By Rachel Atwood.

For more wallpapers check out these stories:

1. Distraction Free Desktop

2. New Desktop Wallpapers

3. Free Desktop Wallpapers

1. Always Keep at Least 5 GB Free
A computer needs about 10% free disk space at any time. One thing we’ve noticed on our machines is that anything less than 5GB is going to land us with problems. Essentially, computers need breathing room. Without that free space, there’s nowhere for temporary files to be stored. Also, when the RAM gets full, it will start swapping things in and out of memory by using your hard drive. If it’s full, then not only can you not save stuff, but your computer has no where to dump stuff from RAM. To top it all off the worst thing that can happen as a result of a drive with no space? Data can get corrupted. Want to find out what applications are taking up a bit of space? We love using DaisyDisk for this purpose. This application is by far the nicest and easiest way of seeing what files are taking up your space on any drive. As you are cleaning out your files, just make sure not to delete any files or folders with the name “Library” in as they normally contain settings and can result in you losing contacts and other media depending on the file. Another great application we love is Xslimmer. Xslimmer gets rid of Intel/PowerPC code and additional language files that your machine doesn’t use/need to free up space and improve performance and load times.

2. Really Remove Applications
Since not all applications come with an uninstaller, it’s important to really delete the applications you want to remove. For a majority of applications on the Apple side, generally moving them to the trash works well but often they leave other files lying around on your system. To really remove an application on a Mac, Drag and drop an application into a program like AppZapper and it will find all the associated files and remove them for you. It’s branded as “the uninstaller that Apple forgot,” and we are pretty big fans. For PC users, CCleaner will do a similar job and will also take help take care of #5.

3. Leave Your Computer on Overnight
Would it surprise you to learn that your computer tunes itself up overnight? For example, between 3-5am Mac OS X will run scripts to clear out cache files which in return improve performance. Many of the “tune up” applications that are sold are just running these scripts on demand.

4. Defrag
While this tip is not applicable for Mac users since OS X does defrag automatically in the background, this tip is an important part of the Windows users experience. Check out these posts for more info on how to defragment your hard drive.

5. Remove Unnecessary Login Items
It may not come as a surprise to you that removing unnecessary login items will help your computer run better. Lots of applications will try and make themselves run at startup and this dramatically slows down boot times and also uses up memory which you may need for something else (also it is kind of a nuisance). To remove these on a Mac, go to System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items. Ignore the hide check boxes and just click on the login item you want to remove and click the “-” button underneath. Next time you restart, they won’t automatically launch. A good rule of thumb is to leave anything printer related and iTunes Helper as login launch items. Without iTunes Helper, your computer can’t auto-launch iTunes when you plug in an iPhone or iPod and this can also disable automatic iOS device backups.

Backup, Backup, Backup!
As we’ve said before, the importance of backing up cannot be stressed enough. Hard drives are consumable parts, just like your battery (if you have a notebook computer). They have moving parts, the platters/discs inside usually spin at 5,400 or 7,200 RPM, which wear out over time or from your computer being knocked/dropped. Regardless of whether it’s a PC or Mac, the hard drives are the same. Just like how cars or washing machines can break down because of moving parts, drives can do so from any point from within the first month or possibly after 6 years. Your warranties like AppleCare will cover this (and other faults) up to three years (compared to the standard 12 month warranty) and while that is great for the cost of replacing the drive, it does nothing for recovering the lost data.

What are some of your tips to keep your computer running well?

1. Capture your signature in Preview. In Lion “Preview” has the ability to capture your signature using your iSight camera. Simply write your signature with black ink on a white piece of paper, then go to Preview/Preferences and click on Signature. Hold your signature up to the camera and it will save the image so you can easily sign PDFs electronically.

2. Change your iCal and Address Book skin. The updates to Address Book and iCal take a realistic approach that some people don’t seem to be particularly fond of. If you aren’t a fan of the new leather skins, Codeus over at Macnix created a clean aluminum skin for both applications that you can download and install yourself, following his simple installation instructions.

3. Three finger/double tap dictionary look up. Snow Leopard already had the ability to look up a word in the dictionary by highlighting the text and pressing Command + Control + D, which was a useful feature but difficult to remember. In Lion you can now double tap on a word with three fingers to look up the word in the built-in dictionary as well as Wikipedia. You can find this feature in System Preferences/Trackpad.

4. Hold down a key to bring up accented characters. Ever wonder how to type a ñ or è quickly without having to open up the character map? Accessing accented characters in OS X Lion is a breeze. Just hold down the letter and a dialog box will appear that lists all alternative and accented characters.

