Here’s what you will need to make your own transparent laptop picture:

• Digital Camera
• Tripod
• Memory Card reader (not required, but makes it much easier)
• Laptop (yes, windows laptops work too)
• Photoshop, GIMP or similar image editing software

This project involves taking three different pictures. The first two will be taken at the same time, and the last will be taken after some editing. It is very important that you do not move your computer or tripod during the whole process.

First, set up your camera and tripod and frame the shot that you will want your final picture to look like. Take one with the laptop closed, and another with the laptop open. After the shot of the open laptop, do not move the display, the camera’s zoom, or the camera itself.

Now you will have to carefully load the two pictures you took onto your computer. I suppose using another computer may be easier. Open both images in your image editor. Paste the open-laptop image into a layer above the closed-laptop image. Use the Crop Tool to size and rotate a rectangle that will fit exactly on the screen of your laptop. Crop it, then delete the open-laptop layer. You are now left with a picture of whatever was behind your laptop’s screen. This is the image that you will set as your desktop background.

You will now have to do some trial and error. Once you have your desktop background set up, take a step back and maybe even take a picture. You will most definitely have to adjust the color of your background. Go back to your image editor and adjust things like Color Balance, Hue and Saturation until your background is almost the same as the real life background.

Once you have calibrated the color settings, just set it as your background and open some windows like Finder or Adium. Having windows open makes the picture look a lot more real. Now you can step back and take your final picture. Finally, you can edit the image so that the screen and the background match each other even more so.

Feel free to post your results in the comments, would love to see some more!

• $288.86 of software
• No MacHeist bundle duplicates
• No MacZot Friday the 13th Duplicates
• No apps with a MacUpdate rating less than 4.5/5
• No Widgets

Check The Mac Pak on May 1st to see the apps revealed and to buy a bundle. It is looking good (and cheap) so far, but I will have to see the apps for myself.

Also don’t forget our own Switcher’s Giveaway (only 2 days left!), the largest FREE OS X application giveaway, ever!

Note: Their may be simpler, even easier ways to do this but this is how I do it. Comments welcome.

Step One: Making the Icon

For this example, I used an image that I found on Google Images. If you do the same, make sure your base image is at least 128px by 128px. You could also draw your own icon if you are a Photoshop whiz. Anyway, once you have your image, open it in Photoshop or a similar image editor and eliminate the background by deleting it. You just want your subject on top of a transparent background. Now you might want to add a subtle drop shadow if you want, since most icons do. When you like how your icon looks, resize it to 128 x 128 and save it as a PSD or a PNG.

Step Two: Converting the Icon

If you don’t have Apple’s Developer Tools, you will need to install them in order to complete the next step. You can find these tools on your Mac OS X install disk, or Apple’s website.

The tool that we will be using is Icon Composer, which can be found in /Developer/Applications/Utilities. Open Icon Composer and drag your PSD or PNG into every box. For the upper boxes, it will ask you a couple of questions. Always tell it to Use Scaled Version and Extract Mask. Once all the boxes are filled, go to File > Save As and save the icon in a convenient place.

Icon Composer leaves us with an ICNS file, which is almost usable. We now need to convert the ICNS to a RSRC file, which can be easily done with Icns2Rsrc. Just open the app, open the ICNS file, and it will ask you where to save the RSRC.

If you know how to change an icon in Mac OS X, you know what to do now. If not, it is really easy. Open the Get Info window for the RSRC icon, click on the miniature icon in the top left and press Command C (copy). Then, go to the drive or folder that you want the icon to be on, open the Get Info window, click on the mini-icon and press Command V (paste). Now you should have a perfect custom icon.

SketchFighter has both a single player mode and a multiplayer mode. In the single player mode, you travel through different levels, fighting enemies and bosses. You collect power-ups, defeat enemies, and eventually die many times, since it’s quite a difficult game, at least to me. It’s also not a quick game, and takes a while to complete. I have been trying to kill the crab boss of the second level for a couple days, and I’m nowhere near close to finished. The bottom line is that SketchFighter is hard, but rewarding. The multiplayer mode was also quite fun, and was a good break from the single player mode.

You can play over the internet, on the same keyboard, or on a LAN. When I first logged into the internet lobby, there were no players there. I really wanted to try it, so I got into the SketchFighter IRC channel and got one of Ambrosia’s employees to play with me. When playing multiplayer, you can choose between cooperative and competitive modes. In co-op mode, you are tied to your peer with a string of sorts and must complete the level together, which is a really neat idea. Competitive mode lets you compete for the most points. Multiplayer play was very fun, but there weren’t many players out there just yet.

In addition to its other game modes SketchFighter also offers a map editor. I have never been much into creating my own maps, but if you’re the creative type, this might be for you. My favorite part of SketchFighter is its interface and graphics. I think it was a risky graphics choice, like The Wind Waker, but it turned out for the best. Little details like the eraser marks left behind dead enemies and it’s great sound scheme make this game remarkable. SketchFighter is available from Ambrosia Software and goes for $19.

