leo laporte

Apr 27 2009

How to reduce the clutter on your Mac desktop

(from Episode #25 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

Desktopple Pro is a system enhancement for Mac OS X made by FoggyNoggin Software. It started out its life as simply Desktopple (which is still available for free from FoggyNoggin) and it was intended as a method by which you could hide your desktop. People who write tutorials or tech manuals take a lot of screenshots and Desktopple allows you to do that without showing the ever increasing collection of Picture.png files on your Desktop. The original Desktopple also found a market among those that give presentations in Keynote or PowerPoint as it allowed them to project their computer’s screen without giving people a glimpse at their private desktop files. It serves as a bit of a “boss button� for your desktop files.

When Desktopple went “pro� it took on the customary price tag (only $17 in this case) but it also added a bunch of new features:

First off, Desktopple Pro is a preference pane, which means that when it is activated it shows no Dock icon. It doesn’t use “Application Enhancer� so don’t worry if you’re concerned about keeping your system APE-free. It is accessed by a key command, from a menu bar icon or from a Dashboard Widget.

Desktopple Pro’s bread and butter is still Desktop Hiding. What the software does is kind of slip a second desktop picture (aka wallpaper) over the original desktop and all of its icons. You desktop is still there, you just can’t see it anymore. The appearance of the desktop picture is entirely of your choosing: you can make it the same as your current desktop picture, you can choose a different picture or a solid color or gradient.

You can make Desktopple Pro always hide the desktop or you can have the software be triggered by a key command or by asking Desktopple Pro to activate whenever you launch certain programs. Desktopple Pro also plays nice with Exposé, multiple monitors, and Spaces (Leopard’s multiple desktop feature).

Desktopple Pro has added Window Cleaning, which hides any application that isn’t the foreground application. FoggyNoggin has provided an out in the form of an exceptions list that allows you to exclude certain applications from being hidden. Fans of SpiritedAway (the Mac OS X system enhancement, not the awesome anime film) will be happy to see this feature, especially if they are using an Intel-based Mac.

Menu Dimming is another new feature. It hides the menu bar and brings it back whenever you move your cursor to the top of the screen. It doesn’t remove access to the menu bar, it only hides it when you’re not using it. This feature is very similar to a freeware system enhancement called Menu Shade, but rolls it and all these other features into one neat package.

Productivity fanatics from the David Allen “Getting Things Done� cult should love Desktopple Pro. In fact it brings to mind the “Distracted Mac� episode of MacBreak only Desktopple Pro replaces 3 of the recommended applications does away with all those extra dock and menu bar icons—AND—Desktopple Pro runs as a Universal Binary. So it runs quickly on Intel-based Macs today.

To use Desktopple Pro is simple. Install it by double-clicking the .prefPane file, activate it in your System Preferences and then choose which features you want and set them up to your liking. Then it’s as simple as toggling Desktopple Pro using the key command you chose or from the Dashboard Widget, and customizing it from the menu bar (if you chose to use the menu bar icon).

The clutter just vanishes.

Desktopple Pro costs USD$17 and offers a FREE 15 day trial. Desktopple Basic is available for FREE but only gives you desktop hiding.

Download Desktopple Pro from www.foggynoggin.com

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Apr 27 2009

Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

I already showed you how to make semi-transparent people using Photoshop in my Dead Jedi Effect tutorial. In this one I’ll show you how to make people invisible. My inspiration comes from one of my all time favorite movie trivia sites, FilmWise.com. The site was started in 1999 and has a wide variety of creative movie quizes. The one that inspired this tutorial is called the Invisibles Quiz and tests your movie knowledge by showing you a still shot from a film with all the people removed leaving just their clothes behind:
image 04 20080120 142028 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

The steps to producing this effect are few, but the difficulty is dependant on the image at hand. The hardest part is adding the parts of the background that are currently hidden by the person’s body. The more complicated the background, the more work you will need to do to make it convincing.

I’m going to use a fairly easy image–this picture of Leo Laporte interviewing Jeff "Dr. Tiki" MacPherson–and I’m just going to show you how to "disappear" Dr. Tiki… Leo can stay.

drtiki1 20080120 142201 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Step 1: Get rid of what needs to get gone

I have titled this step thusly because it is less a matter of cloning out all the "Jeff" that is showing and determining what needs to be replaced with background and what needs to be replaced with, in this case, "shirt." In this screenshot I show what parts I’m going to hide and the edge I’m going to preserve.

clonearea 20080120 143040 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Here is where your cloning skills come into play. All the areas that I’ve scribbled on need to be replaced with whatever is behind them: the head needs to be replaced with more shelving and nick-nacks and the hands need to be replaced with demin.