5. Hold Shift when launching Launchpad. This little trick is an oldie but a goodie. Hold down the Shift key and click on Launchpad from your dock. The apps will slowly fade in from the background. This trick shows off the OS X aqua effects and also works when minimizing windows. Although it may not be the most useful feature, it’s a fun way to open up Launchpad.

By Vivian Kim.

iOS App Discovery With hundreds of thousands of apps available through Apple’s App Store, finding the best measurement convertor can be a daunting task. AppShopper helps by not only providing recommendations, but also showing update history, reviews, and even price changes. AppShopper also has an iOS app along with RSS feeds so you never miss a chance to discover the next great app.

Android App DiscoveryBecause of the “open” nature of the Android platform, there are quite a few more resources that allow for more robust discovery on Android. AppAware is an application that allows users to find new apps by tracking installs, updates, and removals. AppAware goes a step further by adding location into the mix. This provides great exposure for local apps who thrive based on usage in a specific area rather than around the globe.

Chrome Web App Discovery Playing off the fact that there really is an app for almost everything, the Google Chrome extension – aptly named There’s a web app for that – provides users with app suggestions based on their browsing history. No need to randomly guess if there is a an app that could replace your web browsing. Now just browse normally and this extension will search for you.

If none of these work for you, or if you are looking for a more curated way to discover apps, the be sure to check out Unplggd’s Weekly App Recommendations, where we cover everything from mobile, to desktop, to web apps.

By Jesse Leikin

Location: Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon

Size: 1,100 square feet

Juliet Zulu, a video production company based in Portland, Oregon has created a clean, inspired work space on a budget. Zak, Jason and their team DIYed their office in about a month, using irreverent, recycled materials and a whole lot of ingenuity. When describing the studio, the words “industrial” and “man-chic” just kept popping into my mind. Although not a traditional “home” office tour, this work space is full of great ideas to pull into the home or home office.

Zak and Jason, co-founders of Juliet Zulu, wanted to create an open, honest space that inspired great work. They create videos for a range of clients, from big corporations like Nike and Intel to non-profits such as The Mentoring Project and other videos featuring local food carts. Juliet Zulu is a creative force and their space reflects their artistic vision.

What’s interesting to me is they achieved something I don’t see all that often – they used a palate of heavy darks (black concrete floor, army green military tent material, etc) and bright whites. In a time where “fresh and new” seems to connote whitest of whites, they were able to balance darker tones with light, punctuated by the neutral colors (reclaimed wood, re-purposed army tents), and wacky use of particle board. Never have I seen particle board looking so good.

Another wonderful aspect of the space is the personal details. Every inch of the space is carefully planned to maximize flow of air/light, but it’s also got personal items strategically placed in an uncluttered fashion. There are reels of film Jason shot in the 5th grade, old cameras, beloved old toys, tickets to sporting events, used thermoses and personal odds and ends that all breathe life into the office. This balance of clean design and personal history is very appealing, and would easily translate into a look for the home.

AT Survey:

My/our style: Military Industrial, Vintage, MCM

The inspiration for my home office/home theater: Video and film production is all about process. I wanted to design a space that was clearly a creative studio but also felt like a workshop, a place that screamed process. Also, production companies tend to be techie pragmatists. I wanted a space that said, “Yes we know how to work a C-Stand but we also know what good copy looks like.”

Favorite element in your space: Military canvas walls in conference room is a fave. Having client meetings in an indoor field tent is a bit like a blanket and couch cushion fort, minus the wooden swords and newspaper hats.

Biggest challenge in designing our space: Stretching and attaching huge sheets of Pendleton Wool felt on our 300 square feet of walls. It was like stretching a canvas but with wool…which turned out to be more difficult. The exposed flashing was the answer.

What friends say about the space: We do not allow speaking in our studio. We have a no cats, no speaking, no pirates policy. As a result, we no longer have friends or rampant plundering.

Area where there is room for improvement/future projects: Our bathroom (not shown here because of the horror) is our final area to improve. Bathroom thoughts?

Proudest DIY (do it yourself) project: Construction of Barn doors with old, reclaimed government windows. Each door took us two days to complete, which, if I am not mistaken, is almost as long as it took the Egyptians to build the pyramids.

Biggest indulgence with respect to our space: Eames compact sofa, re-upholstered with Pendleton Wool. Gold leafed bidet seat (if we had one it would be our biggest indulgence)

Best advice about organizing or incorporating tech into the home: Robots are fun until they become autonomous, power up in the middle of the night and then lock you and your pets in the cellar.

Dream source for stuff: My grandfather’s basement (it would be even better if my grandfather’s name was Don Draper).

Resources

Home Tech Hardware:
• Apple computers
• G Raid 2TB hard drives
• Audio-Technica headphones
• MiniWatt Tube Amplifier
• Zeiss lenses
• Hook headphone desk holders (originally designed to be mobile, table, purse holders) designed by Philippi Design Germany and purchased through Canoe.

