iOS-Like Dark Menu Bar for Mac OS X Lion

iOS-Like Dark Menu Bar for Mac OS X Lion

Customize, Mac OS X, Tips & Tricks - September 23rd, 2011 - 8 Comments

If you’ve been using Nocturne to get the black menubar in Mac OS X but don’t care for any of the features outside of the darker menu bar, check out MenuBarFilter. All it does is turn the Mac menu bar color into a dark black gradient, closely resembling iOS.

Download MenubarFilter now or head to the github page.

MenuBarFilter is extremely lightweight, just uncompress the app and double-click on the Panda icon to turn your menubar black. There are no configuration choices or menu items, so if you want to quit the app you’ll have to find it in Activity Monitor and kill the process, or type this into the Terminal:

killall Finder

Why would you want to stop running this gorgeous little add-on? Bugs of course. MenuBarFilter certainly works in Lion but it doesn’t play that well with Mission Control or full-screen apps, and you’ll see some display artifacts and mismatched colors here and there. I’ve been using it since last night and as long as you don’t expect a perfect fit quite yet, MenuBarFilter is a very nice looking customization to Mac OS X.

Speaking of bugs, if you’re crafty and want to try and troubleshoot the display oddities yourself, you can grab the source code through git with:

git clone git://github.com/eece/MenuBarFilter

http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/25/black-menu-bar-mac/

Project management applications that integrate with Google Apps

http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/04/23/project-management-with-google-apps

Project Management with Google Apps

April
23rd, 2011

Software Comparisons

Project management software with Google Apps is the next big thing right? But does the Docsintegration hype measure up? Will it actually help you or your team to be more productive?

More than a few project management tools are quick to announce “integration” with Google Apps – but what does that actually mean?

Project management applications that integrate with Google Apps

The the most popular project management apps on the Google Apps marketplace are:
Manymoon, Zoho Projects, Freshbooks,Smartsheet, Deskaway, Ace Project,Huddle, Comindwork, Wrike, Mavenlink,Teambox, Harvest Glasscubes and Jira.

How do project management apps typically ‘integrate’ with Google Apps?

• User can create tasks from emails. A button at the bottom of the email that allows you to create a task. Used in; Manymoon, Zoho Projects.
• Attach Google docs to tasks, messages and projects. This is available in most of the apps.
• One click sign in with a Gmail account. This is pretty much a given for all apps that integrate with Google.
• Exporting reports to Google Docs
• Importing Google contacts into your project management app. A great way to expand your user base.
• Integration with Google Calendar. For example, adding milestones or due dates on tasks to the calendar.

There are also some other more unique integrations:

• Smartsheet allows you to attach a Google doc within a row on your Smartsheet. An interesting the approach when you consider that Google might be seen as their main competitor.
• Jira which is primarily for software development also has some unique features. You can embed a Google Doc within a wiki on Jira. Also you can access Google Talk within Jira as well as Gmail and Google Calendar.

Which project management software offer the best Google Apps workflow?

It really depends on the way that you work and the type of tool you are looking for. Manymoonhas perhaps the most comprehensive Google Apps feature set. However if you need other project management features such as invoicing or Gantt charts you should choose look around…

We’ve compiled a list of the top project management software solutions that integrate with Google Apps to help illustrate exactly what type of integration each service offers:

http://www.timedoctor.com/google-apps-project-management

How to make a Gantt Chart with Google Docs