I’m a bit spoiled living on in Southern California. OK – I’m *a lot* spoiled. But I do miss certain moments in the winter season, particularly when you get that early morning light on freshly fallen snow. So I put together a new theme for my laptop in honor of the season. I used Object Desktop, which is super easy and a lot of fun to play with. I may even design some of my own audio-related themes during the holiday season down-time. And of course the kicker is that much of the “heavy lifting” is handled by the graphics card, so the difference between running a “flat” desktop theme and a fancy one is minimal.
So here’s my homage to this time of year:
A specialized Windows Desktop for the winter season
I like how I’m able to play with transparency, and can also change the look and feel of the little details, like the window layout and desktop icons. Anyway, it’s just a little way to get into the spirit of the season – and I can use all the help I can get with it sunny and 70F outside.
A new kind of Apple Pie
I sometimes get into [ahem] conversations about the relative merits of paying the premium for Apple hardware, versus staying with PC. It’s a lot less of an issue now than it was five years ago, as Mac-o-philes have grown more tolerant of the PC format now that their hardware is essentially a PC with a bit of Steve Jobs’ “New Apple Smell” on it. I saw the graphic below – and it just made me laugh. Partly because it’s a bit absurd – and partly because there’s an aspect of truth to it.
The wedge described as “Cost of downtime for designers, engineers, and software writers who sit at their desks in awe of what they just created” and “‘Just because we can’ charge (Fanboy Fee)” are my favorites. Now that I look at it – I’m surprised that there’s not a large wedge of this pie graph dedicated to those silly Mac vs. PC ads.
Houston Haynes