How to: immitate a MacOSX desktop…(part 1)

20Jul08

…while still keep the functionality of XP and keep your oldie computer blazing fast with all those eye-candies running. Now THAT’s a task.

Well, some of you guys can just download Flyakite OSX transformation pack or the Inspirat pack and be done with it. Let me tell you this, if you comp is old like mine (about 2~3 years old) and you need to run some RAM-consuming applications (i.e. Photoshop), installing that kind of packs will just kill your comp faster. And let’s face it, not all about MacOSX is nice: Finder sucks, Image Preview is a pain, ect.

Therefore, this tutorial is to help you creating a desktop that LOOKS A LOT like MacOSX while still save your bits of RAM and keep all those thing you known and love in XP

Things that we will need:
1/ A nice wallpaper. Yeah.
2/ a XP visual style. Don’t touch Window Blinds, seriously.
3/ Styler (for some miscellaneous effects)
4/ Ubericon (well you don’t actually need this…but it’s fun to use)
5/ ObjectDock (free version)
6/ Tuneup Utilities 2008 (trial version will do the job fine)
and a little bit of Photoshop skills….

Things that we DON’T NEED.
1/ Widget, especially Yahoo Widgets. If you are too lazy to check the weather then it’s more efficient to ask your mother than to install widget programs.
2/ Those 3D flip or Expose softwares. They are very RAM consuming.
3/ Apple softwares that can only work well in Leopard, like Safari or Itunes or Finder.
4/ The MacOSX’s finder bar. Softwares that create a similar bar do not work properly, so don’t bother trying (I tried all of them, boo!)

The end product looks like this (my current desktop, haha!)

Ok, Let us start, bit by bit.

1/ Clean that messy desktop of yours.

This step is vital. Since we don’t use 3rd party softwares to make nice icons (like Avedesk) to save RAM, you need a presentable desktop. Delete all those shortcuts to your softwares and keep those directorial shortcuts. I work a lot with Photoshop, so I have about 3 folder shortcuts on my desktop, 1 is of my hard-disk, 1 is ‘My Documents’ and 1 is ‘My Images’. Don’t keep more than 3 shortcuts if possible.
Hint: Change the desktop icon size to make them a bit nicer. Steps:
1. Right Click Desktop —> “Properties”
2. In the Properties Window —> “Appearance” tab
3. In the Appearance Window —> “Advanced”
4. In the Advanced Appearance Window —> “Item:” from the drop down list and choose “Icon”. The default icon size is 32×32, change it to 48×48.