SecondBar Puts a Menu Bar on All Your Macs Monitors
SecondBar Puts a Menu Bar on All Your Mac's Monitors
Mac only: Multiple monitors do great things for your desktop space, but your menu bar sticks to one screen. If you’re looking for more menu access, free utility SecondBar puts one at the top of each monitor.
As veteran Mac users know, each application’s menus fill in the menu bar at the top of the desktop, not the window of the app itself, as in a Windows desktop. When you have a lot of apps open in different spots, it becomes inconvenient to access an app’s preferences or deeper features with a mouse. SecondBar adds a customizable menu bar to your second, third, or tenth monitor, letting you keep your focus on one screen at a time.
SecondBar is a free download, Mac OS X only.
(Via Lifehacker: mac os x.)
Getting Back to Basics
As some readers may know, I’ve been doing this dual presence thing for the past couple years; the Jim Mitchell Design business where I offer Yasu and FileMaker development services, and the Jim Mitchell dot-org presence where I give a glimpse into my personal life as well as offering my silly little WordPress themes and other whatnot to whoever wanted it.
Last week, I came to the realization that I’m no longer being as productive in my personal life as I’d like because of the “duality” I’ve created with maintaining two online presences, and that each has suffered because of it. So I’ve decided to make the change back to the way I found myself most productive and fulfilled… And that is to simply offer it all under “jimmitchell.org” again. That means one site, one email address, one place to download everything from, etcetera.
The truth is, my day job has changed so dramatically over the last 5 years that I’m not anywhere near where I was when I chose to split my personality. Back then, I was working as an in-house FileMaker developer and Mac systems support specialist. Now, I’m working as a business analyst and handling special projects for my employer — and have found myself busier than I’ve ever been. Trying to keep that many balls in the air at one time has been causing me more stress than I think I was aware of.
So, I’ve decided to get simple again. I have projects I like to dink with. WordPress themes, Yasu, AppleScripts, and even some small FileMaker projects — but I’ve made the choice that they are not going to dictate how my personal life is spent anymore. Family is far more important right now, especially with my youngest son entering the formative teen years.
What does this mean to you, the reader? Probably more “personalized” content, with more of a view into my real life. You’ll see some updates to my WordPress themes (Plane Jane is in bad need of modernization – I’ve got some killer CSS3 ideas for it). You’ll see updates to Yasu (one is “thisclose” to being released), and maybe even a new app this summer (I’ve got a great idea for a freebie app).
Thanks to all who’ve hung around, keeping me in their RSS feeds. I promise there will be more than just twitter updates from this point forward.
Tweets for the Week
- New blog post:: Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner http://bit.ly/bI3RWI #
- Of all the Apple OS X Aqua desktop pictures, I still think the "Panther Aqua Blue" is the best of the bunch. #
- OH: "If you don't have time to do it right now, when will you ever have time to do it over later?" So true… #
- Finished taxes for older son. He owes $1 to the state of CA. It's going to cost the state at least 10x that to process the form. #Califaila #
Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner
A little more on my MacBook Pro woes…
Since I’ve had this machine, a MBP Unibody 2.6 Ghz / 4 GB RAM purchased in September of 2009, I’ve had to back it up, completely wipe the internal HD, and restore 5 times. Two of those times, I’ve completely zeroed the drive for extra measure. I even tried starting entirely from scratch once hoping that would finally fix my issues to no avail. In that time I’ve ended up with a “keys out of order” error more times than I can remember. Running a single user “fsck” at boot usually cannot fix the problem. I had to lay out $100 for DiskWarrior to finally resolve that. Still, through all of that, I seem to keep coming up with issues on this unit. I’ve never had this much trouble with any Mac I’ve owned–ever.
Here are the symptoms that eventually lead up to the disk to going bad: When putting the machine to sleep for more than an hour by closing the clamshell, upon waking by re-opening it, the MBP will spontaneously log itself out, sometimes only once, other times it will happen multiple times in a row (I think I counted 5 logouts once). Usually, after all that excitement, any app that I try to launch will immediately crash. I do not keep any apps running when putting the unit to sleep anymore. I’ve lost too much work because of it. Twice I’ve gotten kernel panics instead of spontaneous log outs. It is far more likely that this machine will wake with an issue than not.
Logs allude to crashed threads in windowserver, CoreGraphics, as well as a video driver (not sure which right now). I’ve tried removing every single system add-on that I’ve ever installed, but still have problems. I’ve also cleared every single cache I can get my hands on and then some, but still have problems.
Right now, I’m testing the memory using Memtest. When I left for work this morning, it had not found any problems yet. If it were as simple as a bad memory module I’d be thrilled — but to be honest, I’m thinking the problem lies in the 7200 RPM drive I had installed as a BTO option when I ordered it from Apple. It’s always seemed to be a little finicky.
Because of this lemon fresh Mac, I’ve lost countless hours, and have fallen way behind schedule on a project that I promised would be delivered a month ago. I’m finally giving up and visiting the Genius Bar at my local Apple store tomorrow. So far, I’ve had pretty good luck with them helping me solve issues with other machines. Hopefully they can with this one too. I just hope I don’t have to send it back to China to get fixed. That would put me another month (or more) behind schedule.
More to follow, I’m sure…
Tweets for the Week
- A full weekend of wipe-the-mac and start-fresh to finally track down a couple of buggy kernel extensions installed by Shimo VPN front-end… #
- Nice to be able to crack the clamshell open and not get logged out (sometimes repeatedly), or end up with unstable apps, or a kernel panic. #
- Verizon added another "app" (Slacker Radio) to my Blackberry w/o my say so at reboot. Don't like they do that, but can forgive for this one. #
- A true accidental business analyst here hoping for feedback on BA Boot Camp. Is it worth the investment? http://bit.ly/bzSWoc #baot #IIBA #
- 17 year old refrigerator slowly died this week. Hoping we can find same longevity in a current model. Wife thrilled. So is credit card co. #
- Have decided to downgrade to OS X 10.5. Experiencing too many issues w/ spontaneous logout. Lots of other 10.6 users seem to have same prob. #
- Um, yeah. That downgrade thing? Not gonna happen since the '09 unibody MBP's only run 10.6. Silly me. Haven't been paying attention again. #
- Instead, disabling EVERY system add-on I can get away with not having. Lean and mean, baby. Lean, and, mean… #
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