Furniture:
• Eames Compact Sofa
• Herman Miller Eames Molded Plastic Chairs
• All long tables, conference table bars and counters made from 100 year old Oregon, dimensional Fir, reclaimed from a barn
• Most other furnishings vintage purchased at various antique shops in or around Portland Or.
• All higher-end vintage furnishings purchased from The Good Mod, Portland.

Accessories: No member of Juliet Zulu has ever shot an animal so it is fitting that we are utilizing our grandfather’s heartlessness as taxidermy features. Most all accessories are vintage, antique.

Lighting: Barn pendant, warehouse lights. The most basic and practical I could find.

Organizing Tools/Accessories: clipboards for project management.

Additional Elements:
• Floors are sanded and buffed concrete, stained/painted with Miller concrete stain/paint.
• Exposed plywood is…exposed plywood.
• All beer served in the studio is Stiegl, all coffee is Coava Coffee, booze of choice is whiskey. Favorite name for a pet whale would probably be, Big Dawg.

Thanks Juliet Zulu for letting us tour your space!

By Leela Cyd Ross

IrfanView: Great for beginners and experienced users, IrfanView is a freeware graphic viewer that has many unique and interesting features. This application supports a plethora of file types including Adobe Photoshop filters. For the incredible price of free, it’s hard to find a better option for the last majority of your photo needs (pictured above).

VirtuaWin: The vast majority of us no longer work in one application at a time. All too often we find ourselves switching between a few browser windows, an email client, photo editing software, and maybe even word processing documents. If this is the case using VirtuaWin to create virtual desktops is a great solution. Similar to Spaces on Mac, VirtuaWin gives you up to 9 virtual desktops to help reduce clutter on your screen.

Fences: On your PC the desktop tends to get cluttered rather quickly. While some go out of there way to keep their desktops clear, for most this isn’t practical. Instead of trying to remove everything from the desktop, use Fences to keep everything organized. Fences helps you create logical groups of the different icons floating around your desktop.

Force Empty Trash: If you use your computer long enough, you will inevitably run into the problem where you can’t empty your trash because a file is supposedly in use. If you have seen this then you know the frustration that it brings. Fortunately there a nifty little program called Force Empty Trash that overrides your system to empty the trash. Just make sure you know what is in there and that you are not trying to delete important system files.

Alfred: An incredibly useful productivity tool, Alfred allows for you to navigate and search your Mac as well as web apps within seconds. Alfred also allows for quick keyboard shortcuts to increase the speed at which you can navigate your machine. A great replacement for Quicksilver and Spotlight, Alfred is one of the best productivity tools available for Mac.

Laundry: Desktop backgrounds help set your computer apart and give it a unique style. Unfortunately, no matter how awesome your background image, after a while it becomes old and boring. Instead of letting this happen, liven up your desktop by using Laundry to rotate your desktop background in predetermined intervals. Laundry is able to pull from RSS feeds or even from Flickr to keep your desktop images lively and exciting.

You know it’s time to drop Fliqlo and move on to a new screen saver. Here are a few screen clocks that will have your friends crooning, “Where’d you get that?!”:

Analogy A circular clock that’s just as beautiful as the more popular Word Clock, but not found on every screen at the local co-working space. For Mac OSX, Windows and Android.


The Colour Clock This rainbow-colored clock takes the six hour, minute and seconds digits of the current time and interprets it to display a hexadecimal color value. For Mac OSX 10.5+, Windows and Android.

Crazy Scribbles Another round clock with a dash of color and plenty of style. Get it here.

The Timeline This screen saver features just a few simple bars scrolling across the screen. It comes bundled up with the screen saver below, plus a bunch of other more hideous creations. Try to ignore the Comic Sans. For Windows.

Handwritten Clock Bundled with the one above, this cool screen saver displays the time with several small photos of each digit drawn on paper. As each digit changes, a real-life hand comes in frame to erase the old one and draw the new. For Windows.

By Taryn Fiol

Honestly, reading the findings, we can’t really argue with the infographic. Sigh, we guess we do fit the profile (or stereotype), Limonata, bahn mi, indie films, Dwell magazine and all.

By Gregory Han

[via Mashable]

If you’re wondering how to transfer files quickly over to your new laptop, then using a direct cable connection is the fastest way. Here is how we transfered over gigabytes of files. One of the main perks of having both at home is that you never have to find compromises to get your stuff to work. For example, we ran into trouble when trying to find Microsoft OneNote equivalents on OS X. MS OneNote is Windows only for now. If you still have a PC at home, it’s not really a problem.

