Nuevo Deco Devices

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Tue Dec 8, 2009 11:35 pm

Unique icons for each category of hardware (devices) that are commonly used are a necessary part of a complete set of system icons, and so I’ve created those to go with my Nuevo Deco series and am posting them here tonight. At the same time, I am curious as to how many of you have your Finder preferences set to show all mounted devices on your desktop or instead, keep them hidden from view and only access them either from the top menu or sidebar? Since I rarely need to access the root level of either my internal or various external hard drives, it really serves no useful purpose to have their icons visible on my desktop and actually seems to just create clutter (even if it’s good looking clutter thanks to these icons!). While I don’t like to have my internal hard drive on my desktop, I would like to have any CD’s, DVD’s, thumb drives, and/or .DMG volumes appear on my desktop since I need to interact with them at their mount point and since they don’t appear in the top menubar – but for some reason, Apple has categorized all of these – AS WELL AS all other external hard drives (USB, Firewire) in one single category titled “CDs, DVD’s and iPods”. This means that in order to see a thumb drive or .dmg or CD on my desktop, I’m forced to accept having each individual partition of my external firewire and USB drives visible as well. Pretty annoying. I haven’t found any hacks to get around this so if any of you have a clue whether and how this can be accomplished, PLEASE let me know!

It’s pretty rare for me to have any complaiint at all about any apple produce (hardware or software) as I’ve been a dedicated fan since I got my first Mac when they originally came out in the early 1980’s – but as long as I’m on this subject, I do have another (minor) gripe in the form of a question. Why is it that the Mac OS STILL has accomodations to set identifying icons for floppy disks, zip disks, magnetic optical disks, and even super disks, yet has no unique icon for any type of thumb drive which is far more commonly used these days? To be fair, I’m still running on Tiger (OS 10.4.1.1) and not Leopard or Snow Leopard so perhaps those newer systems do have such accomodations.

It’s been a long day for me today and tomorrow is expected to be another hard one so I’m keeping this short. Good Night All!

Free Icons of the Day

The following images are reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save a zipped file to your desktop that contains all images in each preview group (each image is 512px X 512px in .png format) or, in the case of the individual icons, do your clicking on each one you’d like to download.

Nuevo Deco Folder Icons

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Tue. Dec. 8, 2009 3:20 am

For those who remember my post from a month or so ago that showed a side-by-side comparison of my original Art Deco Series and the proposed revision, you might wonder what happened to the angled perspective shown for the revised folders. After playing around with it for a while, I settled on a head-on front view for the folders (and most other icons) because it was both cleaner and looks better with the flat, sticker style, especially when a folder gets badged with an application or other icon. As to the accent color on the folder, I decided not to settle on a single version to be used for everywhere because I personally like to use different colors to differentiate what’s in a generic folder from a quick glance. For example, I’ll set all of my family files to blue, financial files to green, “work-in-progress” files to red, etc. Of course, the computer’s operating system will only allow a single choice for the generic default folder but nothing prevents you from either manually reassigning a different one to any folder desired after it’s been created – and if you really are into being efficient, you can create a folder action* to automatically set the icon of your choice anytime a new folder is created in a certain location.

* FOLDER ACTIONS
Check out these sites for how-to’s as well as
some pre-made folder actions.

• add_folder_icons/
• create-a-folder-action-using-automator
• automate-changing-icons-for-apps
• macscripter forum

Free Icons of the Day

The following images are reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save a zipped file to your desktop that contains all images in each preview group (each image is 512px X 512px in .png format) or, in the case of the individual icons, do your clicking on each one you’d like to download.

‘Nuevo Deco’ Toolbar

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Leslie Sigal Javorek | Leave a comment

Posted by: Leslie Sigal Javorek • Date: Tue Dec 1, 2009 4:00 pm

Just got off the phone with my friend Jane after, as usual with her, having had a very interesting, thought-provoking conversation. Never know where discussions with her will lead to but know they will never be boring. Janie flits from one topic to another but her segues always seem natural, her enthusiasm infectious, her wide-range of interests and knowledge mind-blowing, and she always leaves me feeling appreciated, wanted, valuable, loved, and even understood. What more can anyone else want from a friend? Only the ability to impart the same and know it has made a positive difference in the life of my friend that lasts longer than the length of our calls or visits. But life just doesn’t work that way and we rarely, if ever, get to know whether we had any affect at all on others, on the world, much less whether we had the affect we intended. I guess that’s why they say “Character is what you do when you think no one is looking”. You’ve just got to do what you believe is right or at least what you honestly and objectively believe is best under the given situation and have faith that it will all add up in the end to being a life both worthy and worthwhile.

Apropos, if you haven’t yet read (or at least seen the movie) of Mitch Albom‘s book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, it’s a gem that deserves your time. It is nothing what you might expect, even if you’re already familiar with any of Albom’s other books (“Tuesdays with Morrie”, “For One More Day”, “With a Little Faith”). Through very simple language and ordinary characters, Albom elicits the most profound observations about people, life, and what really matters after all has been said and done. Remarkably, he never resorts to preaching any particular philosophy or religion, never hits you over the head, never gives in to using common metaphors or over-used phrases that could lessen the emotional impact of his story. Enough said.

So now, from the tools of life to the toolbar of your Finder or other application windows. (How’s that for a transition? 😉 ) This afternoon I’m issuing Part 2 of my 10-part ‘Nuevo Deco’ icon series. Enjoy!

Free Icons of the Day

The following images are reduced size previews. Simply right-click (or control-click) on the preview to save a zipped file to your desktop that contains all images in each preview group (each image is 512px X 512px in .png format) or, in the case of the individual icons, do your clicking on each one you’d like to download.