When Uno is installed it takes some of the system’s interface information and stores it to one side, replacing it with it’s own. The result is that OSX takes on a new look, similar to the style of the Tiger iTunes and Mail apps…
Hey, I don’t know how long these will be up so go there soon: The San Francisco Chronicle has done some interviews with various Apple luminaries as a lead up to Apples’ 30th birthday.
The hack that I tried below had a few glitches related to Open and Save dialogs, so I took it off. Since then I got a tip to try Uno. There was very little documentation with Uno except to say that it would move some system files to one side and then replace them with its own; the result being a new unified look to the interface.
If I didn’t like the result I could run the installer again and choose to uninstall. That would take things back to standard OSX.
Gulp. I gave it a try, and it works a treat. Now all windows have a smooth satin-like look to them. No more horizontal lines — no more brushed metal.
I’ll try it for a couple of weeks to see if any unpleasant surprises crop up before posting it to the Mac Tips site, but so far, I’m rapt.
If you’re brave, here’s the link.
|
This is what I’m playing with at the moment: A haxie called Unifier.
Apart from a slight glitch with Save dialogs, it seems to be working great.
Oh, sorry. In case you’re scratching your head, it removes the brushed metal effect.
A great resource. I was just stepping through a whole bunch of spoken word tracks and making them Remember Last Position, one by one.
Duh! I went to the site below and found the appropriate script in moments…
Since I wrote the previous entry, something happened that caused me to think seriously about pulling it from the page. I installed a massive OS upgrade, from 10.4.0 to 10.4.5
The upgrade process itself went flawlessly, but after the re-boot, the fonts that I was admiring moments before now looked fat and fuzzy. Several more re-boots, and some tweaking of the font smoothing properties had no helpful effect. I even searched for solutions on the web, only to find other people in the same boat, but no real answers that would restore things to how they were before. Finally I ran the Repair permissions feature of Disk Utility.
Eureka. Just like that, although I suspect that it’s not as perfect as it was this morning. But then, I may just be pixel peering again…
In a previous entry (iBook, I Think…) I stated that I was waiting for notebook computers to move to super high density LCD displays like those on VGA Pocket PCs before taking the leap; I also was of the opinion that desktop LCDs weren’t up there with CRTs.
Boy, was I ever wrong. I’ve been using a 17 inch iMac exclusively for several days, and it is, stunning. With the font smoothing set to light, and sitting relaxed, and at the proper distance from the screen, how could it get any better than this?
How could I have been so wrong about LCDs?
Partly because as you get older you tend to stick with what you’re used to, and partly because of what might be called the pixel peering technique. By that I mean, being overly obsessive when examining new technology. In the past, when CDs started to supplement LPs, doubters would look look physically strained while listening to a CD being played — and they’d claim to hear some digital choppiness. They weren’t enjoying the music — they were examining it.
Same thing with digital photography, although in the early days digital cameras were pretty lame; not now.
With LCD monitors I tended to get really close and peer at the pixels. Not any more — I’m sold!
Here’s a quick tip for OSX users. Forgive me if you already know this.
In Safari you might see a link to a file that you don’t want to view online; it might be a Quicktime file that you’d rather download to keep.
Instead of right-clicking (or CTRL-clicking) and choosing to save the file, if your Safari Downloads window is already open then you can simply grab the link and drop it there.
I was just reading a Playlist review of the new Apple iPod Hi-Fi. I’m only moderately interested in the Hi-Fi, as I don’t even own an iPod. I read it more because I’m always just as fascinated by the response to Apple’s new offerings as I am by the products themselves.
I remember when the Shuffle came out and the lack of a display became somehow a plus rather than a trade off, at least in the eyes of the marketing department. I don’t even have a shuffle; I do have an mp3 player from another brand though. It only holds 128 megs of files, but that’s enough for a couple days use, and enough that I certainly need and use the display to navigate my way through the tracks.
Getting back to the Hi-Fi, what struck me by the article wasn’t so much the discussion of what was included and what was left out. No, rather I was struck by the speakers themselves. In olden days they were called the loud speakers, and then the loud was dropped and they were just the speakers; it’s a shorter term and the loud part is probably redundant.
But where have I been? Now, all of a sudden they are speaker drivers, or worse still, just drivers. As an aside, why is it that when a car has disc brakes — the discs themselves (and they are discs) are now called rotors? It happens everywhere you look.
Here’s another example: a cellular phone was what it was, and a mobile phone (although another name for the same thing) is still what it says — a phone that’s mobile. But what is a cell? A cell isn’t a phone — it’s just a cell. And what’s this Fox News thing of calling intelligence intel? Is intelligence too much of a mouthful that we should instead use a term that could be confused with a chipmaker?
Here’s another one from all this Hi-Fi discussion: price point. Do a search and replace, and remove every instance of point from price point and you are still reading the same thing; the same meaning. What’s the point of the point?
Finally, another observation about words, and that is the word: Lifestyle, used as an adjective. Try substituting the phrase: frivilous waste-of-money version of an otherwise ordinary product, and it fits everywhere that you see the word.
I guess Lifestyle serves a purpose then, as it shortens the sentence — still makes me cringe though…
I mentioned Mac Notables below; I should also mention Mac Voices.
Like Mac Notables, it’s also hosted by Chuck Joiner. On this site though the downloadable audio is of short five to ten minute discussions with a single guest at a time.
A lot can be said in five minutes — great stuff.
