It’s that time of the month when I overhaul my desktop. I was in the mood for editing the Mac theme, and wanted to try something new. Been getting quite bored by just Geek-tooling my desktop.
I was inspired by ~rissol from deviantart. This guy is the dude as far as Mac Theme-ing goes! So I looked up theme-ing the Mac. Thought I’d give Magnifique (a Mac theme-ing app) a try. Sadly, there is a pretty scary warning on the Magnifique website which reads.
WARNING: DO NOT use Magnifique on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. It’s almost certain that it will mess up your system beyond repair. We are planning a complete rewrite of Magnifique once Snow Leopard is released. Thanks for everyone’s support
GingerBreadMan
Needless to say, I was quite bleh-ed out after reading that. So thought “Oh well, might as well do something!“. Low and behold.
Desktop Wallpaper:
Geektool Quote of the day:
curl -s http://www.dailyzen.com/ | sed -n “/<!–Add Quote for correct day–>/,/</TD>/p”|sed -e “s/<[^>]*>//g” |strings|fold -sw60
Geektool Time
date +%D
What amused me the most was placing the VLC icon. I couldn’t help but stop grinning looking at that VLC Slalom Pole Cone Icon nested at the Gingerbreadman’s feet. Bwahaha!
I know, the desktop looks very ordinary, but come-on, not bad for 5 mins of effort. And the cone looks awesome! It really does!! … Oh well 
I promise my next one will be awesome 
Enjoy
UPDATE: For those of you who are unable to use the ‘Quote of the day’ script, please scroll through the comments where I have linked the original article. The code gets messed up when one copy pastes into/from WP to Geektool. Dunno why. The fonts are also linked in the comments section . Also, feel free to check out the desktops from July-November for other Geektool inspirations here. I personally prefer Newspaper desktop from October
20 Comments
LIFEHACKER FEATURE DESKTOP! W00T!
I tried the script but it looks like it’s broken. Does it work for you?
The script does not work for me either.
Ok people have been commenting on the fact that the script doesn’t work.
This seems to be the problem.
My post is a copy paste of the script I have used in Geektool (which is working). When I copy paste it from my article back into geek-tool, the script doesn’t work. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening. Sorry.
Catch the Script here – http://www.korvus.com/blog/geek/dailyzen-in-geektool/
This should work!
EDIT: Turns out WP formats a script that I paste into comments/article. Dunno why
One of the errors is that the quotes pasted are typographical quotes. But still not working
what is the font, size and color ? great desktop, would like to replicate it the same way
Jamie,
Thanks for the comment. Glad you liked it.
Here are the font details
Blackboard Quote of the day – Nihilschiz Handwriting – http://www.dafont.com/nihilschiz-handwrit.font – Size 19
Date Font – http://www.dafont.com/jane-austen.font – Size 24
Color = Orange – Reduce Opacity to 62%
VLC Icon = Full Size
Thank You, the desktop looks so much better with the correct fonts and size’s! Again great desktop!
great desktop!
i just downloaded geektool and copied the script under shell/command
nothing shows up. also
Geektool time…date +%D where do i enter that in and what about the VLC icon.
Sorry but I’m completely lost. any step by step instructions would be greatly appreciate it.
Thanks so much!
Thanks Alex
Here is what you should do. Since you have downloaded geektool, add a geeklet (drag the shell icon onto your desktop)
a) date +%D to get the date format in the command section
Some people have been having trouble replicating the quote of the day command. I suggest you have a look at the link in the comments that I have pasted to have a look at the original code from korvus blog.
That should help you out. Google geektool instructions, or check it out on lifehacker. It’s quite easy. Lemme know if you still cant figure it out
Also the VLC icon is basically the icon in largest size possible. Right click on desktop VLC icon and go to view options –> make it max size possible.
Andy, thanks for your quick response.
I copied and pasted the command into a text file and saved it as a .sh (made it executable) followed the rest of the instructions and it works!!!! my desktop looks awesome.
thanks so much!!!!
Haha. No problem. Am glad it worked.
Feel free to look at my previous works, if you want inspirations. I personally prefer October desktop. Am surprised that didn’t get LH feature and this one did
Cheers!
Good desktop background. Looks pretty much cool.
hey man. I like your desktops. I noticed you also like them clean (ie. without icons) which I also do. I figured out a way to actually make the menu bar hide also, if you wanna learn. It’s pretty easy, it comes back into view when you mouse over the top area of the screen
Do you mean Presentyourapps? It’s an app that I use sometimes to get rid of my menubar. Using quicksilver helps you get rid of all unnecessary desktop clutter.
Hi – what is your Refresh value for these shell commands?
(reposting to add the “notifyme”) command
Thanks!
Well it depends from command to command. If you are looking at the November desktop. Refresh rate isn’t that important. Because Quote of the day remains the same for a … day, and so does the date. So i’ve kept it at 3700s. So that it eats less memory. Remember the higher the refresh rate for complex scripts, the more effort on your system.
If you look at October desktop, iTunes tracks have to be updated every 20 seconds. Calender – 3700s. News – 3600s (i prefer hourly news, you can reduce if you want to). Signature = 40000s
You get the idea right?
Great post, thanks !
This is a great script! As for your code, it will work in WP if you insert
andbefore and after the code. I’m glad that I found this script here since the Encarta quote of the day script no longer works.P.S. you have to put code with the before and after the script. The comment I left previously added the code. Aargh!
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