To do this, create a new layer where you will keep all your cloning. I’ll start with cloning out Jeff’s left hand: set your Clone tool to Sample "Current & Below" and uncheck "Aligned" if it is check. Next set you sample point by Alt-clicking on a PC or Option-clicking on a Mac in an area where you can sample a lot of the demin texture. Now simply click around and hide Jeff’s hand. It going to be messy, but we’ll fix that next. See what mine looks like?

tikipants 20080120 143956 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Now use the Healing Brush tool and sample an area of even demin texture by Alt-clicking on a PC or Option-clicking on a Mac. Now click around and soften the hard brush edges you created with the Clone tool–avoid the edge of the demin where the Healing Brush tool will try to blend it into the floor behind Jeff’s leg. Here’s what I’ve got now:

tikipants2 20080120 144442 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Do likewise with the other hand on the other leg.

In order to show the shelf behind Jeff’s head, we have to get creative. I could scour The Lab’s Flickr stream and find a shot that shows the rest of what’s on that shelf, but that’s the easy way out. We need to clone shelf over Jeff’s face using the currently exposed shelving. Try not to clone anything that catches the eye–like that "Electric Playground" mic flag–that will scream "look at me!!" I’ve chosen repeat the Tuneview box…it’s not ideal, but at least it doesn’t attract attention:

headlesstiki 20080120 145541 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Step 2: Add inner-clothing texture

Create another new layer to hold your inner-clothing textures. I actually create a separate layer for each place on the photo where I put in inner-clothing texture, but it’s up to you.

Working on the original image layer, select an are of Jeff’s shirt that you can use to fill in the area that is still showing Jeff’s chin and neck. Copy (Ctrl-C on PC, Command-C on Mac) the area, click to your new inner-clothing layer in the Layers pallete and Paste (Ctrl-V on PC, Command-V on Mac). Move the pasted texture so that it covers a bit of Jeff’s chin. It likely won’t cover over the whole area we want to hide, so Select All (Ctrl-A on PC, Command-A on Mac) and then use the Move tool while holding down the Aly key on the PC or the Option key on the Mac and drag a duplicate of your texture to a new position to cover more. Repeat this procedure until Jeff’s neck and chin are covered.

tikineck 20080120 164517 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Remember how we blended the hard brush lines when we made the denim texture? Use the Healing Brush tool to sample an area of Jeff’s shirt and blend out these harsh square edges too (make sure you deselect first).

tikishirt 20080120 164823 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Next we’re going to mask out the parts of the inner-clothing texture we don’t need. I’m going to teach you a little masking power move to do this.

First, add a layer mask to this inner-clothing texture layer. With the layer’s mask highlighted in the Layers palette, go Ctrl-I on a PC or Command-I on a Mac. The shirt texture should have gone away–that’s perfect!

Take the brush tool an paint on top of Jeff’s shirt around his neckline, but don’t cross the line onto his skin. Reveal all of the shirt texture in the areas where you don’t want it. I’m totally serious–this way is easier than erasing away the parts where you don’t want it.

tikishirt 20080120 165544 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

When you are done, go Ctrl-I on a PC or Command-I on a Mac again.

tikishirt 20080120 165651 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Repeat this procedure for the texture inside the shirt’s cuffs and we’re almost there.

Step 3: Shading and details

This is my favorite part.

Grab the Burn tool and highlight the image thumbnail of your inner-clothing texture layer in the Layers palette. With a largish soft brush, set the Burn tool’s Range to "Midtones" and its Exposure to "50%" and start shading the inner-clothing texture. Imagine where the light in the photo would cast shadows on the inside of the shirt and use the existing shading as a guide. Generally, the outer edge of the texture layer should be darker than the inside.

tikishirt 20080120 170434 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Next, grab the Dodge tool and set its Range to "Shadows" and its Exposure to "50%" Use it with a fine soft brush to paint in highlights where there would be creases in the fabric that catch light or maybe even stitching.

tikishirt 20080120 170847 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

Now, for bonus points, I’ll add a little white tag with a shadow to the inside of Jeff’s shirt on its own layer. Repeat the shading with the other inner-clothing textures and you’ll be done:

invisibleTiki 20080120 171322 Invisible People Photoshop tutorial

I hope you enjoy playing with this technique.

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Apr 27 2009

Mac Backup, Beyond .Mac Backup

(from Episode #37 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

We’ve all heard it over and over: you have to backup your data. You really do. Hard drives to not last forever and you have to prepare for the inevitable day when your drive fails. According to Scott Forstall, Apple’s Vice President of Platform Experience, at last year’s WWDC, 74% of users do not backup their files and he admitted that he is among their number. That’s pretty odd considering Apple makes a Backup utility called…well…Backup. Why is he not using the Backup solution offered by his own company?

Many people have beefs with Apple’s Backup utility. The main beef being that it’s only available to .Mac users which puts it $99 further out of reach for many people. The second problem is that the method it uses is confusing and offers you no assurance that you have really protected your data—the files you’ve backed up aren’t files anymore. Apple Backup says you’re protected, but you’re never really sure. And for $99 you should be sure.

