Top Draw Viewer

Like to switch your desktops up all the time? Well Google has made it easy for us Mac users to have really cool artsy backdrops randomly generated and replaced on our desktop at a given time interval with their new application Top Draw. Here’s an example of what Top Draw has on my desktop right now...

Picture 1

iTunes 8

Two bits of iTunes awesomeness... first up, iTunes 8 is out, as many of you must know by now. Well there are some nice new changes and one annoying one. First the good: the new Genius feature lets you get a chance to make playlists that are similar to the song you are currently listening to. A lot like Pandora al in itunes with your music. The other great new feature is the new visualizer!

itunes 8 visualizer

Along with being really cool it can be controlled with some pretty basic key commands that make it even more fun!

Check it out:

  • • + and -: Increase or decrease the intensity (brightness) of the particles; multiple presses further increase or decrease the intensity.
  • A and S: Add or Subtract particles to the visualizer. You can make the visualizer as complex (or sparse) as you wish.
  • R: Reset the intensity and particle count to their default values.
  • E: When in nebula mode (press N), this greatly accentuates the nebula clouds, making them very easy to see. (If you’ve used the M key to change modes, you may find that the nebula clouds aren’t visible; it seems they’re only used in certain modes.)

And my one annoyance is that now iTunes has the arrows to the iTunes store on always... not cool. Well throw this line into your terminal and goodbye annoying little arrows!

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE

Until next time, enjoy!

Google Chrome

Google seems like they want to get into pretty much anything and everything that touches the internet... until recently they had yet to make a browser; enter Chrome. This browser is still in the workings, but Google has released a working version for XP and Vista so far, and... I really like it.

Google Chrome

Chrome is smooth and simple to use. The url bar doubles as a search bar, the tabs are above everything and out of the way, but they don’t feel out of place. Bookmarks are imported from Firefox automatically, including the toolbar bookmarks. My favorite part is that Google thinks of everything... when you open a new tab the window shows you your most visited sites in thumbnail form and has a list on the side of recent sites. How cool is that?



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