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Mac Tricks and Tips, Wallpapers and Applications for Mac Users
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.
Leopard - Change Login Background
Still remember how to change login background for Tiger? In Leopard, it's totally different.
I remember the last time I changed Tiger login background, I only need to go inside my Desktop Pictures folder and change the filename. Now in Leopard, what should I do?
Find Default Desktop
Leopard stores the default login background in the form of file named DefaultDesktop.jpg. This file is exactly located inside Macintosh HD ▸ System ▸ Library ▸ CoreServices ▸ DefaultDesktop.jpg. As you expected from Leopard, your DefaultDesktop.jpg is actually Aurora.jpg by default.
Replace with New Background
After you spotted the file, change it to other name, such as ExDefaultDesktop. Then, drag the new login background into the folder and change the filename into DefaultDesktop.jpg. Next time you log on your Mac OS X Leopard, you should get your new login background.
Categories:
Leopard,
Tips and Tricks
Tags:
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Login,
login
Leopard - Security Enhancement
All of the securities start from securing accounts.
These three ways hopefully can help you keep your information stored in your account secure. All of these settings are inside Apple → System Preferences → Accounts → Login Options ( the small house at the left-bottom corner of the pane ).
Leopard - Deep into Spaces
After taking to look at Leopard Spaces, now I should take you around, deeper into spaces with F8.
What is F8?
F8 is the keyboard key that will bring you to Leopard Spaces when it's pressed. However, you got to activate it first inside the System Preference.
Deep Inside Spaces - Direct with Arrow
Arrow keys can move around the highlight ( the Spaces remain still ). When you've reach your destined Space, pressing Return, Space or another F8 will bring you into that Space. In the picture below, the slightly darker Space is the highlighted one.
Deep Inside Spaces - Drag and Drop
With drag and drop, you can swap one Space with the other. For example, if you want to swap Space 9 with Space 8, drag the Space 9 to the top of Space 8 and Space 8 will move by itself to the initial position of Space 9. There will be a lot of tricks that can be done with this dragging and dropping.
Let's say that I've already assigned my Firefox to Space 2. Therefore, when I opened my Firefox, I will be warped into Space 2. The very same thing will also happen when I switch my active window to Firefox. But the question here is, I've opened Firefox and I moved the Space 2 to Space 9, what will happen if :
- I open new Firefox window?
- After I opened new Firefox window, I use Command-[`] to rotate between Application windows?
- Then I use the Application switcher to switch to Firefox itself, using Command-Tab followed by Command-Shift-Tab, what will happen?
Leopard Take A Look - Applications Folder
Why does Leopard display Address Book as an icon for Applications Folder? Why is one of Application icon broken?
Automatically Arranged By Name
The Application Folder automatically stacks up all Applications inside by their alphabetical order. Since our (my) Address Book ranks highest by its alphabetical order compare to others, it's displayed as Application icon followed by others' with no opacity, i.e. we can only see a little portion of others'.
The very same rule also applies for those folders located at the right part (launching part is the left part) of Dock.
Leopard Take A Look - Dock
I'm glad to see that our Leopard Dock got a new look.
The Old and The New
Let's recall what our old Tiger Dock looks like..
Leopard Take A Look - Dictionary
Leopard Dictionary got a new look.
Unlike old Tiger OS where Thesaurus and Dictionary are separated into two different Applications, Mac OS X Leopard integrates Dictionary, Thesaurus, Apple Dictionary and Wikipedia into one single Application called Dictionary.
Leopard Take A Look - Mail
Leopard Mail supports AOL, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. And many features added, including RSS.
Mail and Spotlight
You will be really often to use Spotlight inside your Mail. Spotlight can spot messages, to-dos, notes, or even RSS feeds inside your Mail. And I love the new smarter Spotlight ranking system. Let's see how Spotlight search the keyword Leopard for certain RSS. You can compare with Spotlight search result with the very same keyword for entire Mail.
Leopard Take A Look - Finder
Everyone should already know that Leopard provides new features for Finder, such as Cover Flow and new Sidebar. However, who knows exactly the real beauty behind these features..
Cover Flow
As you know, showing picture, reading PDF, or even watching movie come in handy with cover flow. Let's see the snapshot I took when I watch the Leopard welcoming scene. Cover Flow view can be activated using keystrokes Command-4.
Leopard Take A Look - Desktop
I believe you don't want to miss all this features, such as Quick Look and Fan View.
Automatic, Fan and Grid View
Control-Click on your Folder that sits on the Dock. When the contextual menu appeared, mouse hover the View as and there will be three types of new view for Leopard : Automatic, Fan, and Grid.
If you choose automatic view, Leopard will automatically switch to fan view if your folder only has some contents and will switch to grid view for folder with a bunch of contents.
Road to Leopard
Time for Upgrade : 1h 53m 14s
Time for Clean Install : 1h 2m 27s
Total Time Estimation : 2h 55m 41s
Backing Up Data
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. You can see my older post related to this.
Preparing to Install
Once you inserted the installation disk and run the installation, something like this will appear. Restart your Mac to make it reboot from disk. The big 'X' logo is so eye-catching that it's hard to notice there is a Restart button at the bottom-right corner.
Hi, Leopard
Finally, we come into this very exciting moment. The arrival of Leopard.