Linked List: November 7, 2007

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

If Your Mac Has an Old Video Card, the Leopard Menu Bar Isn’t Translucent ★

Apple KnowledgeBase:

Some graphics cards, such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, may not have the necessary OpenGL capabilities to display a translucent menu bar even though they are compatible with Core Image. Those cards should render most effects, but not the translucent menu bar.

So the irony is that you get a better-looking menu bar with a crappier video card.

It’d be the tip of the year if there were a hidden defaults preference to use the no-translucency menu bar no matter what.

House Industries: Neutraface No. 2 ★

House Industries:

Neutraface No. 2 is a completely reconceptualized, redrawn and re-engineered version of our venerable best-selling Neutraface collection.

Love it.

VectorMagic ★

Free online web app, converts bitmap images into vector art, and does a surprisingly good job of it. (Via Gus Mueller.)

Monospaced Screen Fonts ★

James Duncan Davidson addresses a topic close to my heart: monospaced screen fonts for Mac OS X. Me, personally, I’m still a Monaco 10px non-anti-aliased man. But if you prefer anti-aliasing even for coding fonts — and in our coming-someday-soon resolution-indepenedent future, we all will — there are a bunch of good options. My two favorites are Panic Sans, a Bitstream Vera Sans Mono derivative that Panic supplies with Coda, and Consolas, a new font from Microsoft designed by Lucas de Groot. The differences between Panic Sans and Vera Sans Mono are subtle, but are most noticeable (and welcome) in punctuation characters.

Freelance Pricing Advice: The Principle of Least Regret ★

Ugo Cei, quoting Gerald M. Weinberg on how to set a price for one’s consulting/freelance services:

Set the price so you won’t regret it either way.

This basically means that you should not set the price so low, in order to get the assignment, that you’ll regret it if you obtain it. And you should not set it so high that you’ll regret it when the client is unable to pay it. Rather, you should set it so that you’ll feel about the same whatever happens. You shouldn’t feel too bad if you’re turned down and you shouldn’t feel too bad if you’re accepted, either.

(Via Alan Francis.)

CNet Crave: Asus Building Tablet for Apple ★

No product details, no estimated ship date — but, still, despite my better judgment, I think this is true. If it ships, Apple’s certainly not going to call it a “tablet PC”, and my guess is it won’t be running Mac OS X, but rather another OS X offshoot with a UI and APIs specific to the device and its input methods. Could be the “one more thing” at Macworld Expo this January.