We prefer the way that OS X handles Apps, maybe because it’s a new way of going about things, but in comparison with the PC, it simplifies things. The new MS Office on Mac also has some improvements, including the fullscreen mode, which is excellent to use for creative writing since it allows no distractions.

Main Uses for a Mac

1. Twitter Client The new Twitter client that’s available for free from the Mac App store is easy to use, and its features make up for the lack of a zoom.

2. Creative Writing Although we do research with both computers, we’ve found that unplugging the Internet and taking the MacBook to bed is a very productive way of writing creative fiction.

3. Reading ebooks The new free Kindle app for Mac allows you to read a lot of free ebooks on it. That and a variety of PDF reference books makes the Mac the only way to do this.

4. Image Edition From Lightroom to Aperture, including the latest Photoshop, we’ve got them all installed on the Mac. The PC is another story.

5. Gaming While gaming has never been a strong suit of Macs, the only games that we have currently installed on our computers are on the Mac: Angry Birds and Civilization V.

Main Uses for Our PC

1. Internet Whether it’s checking up on things on Wikipedia, or writing up facts and important details in files, our main way of navigating the Internet is the PC.

2. Email We rarely use the Mac to check our email, as the PC is the computer we consider using for most work-related tasks. The Mac is used more for leisure.

3. Watching Movies & TV Shows Most of the time, we use the 24-inch Widescreen Viewsonic display to watch movies and TV shows. The resolution if fine, and although the screen is going to be replaced this year, it’s still suitable for this.

4. Uploading & Downloading Whenever we do any uploading (photos) or downloading, we use our PC, mainly because the PC serves as a hub for all of our photos and media files, since it’s got a lot of storage available.

5. Media Hub Most of our current photos, music and video files are located on the PC. All of our external USB hard drives are plugged into it.

(Images: Flickr member Stéphane Soulat licensed for use under Creative Commons, Flickr member Pablo Bigatti licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Matt Hickman, is a freelance journalist and consultant who covers lifestyle, design and green-living. I talked to him about his Brooklyn home office.

How long have you worked from home? I’ve worked from home on and off for six years — half of which was spent as a graduate student. Home/work for the past three years has been a two bedroom, fourth floor walk-up apartment in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Red Hook, a heavily industrial waterfront area was once marked by gangster grittiness of all stripes … first the mafia and later urban gangs. The waterfront area is now infamous as a haven for working artists, designers, and writers since it’s slightly off the grid. Geographically, Red Hook is no Siberia but the lack of a convenient subway stop keep the rents low. Everyone seems to know each other and the smattering of bars, restaurants, and boutiques are predominately run or staffed by locals. There’s an organic farm, community gardens growing in vacant lots, historic longshoreman bars, waterfront parks and piers, and, um, an IKEA [the frame below in Matt's entryway is from IKEA]. I couldn’t imagine working from any where else … although it is refreshing to shed the pajamas every so often and attend proper meetings.

What does a ‘normal’ day entail? An average work day revolves a lot of moving around from bed to desk to couch to a stool in the kitchen. Lots of “walk” breaks and trips to Fairway market for lunch. Workdays kind of flow on and on, starting early and ending late. I spend a lot of time looking out my windows and thinking since there’s great light, little noise, and few distractions. I have city views and a full-frontal view of Statue of Liberty sitting in the lower New York Harbor. During late summer afternoons, I charge my laptop, grab a a blanket, and head to my roof where I get WiFi.

Is there any form of technology that helps you? My MacBook desktop is cluttered with Sticky Notes, otherwise my virtual organization habits are pretty minimal. I keep an old fashioned paper calender. IM is my virtual water cooler. Since I do miss the daily interaction of being in a proper office full-time, saying hello to friends and colleagues while taking a work break is a godsend (most of the time).

How do you organize your space? Is there a desktop tool you can’t do without? Working from my living and bedrooms, I have to keep everything organized and in-order (organizing and cleaning and redecorating is my ultimate work-from-home procrastination tool). Public radio is usually on at all hours and there’s a steady supply of caffeine in the fridge. Magazines and books (mostly fiction and memoir) are on hand for periodic recharging. Stamps, good pens, my Blackberry, and loose pieces of paper are all required in my work area. And then there’s cable television ….

What inspires you? Living in a creative enclave in the middle of the city really keeps the inspiration levels high. If I was working from home elsewhere in the city, I’d feel flat-out stifled, much more claustrophobic. It’s liberating (but, yes, at times lonely). I’m often inspired by — and frequently write about — the people around me … sustainable furniture designers, clothing designers, gardeners, art curators, dancers, web designers, eco-entrepreneurs, musicians, craftspeople. I don’t have to venture far. And I like that.