Desktop Show and Tell: My Clean, Cool Desktop [mac only, sorry!]

Sorry, people, I know this is my first post in a while. That’s because of the amazing amount of assignments I have been given towards the end of the year. Well, this is the second to last day of school and the first day with no homework! [metaphor] [I know it seems like this is a little dramatic for a sixth-grader, but believe me, my teachers give A TON of homework]

Anyways, I’ll be sure to get back to posting for the summer.

This post will be about my current desktop. I have a mac, so customization is a little restricted, but I personally think it looks pretty cool. I will be outlining the steps to make this desktop, so if you’re interested in being more productive and fast, I would check this post out.

Here’s what it looks like:

What should I go through first? I’ll start from the top:

[i made the opacity for each of the entries about 60% to make them blend into the dark background]

Weather Updates: This one is pretty simple. I already went over it in my famous Geektool article here. To reiterate, here’s what you do:

Download the weather fetcher script here.
[weather]

Here’s my Geektool setup for weather [shell entry]:
~/Scripts/weather -cf 2 94303
This tells the weather script to get the forecast for two days in my area code, 94303.
Change your area code and it should work.
If you don’t change “~/Scripts/weather” to where it actually is, it won’t work, so CHANGE IT!

I used a different script in the picture above. The one I talked about has more features, but if you just want something simple, add this to a new ‘Shell’ entry in Geektool:

curl --silent "http://xml.weather.yahoo.com/forecastrss?p=YOURCITYCODE&u=f" | grep -E '(Current Conditions:|F<BR)' | sed -e 's/Current Conditions://' -e 's/<br \/>//' -e 's/<b>//' -e 's/<\/b>//' -e 's/<BR \/>//' -e 's/<description>//' -e 's/<\/description>//'

Quote: I found this inspiring quote from thinkexist.com. To add it, I just used a simple echo command:

echo '"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment"'

Then, I added another one, because it’s easier to format and I wanted it in a different typeface:

echo "~Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Todo.txt: Todo.txt has helped me a lot to get things done quickly. All it is is a simple list that displays tasks you need to do. All you need to do is open TextEdit in Applications and save a file called “todo.txt” wherever you want. You also need to download todo.sh to help access it very quickly(After you unzip it, you’ll only want ‘todo.sh’, nothing else).  All you need is a series of commands to modify your list.

To use todo.sh, just access it on the command line and append it with commands. In English, this command:

~/todo/todo.sh add Get a Haircut!

would add ‘get a haircut!’ to your todo.txt. To remove:

~/todo/todo.sh rm Get a Haircut

I would do that once I got a haircut. To append

~/todo/todo/sh app 5 by Friday!

that would change ‘Get a Haircut’ to ‘Get a Haircut by Friday!’. This is assuming that todo item is number five down on your list, otherwise, just use the correct number.

Those really are the only commands needed to get things done quickly with todo.txt!

To display your todo.txt, just use this command:

cat ~/todo/todo.txt

The Todo Applescript:

I also wrote a simple applescript to quickly do things to your todo.txt, without having to open Terminal and the command line. All you have to do is type in your todo command from the command prompt, so:

add Play Golf

would execute the command

~/todo/todo.sh add Play golf

You can download the script here. Please note this script will only work if your todo.txt is in ~/(home directory)todo/todo.txt

and your todo.sh is in ~/todo/todo.sh/todo.sh [not a typo]

The simple clock: I use SimpleFloatingClock to remind of the time simply and elegantly.

The dock: Check in later for a tutorial for this dock. Sorry!

The wallpaper: Vladstudio offers some amazing wallpapers. The one I’m using is here.

I hope you enjoyed that tour of my desktop. I hope it also benefits you if you try and duplicate it and make your life more productive!