With Firefox 3 in the final stages of beta, I’ve been looking at what extensions I use and whether or not I wish to continue using them. Since most extensions don’t work in the beta version of Firefox without the use of Nightly Tester Tools, I’ve been living without most of them for a while. Below is a list of extensions I consider must-have. All the extensions I’ve listed either work already with Firefox 3rc1, or work with Nightly Tester Tools forcing them to work. (more…)
Category: Mac & OS X
Bright: Free vector icons
There are plenty of free icons out there, but most don’t include the original vector (Adobe Illustrator) source files. Min’s Blog is offer Bright, a collection of 148 hand-crafted icons in vector format, available for download. Even better, you can use Bright! for personal and commercial projects free of charge.
Force Quit your apps faster
Most Mac users know that you can force-quit an application by hitting Command + Option + Esc and selecting the app from the list. You did know about that, right? I mean, you weren’t actually launching Activity Monitor and selecting from the list and force-quitting that way, were you? You can force-quit your apps fast by Option + Click and hold for about 1 second on the application icon in the Dock and selecting Force Quit from the pop-up menu.
Clear print jobs from the completed list in OSX 10.5
If you’ve ever opened the individual printer application that launches when you print a job, you’ve no doubt noticed there is a Completed Jobs tab which will show you a list of documents you’ve printed in the past. Unfortunately, there is no quick way to delete all those print jobs directly from the list. Instead, you must use CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). In your Web browser of choice, go to to http://127.0.0.1:631/printers/ . This will take you to a configuration page which lists all the printers you have set up on your Mac. Now click the “Cancel All Jobs” button that appears under the printer whose current and completed jobs you’d like to remove. If you would like to prevent all future print jobs from being stored in this completed jobs list, open your Terminal application in the Utilities folder and enter the following, followed by hitting the Enter key:
cupsctl PreserveJobHistory=No
You can change it back by re-entering the code and changing “No” to “Yes” at any time. In addition to deleting past print jobs, the CUPS configuration page allows you to configure some settings on your printer such as resolution, color and quality settings, paper settings and defaults, etc. Obviously what you can configure depends on what features the printer has.
Phantasm CS rocks Adobe Illustrator
When we talk about plugins, you generally assume we’re talking about Photoshop add-ons. Most people don’t even realize that you can add features to Adobe Illustrator using plugins, let alone name a good one. Phantasm CS Studio 1.0 by Astute Graphics is not only one of those good ones, but it’s a whole suite of good ones. Where most plugins have the goal of creating artwork for you, Phantasm CS is more of a production tool in that it’s main set of tools involves the ability to adjust colors by Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Curves, Levels and more. But Phantasm CS doesn’t completely leave you out in the cold when it comes to cool “design” features. The Halftone tools is uber-cool if you ask me, but I’ll get into that later. (more…)
OSX system sound song – watch, listen & download!
This little gem is made up entirely of OSX system sounds — a creative project by a designer living in New York City. You can download the GarageBand file used to create this tune from here.
Tunebar adds iTunes goodness to your desktop
One of the things I loved about SoundJam, the original iTunes app before Apple bought it, was the ability to download customizable themes that took up little space on my screen. One of my favorites was one that was a slim bar that sat just below the Apple menu bar. It took up little space, and added all the basic controls needed. (more…)
Fine-tune your volume adjustments in OS X
If you own a laptop, you probably use the Volume key shortcuts (F4 and F5) to adjust your volume, rather than visiting the System Preferences or Volume menu item. Every time you press the Volume key, a full block of volume is raised or lowered in the Volume bezel on your screen. If the amount it is raised or lowered is too much or not enough, you can adjust the amount by a quarter of a block at a time. 
To fine-tune the Volume adjustment, hold the Shift and Option keys while hitting F4 or F5. This fine-tuning can be done with the Volume menu item as well, but it’s just easier to use the keyboard shortcuts. Update: This trick, as stated in the first sentence, is for Apple Laptops. While it may work with Apple desktop keyboards (I don’t have one hooked up right now, so I can’t check), it also may not work with any other branded keyboard. It’s also a Leopard-only trick.
How to speed up your Mac
While there is no definitive cure-all for making your machine as good (and as fast) as day one, there are some basic things you can do that might help reclaim disk space, remove some clutter and generally speed up your Mac. Wired Magazine offers some insight and advice on how to speed up your Mac – what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t read the article, or you miss it, the one point I wish to drive home is that repairing file permissions and updating the prebindings will NOT speed up your Mac. It’s a myth that has lived too long.