Verkhovensky’s Internals

I had a hard time choosing a category for this post…

Some good blokes of the Aussie outback have embraced the notion that the pursuit of capital should and must trump all iterations of conventional morality - they have begun to plunder the monuments of dead nobodies for their sacred scrap metal. As Chinese and Indian markets have pushed the price up to a solid 4 bucks a kg, who wouldn’t consider the proposal? I mean, it’s not like the deadies are going to use it. And who are these dead people anyhow? Pharaohs? Get your shovels!

Some concerned party commented that, whereas “it’s one thing to steal copper from the railway tracks, it’s another to steal brass from somebody’s grave.” Sure, and it’s another thing still for the world’s largest exporter of coal (much of which goes to those same Indian and Chinese markets the the grave robbers have targeted) as well as the world’s highest per capita greenhouse gas polluter to have such a poor showing on the scrap metal scene. Cheers to the amoral Australian capitalists!

I recently had a fellow Mac-loving friend over who was salivating over my menu bar (come to think of it, the effect may have been caused by the cheap wine).

Before I continue, a quick screen shot:

Some of these addons were inspired by aesthetic preference, others by a desire not to open my Dashboard ever again. But whatever the reason, I use each one many times throughout the day, and I hope some can help you out too.

First off, WeatherDock.

WeatherDock is an extremely useful little piece of freeware that lets you - surprise! - get weather updates from your menu bar. With locations all over the world (18 degrees and cloudy in Seoul as I write this), multiple city favorites, drop down long range and detailed forecasts, and a ton of other customizable options, WeatherDock is essential for anyone who doesn’t want to bog FireFox down or open the Dashboard too often. One of my favorites.

Next up, Alarm Clock 2.

Set multiple alarms from different songs in your iTunes library, have them repeat on specific days or play just once, use ‘easy wake’ to slowly increase the volume as the alarm plays, wake your comp from sleep, and - maybe best of all - hit the sleep button from the Apple remote tucked under your pillow. But most importantly for an Alarm Clock app is its reliability. I’ve used it exclusively for the past 2 months and it’s never once glitched and got me fired.

Third from the left is the simple and useful Ejector.

This little app does one thing and does it well: combats wrist fatigue by eliminating that long drag and drop to the trashcan to eject mounted volumes (that is, it lets you eject them directly from the menubar). Very slick.

Fourth up is the insanely great iStat menus.

I only tap the surface potential of this amazing little juggernaut in my own menu bar, as beyond hard disc space, network usage and CPU usage (all pictured above in the screen shot), the app also offers menu bar visualizations of bluetooth, memory usage, temps, fans and a commendable replacement for the Apple clock. This was the app that largely enabled me to abandon the Dashboard once and for all (in truth, though, the main reason that I did open it was to have a peek at iSlayer’s other excellent app iStat Pro anyhow).

Fifth, that little Canadian flag is there so that I can see if my keyboard is currently inputting Hangul (the Korean alphabet) or my native keys. Plus, I think it looks pretty.

Moving on to number Six, we have the green battery icon. Unfortunately, I can’t remember how I did this! Anyone help me out here? Sorry about that.

Lastly is the slick iCal icon beside the time.

This is the free version of the app MenuCalendarClock. Really this is just a quick way to check the date (well, more accurately, how far away payday is). But it also has a handy drop down menu to see the rest of the month and months in proximity (with all of your calendar events highlighted). Clicking on a day will open iCal and then do as you will. Big time saver.

But I’ll tack on a quick bonus for all of you who’ve went ahead and installed all of these and become overwhelmed - Menufela. This stealth app totally hides the menubar and gives you the full use of your screen realestate (great for MacBooks!). It costs 5$ but I couldn’t live without it. It looks great.

Well, that’s about all for me. If anybody knows of any other excellent menubar addons let me know. I’ve still got a few spare pixels up there yet!

Technorati Tags: mac, menu bar, addons, apps, kill the dashboard!

Via Lifehacker:

Technorati Tags: toilet culture, wash your hands

Quite beautiful. Picture Verkhovensky peacefully lounging on this piece, spilling his beer and with that old sardonic smile stretched across his yellowing Russian teeth. I’ve squandered my childhood.

via Wallpaper.com, from the Kagan collection.

tags technorati : furniture beauty wasted youth:

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has announced plans to begin development of a human powered search engine to rival Google. Wales explains that, in distinction from the Google methodology, an engine compiled by knowledgeable volunteers would focus on ‘quality results’ as opposed to the exhaustive listings that sometimes make Google’s output overwhelming.

I search Wikipedia nearly as often as I do Google, and would love to see this new project come to fruition. The Wiki community is amazingly obsessive, which provides us, the dedicated info consumers, excellent if not pure brain food.

tags technorati : wikipedia google search technology