In Boot Camp 1.2, Apple officially added Vista support, adding in Vista drivers and utilities to finally bridge the gap between Mac OS X and Windows Vista. Apple also added in Apple Remote support, allowing control of iTunes and Windows Media Player from your sofa, as well as Software Update. This, of course, all means that there’s no need for tutorials on how to install Vista drivers on OS X, as they are now compatible.

You can download Boot Camp 1.2 in Software Update or from Apple’s Boot Camp download page.

Heres what you will need:

• A tin or other box that has a lid and is easily cut
• Xacto knife or similar
• iPod Dock Connector (comes with recent iPods)
• iPod USB Cable
• Spray paint of your choice
• Glue Gun
• Rubber band

Step One: Making the Cut
Take a look at your iPod Dock Connector (the little plastic thing that came with your iPod). Your objective is to cut a hole in your tin that is smaller than the lip of the connector, but big enough for the connector to fit into the hole. I measured the connector, and came up with a good sized hole. Remember, you can make the hole bigger, but you can’t make it smaller.

Cutting tin is pretty hard using an Xacto knife – I had to sort of punch out holes in a line to make my cuts. Be very careful with your knife – I gave myself a nasty cut on my finger doing this project. After making the connector cut, you will want to make a cut on the back side of the dock for the cable to enter. This hole must be big enough for a USB plug to fit through.

Step Two: Paint and Glue
Once you have made a perfect hole for your dock connector, it will be fairly easy to glue it in place using a glue gun. Put glue all around the connector on the inside of the box so it will be very secure. Now comes the fun part, painting. I picked a glossy black spraypaint, which, by the way, was the only thing I had to buy for this project. Put your incomplete dock on some newspaper outside and spray it thoroughly. Now that your dock is nice and pretty, you can glue the plug in.

You should wrap a tightly-doubled rubber band around the buttons on the side of the iPod connector. You need to do this so that you can easily pull the iPod out of its dock. Now, slip the USB plug out of the back hole so that the iPod connector side is inside the box. Now plug in the iPod through the box’s lid so you can get an idea of how to glue the plug in. The iPod plug should be fairly parallel to the bottom of the dock connector piece. Once you have found a good position for the plug, glue it in place just like you did with the dock connector. I didn’t glue the plug with the iPod attached so that I had no chance of getting glue on my iPod.

Once you close the lid and plug it in, you should have a full-functional iPod dock built to your specifications!

Creating Directories

Creating directories is very easy with the command mkdir. The syntax for this command is mkdir <path of new directory>. For example, if I wanted to create a directory called new inside of the beta directory, I would enter

ibook:~/beta Alex$ mkdir new

And if I wanted to make a new directory somewhere else,

ibook:~/beta Alex$ mkdir /path/to/new/directory

Copying and Moving Files

The commands cp and mv, for copy and move, respectively, have very similar syntax, so we will cover them together. Copying is like copy and paste while moving is like cut and paste. For both cp and mv, the syntax is cp <file or directory to be copied/moved> <destination of file or directory>. If I wanted to copy the file test.txt to my desktop as test2.txt, I would use

ibook:~/beta Alex$ cp test.txt /Users/Alex/Desktop/test2.txt

If I wanted to move the file test.txt to the directory above it, I would use

ibook:~/beta Alex$ mv test.txt ..

Removing files

Removing, or deleting files can be done with the rm command. The syntax for rm is just rm <file to be deleted>. You have to be very careful with rm, because this command doesn’t send files to the Trash, where files can be easily recovered, it removes them completely. You’ve been warned!

The asterisk (*) can be used with many unix commands to signify a wildcard. For example, to delete all the files in the beta directory, I would enter

ibook:~/beta/beta Alex$ rm *

The asterisk can be used in any command in the context of files and directories. I defined the double period (..) in the last tutorial, which signifies the directory above. Another similar shortcut is the single period (.). The single period denotes the current directory, so if I wanted to copy the file test.txt to my current directory, I would enter

ibook:/ Alex$ cp /Users/Alex/Desktop/test.txt .

Permissions

Sometimes when you are trying to delete, copy, or move a file or directory, you will get a permission denied error. This means that you were trying to do an operation on a file or directory that did not belong to your specific user. If this happens, and you are sure you still want to complete the command, just preface your command with sudo. Sudo will complete the command with the root user. Root is the administrator account that has full control of your system. When you use sudo to run a command, it will ask you for a password, which will be your admin password on your Mac.

Watch for the next Terminal Tutorial in about a week.

VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, is a remote desktop protocol that many free clients and servers utilize. OSXVNc, the server I use, is available here. When you start the app, you are given a preferences window, in which you can set the server password and more. Now, if you want to access your computer from outside your network, and you are using a router, you will need to forward the port 5900 to the computer on which the server is running. Note that in order to access your computer remotely, your computer must be on and connected to the internet.

