸ Contents ▸ Resources
Leopard - New Preview Tools
Leopard Preview got some new tools, from the coolest and most useful one to the ugliest and least useful.
Adjust Color
This is the most useful new feature of Preview in Leopard. As its name states, it helps you adjust your image color right inside the Preview. This tool isn't attached to the toolbar. However, you should be able to call it up with keystrokes Command-Option-C or with menu
Apple ▸ Tools ▸ Adjust Color.
With some adjustments on Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature, Tint and Sepia, you could actually enhance special effect to your image, like what I did to this Leopard's image Clown Fish.jpg. This image can be found inside
Macintosh HD ▸ Library ▸ Desktop Pictures ▸ Nature.
Cat Emoticons Inside Adium
Enrich your Adium chat messenger with these cute cat emoticons.
Using ColorSync Utility
I love image. I love editing image. Fortunately, I met ColorSync Utility.
ColorSync Utility can help me edit my image. I can Resize Image, Apply Profile to image and do Image Correction.
First of all, we need to open our image(s) with ColorSync Utility. You have to highlight image(s) that you want to edit. Then, Control-Click on one of those images. After that, a menu will pop-up. From this menu, mouse hover on Open With and choose ColorSync Utility to open this image(s) in its field.
Are You a Real Apple Fans?
I won't be hesitate to answer yes right before I know these facts..
MacBook Pro owner will quickly..
send it to Computer Choppers and give it shiny gold armor.