What’s the best backup solution? Well, the Sunday School answer is “the one you actually do� because even using Apple Backup is going to be more helpful in a data disaster than having no backup at all. So, if you decide not to follow the advice I’m about to give, at least implement some kind of backup regime. Seriously, it’s important.

The backup solution that I recommend is one by Dave Nanian at Shirt Pocket Software called SuperDuper!

What Dave has done with this application is take a lot of the intimidation out of backup. All backup utilities offer you choices about how you would like to backup: do you want to backup the whole drive? or just you user folder? do you want to erase your backup each time and start over or do you want to merely adjust the last backup with the files that have been added, changed or deleted? Huh? Which is it!? What do you want to do!?! SuperDuper offers those options but explains every step of the way “What’s going to happen� Just read the messages on screen and the program will let you know what to expect.

I asked Dave about what his thinking was behind SuperDuper and he told me, “rather than engineer a solution for the minority, we’re designing for the vast majority who want a program that makes a full, complete backup that they can understand and feel confident about. They don’t need to do a lot of selecting: they just want to click a button and be reassured that their precious files have been taken care of, and that they can recover with a minimum of hassle and inconvenience.� I love that philosophy. Most people don’t want to have to think too much about backup; it’s a chore. Make it easy, or I won’t do it.

SuperDuper! is highly skilled at making bootable accessible backups of your entire drive. It’s just a matter of selecting the drive you want to backup, the drive you want to use to store the backed up files, the backup method you want to use and then you just click “Copy Now.�

The program comes with presets for backing up your whole hard drive or just backing up your user account. I recommend backing up your entire hard drive and creating a full bootable backup. In the event that your computer’s hard drive dies and won’t allow you to even boot the machine to get at your email, much less your data, a bootable backup will give you a drive that you can boot your computer from and carry on with your life while you leisurely comparison shop for a replacement internal drive.

You may wonder how long a full backup of your entire system will take. Well, the first time, it could take well over an hour. But, using SuperDuper!’s Smart Update option, all future backups will only take is long as it requires for the program to determine which files have been created, changed or deleted since the last update and make them match on your backup drive. Smart is right!

There is also an option for making a “sandbox� backup of your system. This feature is probably a bit advanced for some users but comes in handy if you want to be able to restore your system to the state it was in before you installed a flakey bit of shareware or a system update that you were better off without.

Start up SuperDuper! and you will be faced with a screen that starts with the word “Copy…� From the pulldown menu to the right, choose your boot drive if it isn’t already selected.

So, now the screen reads “Copy your boot drive to…� Now, select your backup drive from the pulldown menu to the right of “to.� Simple. It’s like filling in the blanks.

Now the screen reads “Copy your boot drive to your back driveâ€? and on the next line “using…â€? Now choose from the four Standard Scripts the method by which you’d like to backup your drive. For our purposes, you’ll want to stick to the ones that begin with “Backup – “ the “Sandbox – “ scripts are a bit more advanced and you can read SuperDuper!’s User Manual for more information on those. For now select “Backup – all files.â€?

At this point you could just click “Copy Now� in the lower right corner, but instead click “Options…� and check the box beside “Repair permissions on your boot drive�. This ensures that when you make the backup, your files are preserved with the correct permissions. You’ll also want to select “Smart Update your backup drive from your boot drive� from under “During copy�. This saves you time when backing up after that initial big backup has run.

Click “OK.�

Now click “Schedule…� and this will bring up SuperDuper!’s Scheduled Copies window and a sheet that will allow you to program SuperDuper! to automatically backup your boot disk everyday, any day, any time you like. Read the “What’s going to happen?� at the bottom of this screen to make sure SuperDuper! is setup the way you want. Click “OK� and close the Scheduled Copies window.
If you’re ready to go, you can click “Copy Now.�

Then comes the question of how often you should back up. The answer to that question really depends on how drastically your system changes from day to day. If you don’t do a lot with your computer, you could probably get away with backing up once a week.

Personally, I live on my computer. I have two regular backups I have scheduled to automatically occur during the night while I’m sleeping: one that runs every night and backs up the whole system and another that backs up the whole system every week. This gives me a few days to discover that I have lost a file before the next scheduled backup takes it away for good. It also gives me that extra level of protection in having multiple backups. (At work, I even have a third “just in case� monthly backup.)

My official recommendation, start a daily backup routine. Go download and purchase SuperDuper! and every night make sure your computer is on and connected to your backup drive. Setup SuperDuper! to self-activate while you’re asleep and backup your whole hard drive to that second drive. And, make sure it’s a second drive—if you only backup to a partition of your boot drive and it fails, you will have lost your data twice. Backup this way every night and be ready for data disasters when they come.

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