Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

iCal Alerts You Can't Miss

Did you miss that tiny little iCal alert dialog? Use a more prominent Open File alarm.

First save an image, text file, sound, or movie that will really fill your screen and grab your attention.

Select an iCal event and choose Open File as the alert type. Choose your unmissable file as the one to open.

Set more alerts with more files to open for the same event if you like. You won't miss an appointment with one of these alerts!

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Submitted by
Miraz Jordan

 
 

Feed Icons Saved Me Lots of Work

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The redesign of TidBITS is now live, and we'll be writing more about the experience soon, but I wanted to note something quickly that saved me a bunch of work. In the upper-left corner, at the top of the navigation bar, you'll see icons for RSS and Podcast links. Initially, I made my own icons and, well, they were terrible.

Most people probably aren't aware that designing icons well is really hard work, especially tiny icons. In this case, I needed to create something that has become familiar to most Web viewers. A quick Google search pulled up the answer to my problem: Feed Icons, which includes a free bundle of icons bearing the orange broadcast image that was created by the Mozilla foundation and adopted by Microsoft.

The best part is that the download includes all a Web designer would ever want: GIF, JPEG, and PNG files in multiple resolutions (such as 10 x 10 pixels, 16 x 16 pixels, and so on); Adobe Illustrator source files; and layered Photoshop files, with instructions on how to easily create versions of the logo with colors other than those provided (our Podcast icon is a custom purple that I made). The site also includes code snippets for incorporating the logo in various ways on a Web page and guidelines for properly using the logo.

Thank you, Matt Brett! You made my life easier late one night when I really needed it.

 

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