I am happy to announce a new blog today. Mac Minimalist is now up and running. You can count on tips and tricks to simplifying your mac, being more productive as well as finding great software, wallpapers and hardware to get the most out of your mac.

So join us over at www.MacMinimalist.com, and be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to stay up to date.

(Image: Flickr Member Laure Wayaffe licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Introducing New Blog: Mac Minimalist is a post from: The Custom Mac

We all love our Macs but there are always a couple small “features” that we could all trive without. Here are a few annoying ones and how to stop them. Be sure to share yours as well.

1. Stop obnoxious Bouncing Dock icons (Original Post)

fire up Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in the following and hit enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE

And then type in the following to restart your dock:

killall Dock

From now on you will not be plauged by the bouncing icons!

And for whatever reason you want to turn it back on you can enter the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool FALSE

and then

killall Dock

2. Disable flash or countdown in Photo Booth

Disabling flash in PhotoBooth is really easy all you have to do is hold the Shift key while you click to take a picture and the screen will not flash white.

Disabling the picture count down in PhotoBooth is just a matter of holding down the Option key while you click to take a picture, your photo will take immediately.

If You combine the keystrokes by holding down Option-Shift, you’ll immediately take a picture without the flash.

3. Toggle hiding the Dock using the keyboard.

A keyboard shortcut I use multiple times a day is Command + Option + D.
This will toggle hiding the dock. Great for anyone working with large windows and applications.

Disabling Annoying Features in OS X is a post from: The Custom Mac

The one thing that can completely distract me and make me to lose train of thought and sanity is the evil bouncing dock icon effect. But here is a terminal command that will put an end to your misery.

Just fire up Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type in the following and hit enter:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE

And then type in the following to restart your dock:

killall Dock

From now on you will not be plauged by the bouncing icons!!! And for whatever reason you want to turn it back on you can enter the following into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool FALSE

and then

killall Dock

How to Stop the Bouncing Dock Icons Forever is a post from: The Custom Mac

Leopard’s Stack feature is a great one. But Stacks can get a little disorganized when you have multible ones set up. Using Stack icons is a great looking way to organize your Stacks.

To learn how to use Stack icons we recommend you read Custom Stack Appearance Modifications.

Leopard Folder Style Stacks | Download

Pole Stacks | Download

Black Silver Drawers | Download

Transparent Stack Icons | Download

Grey Stack Icons | Download

5 Killer Icons Sets for Leopard Stacks is a post from: The Custom Mac

We have found our Dock and Icon collections have become quite popular lately. So here are some resources for those who have a thing for pink. Enjoy!

For those new to customizing Icons & the Dock we recommend these posts:

• Customizing the 3D Leopard Dock
• Custom Mac Icons

Pink Leopard System icons | By alfonsohuby | Download

Pink Icon Collection | By Pinkie75 | Download

Pink Dock | By JaviGlez | Download

Disco Dock | By aculas | Download

Pink Apple Docks and Icons is a post from: The Custom Mac

The Apple Dock is really the hub of OS X. What better way to customize your Mac than to enhance your dock appearance and productivity? Here to make this operation simple is SuperDocker. This is a must have dock tool for every Mac user.

SuperDock gives you the power to easily Optimize:

• The Dock
• Stacks
• Finder
• Dashboard
• System
• And More

So go out and download SuperDocker for Free and start customizing your Mac!

SuperDocker screenshots:

Customizing the Dock With SuperDocker is a post from: The Custom Mac

Here are 3 quick ways to customize your Stacks appearance.

Custom Stack Overlay Icons

There is an easy way to take the default appearance of your dock stacks and optimize them for elegance and clarity. All you need are some icons like the ones below.

Download yours here

Once you have the icons you would like to use, name them according to the stack they represent and add a space before the name. This way the stack overlay will stay at the top of the stack.

Than just drop them into your folders. So the download icon goes in the downloads folder. You will want to edit the name of the stack icon and put a space before name. This way the icon will always stay at the top of the stack.

Adding Draw frame (Leopard Only)

To do, go grab a free copy of SuperDocker. As you know from reading the other custom Dock and Stack posts, this application is great for easily and safely customizing the Dock and Stacks. So once you open up SuperDocker, navigate the “Stack” settings tab and there you will find a check box to add a draw frame. And your done!

Removing Stack Background Grid (Leopard Only)

1. Fire up Finder
2. Navigate to Macintosh HD/System/Library/Core Services
3. Look for Dock and control-click on it
4. Choose Show Package Contents from its contextual menu and then go inside Contents → Resources Back up and delete from that folder all of image files prefixed with “stackbackground-”
5. Use your Terminal to restart Dock by executing command line: killall Dock

Changing Stack Background Color (Leopard Only)

Fire up SuperDocker again and in the “Stacks” there is an option to change the color or the background grid. I now it’s complicated, just breathe ok.

Custom Stack Appearance Modifications is a post from: The Custom Mac

Customizing system icons is one of the best was to personalize you Mac. There are many tools and techniques to accomplish this task but here are the best ones out there.

LiteIcon (Free)

LiteIcon is a free icon changer with a simple clean interface. Just drop the icon you would like to use into the well of the item you would like to change. Such as folders, Dock items (Finder, Trash, Dash Board) Devices etc.

Then apply changes and relaunch the Finder, log back in and TaDa! New icons. The only drawback to LiteIcon is that it has no option to change application icons.

Applying Icons with the Finder

Although LiteIcon does not change application icons there is still a free way to do this using the “Get Info” contextual menu.

To do this simply right click on the icon you would like to copy and click on the icon on the top left of the window:

After making sure the icon is selected (has highlight color around it) Do a Command C and then “get info” on the application that you would like to change the icon of. In this example Address Book. Once you select the little icon at the top left do a Command V and your icon with have changed.

From This:

Into This:

If the application you have modified is in the dock you may need to remove it and reinsert it again for the changes to take place.

CandyBar ($29)

Aside from not being free CandyBar is an incredibly powerful icons application offering a whole slew of features including application icon optimization, excellent icon organization, Dock customizations and much more.
Using CandyBar is as simple as importing your icons and dropping them into the respective icon wells.

Finding Icons

Here are a few good places to get icons for your system.

Interfacelift.com

Iconfactory.com

Freeiconsdownload.com

Iconspedia.com

Custom Mac Icons is a post from: The Custom Mac