Mac OS X may not be as easy as Ubuntu to customize, but thanks to GeekTool, you can make your desktop background a little more useful than just eye-candy. I’ll show you how to easily add a calendar, multiple clocks (display both relative and non-relative time), a live system processes chart, and a system up-time timer (with load averages) to your desktop. Of course you can easily add more items, but this should be enough to get you started.

Sounds completely geeky (and it totally is), but GeekTool makes you and your desktop look awesome – it also increases sexual pleasure and makes you last longer in bed.

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It’s not everyday that you see a car in flames – it’s also somewhat rare to drive through fire. Yesterday, I killed two birds with one fiery stone. Read the entire story after the jump.

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TinyMCE (Tiny) is regarded as one of the best open source, HTML WYSIWYG editors of our time – it’s powerful, relatively easy for browsers to digest, and free to use. The frustrations of using Tiny arise when you attempt to submit your Tiny-enhanced form via Ajax. Because your Tiny textarea inputs are converted to a mess of divs, spans, iframes, etc, Mootools Ajax.Form class fails to recognize the textarea. Fear not, there’s an easy workaround.

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Personally speaking, preparing a new web design isn’t as simple as opening Photoshop. I need constant influence from many creative sources to keep my mind fresh on what’s hot and what’s not. When I need inspirational eye-candy, my sources include CSS galleries, digital prints, and typography demonstrations.

For those who have similar inspirational needs, allow me to lend a helping hand. I’ll list my personal favorite websites categorized by three major design pools: web showcasing, typography, and digital art.

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In attempting to spruce up my knowledge of Javascript, I’ve been trolling around the net collecting scripts and tutorials for various Javascript libraries, mainly jQuery, MooTools, and Prototype. Of the three, MooTools seems to supply me with the most JS lovin’ – it’s easy to learn, holds super powerful Ajax abilities, and is customizable to the core.

After sorting through tons of scripts, I thought I’d share the best ones with you.

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The CakePHP blog tutorial uses a rather archaic method of displaying user messages (like, “Your post has been saved.“) that needlessly breaks up the flow of your application. Rather than Cake’s typical method of displaying flash messages on a separate page (ugly), learn how to seamlessly display the same messages within your application and make your users clap with joy.

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Yep. I’m mixing programming references with The Wizard of Oz. Shut up.

The all-too-awesome PHPMailer class has been updated and is awaiting your download.

If you use MooTools (or even if you don’t), Vacuous Virtuoso’s Fancy Form is totally worth checking out. It’s a mix of CSS and Javascript that enables you to create custom form checkboxes. There are other script on the net that claim to do the same thing, but none are as cross-browser compatible.

Lastly, to add a splash of color to your ajax load processes, check out Bram Van Damme’s Progress Bar Handler. It’s probably the smoothest, best looking non-flash based progress bar on the net.

Uploading files via CakePHP has been covered a few times on Labs. Based on the feedback, it’s safe to assume bridging the gap between file uploads and PHP can be tricky. Usually Cake is ready to lend a helpful hand. Not this time.

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