On the client side, there are many options available. If you are looking for a Mac VNC client, I have found Chicken of the VNC the best, which is also free. But if you are not on your own Mac, there is a very easy way to connect to your home computer. RealVNC, who makes VNC clients and servers for Linux and Windows, also makes a Java applet VNC client that can run on almost any computer. This Google search will give you many mirrors for this Java applet. All you need to do is enter your IP or domain name, as well as your password. Speaking of IP addresses, if you don’t have a domain for your home network, you will need to remember or write down your IP address. If you plan to use VNC frequently, you may consider getting a free domain name from a service like DynDNS. Also, your IP will most likely change every time you restart your modem, so you may want to grab a updating utility, which are also available at DynDNS.

Remote Desktop may not work well with laptop owners and those who don’t keep their Macs running all the time, but nonetheless, VNC is a great, free solution.

Running Monolingual is extremely simple. You just have to select the languages you want to remove (everything but English for me), enter your password, and it runs. It also has options for removing PPC or Intel architectures, similar to Xslimmer (Check out our XSlimmer review). So download Monolingual to reclaim your hard drive space. It’s a free universal binary, available here.

To open Terminal, navigate to your Applications folder, open Utilities, and double click on Terminal. You will be greeted with a message similar to this:

Last login: Tue Mar 6 17:21:36 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
ibook:~ Alex$

The last line you see is called the prompt. This will appear after every command you enter and this is where you type your commands. It consists of your computer name, your current directory, and your short username. When you first start Terminal, your current directory will be “~”, which is short for your home directory (/Users/Your username).

One of commands you will use most is ls. The ls command will show you the files and directories that are contained in your current directory. Here’s an example:

ibook:~/Desktop/mammoth Alex$ ls
final1.jpg final3.jpg final5.jpg final6.jpg final7.jpg

By typing ls and hitting enter, the terminal shows me all the files that are in my “mammoth” directory. If you want to see the contents of a directory besides the one you are in, just type ls followed by the directory.

You are probably wondering how to change your current directory. This is done with the cd (change directory) command. Just type cd followed by the directory you want to change to. Example:

ibook:~/Desktop/mammoth Alex$ cd /Users/Alex/Desktop
ibook:~/Desktop Alex$

If you want to get to a directory that is inside of your current directory, just type cd followed by the directory name, as there is no need for a full path. To save time, the terminal has an autocomplete feature (most command lines have this). To use it, press tab when typing a file or directory and Terminal will guess what you are trying to type. Don’t forget about ~. Entering cd ~ will get you back to your home directory. A final, and very useful cd tip is that cd .., will navigate you to the directory above the one that you were in.

If you are experimenting with UNIX commands and need help with a certain command, it is always available. Either type:

command --help (quick help) or man command (full manual) Typing q will get you out of a command’s man page.

Although cd and ls don’t do much, they are a good foundation for further command line adventures.

I compared Microsoft Office, the most popular word processor on the market, to NeoOffice. On the functionality side, NeoOffice is almost as full-featured as Office. I mainly use NeoOffice’s word processor, Writer, and I haven’t found anything that I couldn’t do without Office. The presentation program does not have as many animations and transitions as PowerPoint or Keynote do, but it will make a fine, quick presentation. As for compatibility, all of NeoOffice’s apps are completely compatible with Office file types, in both opening and saving, so work with those other documents is seamless.

However, speed is not one of NeoOffice’s pluses. NeoOffice takes about 30 seconds to start up on my machine, and just doesn’t seem as snappy as Microsoft Office. But NeoOffice’s greatest advantage is its price. It’s absolutely free while Office will cost you at least $150 for the Student and Teacher Edition.

If you’re the business type or just don’t have the time to deal with new apps, go out and buy a copy of Office. However if you just want a full-featured office suite for free, NeoOffice is for you.

Get NeoOffice.

I downloaded the free trial, which allows for 60 minutes of gameplay. It’s a fun and addicting game, but I’m not sure it is worth the price of $14.95. You can also add another ten bucks a year to use its online features (or pay $24.95 for lifetime online play). You should definitely give Frenzic a shot. Head over to the site where you can download the trial or view a video of gameplay.

GarageSale offers over 90 templates for you to choose for every auction you create. On top of every template, you can customize the layout of the template, such as the placement of the images, giving you 1296 template possibilities. One of my favorite parts of GarageSale is that it lowers your eBay service charges. Instead of paying 10 cents to schedule an auction on eBay, you can schedule it on GarageSale for free. GarageSale also lets you upload 4 images to their server for free, for every auction. You can also use images from your own webspace, using its FTP and .Mac support. But GarageSale doesn’t stop after you upload the auction. Once your items are up for bid, you can look at its auction interface that shows the current bid and number of bids for every current auction, with Growl support.

I bought GarageSale about a month ago, and I am using it for everything I sell on eBay. GarageSale is $29.99, and you can create three auctions using the free trial.Get GarageSale Here

Read more about the contest here.

Witch makes window switching much easier and full-featured than the default Tiger switcher. When the key combination is pressed, a “bezel” style window comes up, showing every window, open or minimized, with the title of each window. Witch also allows users to quit individual windows or whole applications by striking simple commands while Witch is open. Best of all, Witch is free.

By default, Mac OS X does not allow command-tab to be mapped to anything else, but with some tweaking, it is possible. This video gives a good tutorial on how to make command-tab your Witch activation key.

Get Witch here.