Pantone Desktop Wallpaper

Pantone, the company that brought the Pantone Matching System to designers, has become something of a cultural icon, and they have released a series of wallpapers to match their Pantone Plus line. There are a total of 8 wallpapers over at Pantone’s site, though only six are actual swatches, ranging from the 2010 color of the year Turquoise to a series of bright hues perfect for summer. Grab them for iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC here in resolutions 320 x 480 to 1920 x 1200.

By Rachel Atwood.

For more wallpapers check out these stories:

1. Distraction Free Desktop

2. New Desktop Wallpapers

3. Free Desktop Wallpapers

5 Tips for a Healthy Mac & PC

We’ve talked about ways to extend the lifespan of your batteries, the life of an older machine, and what automated diagnostics you should run on your PC, but what are some good basic tips that cover both Apple and Windows computers? In this post we take a look at 5 tips we have gleaned from Genius Bar and Geek Squad visits and from our own user experience.

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.

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Unplggd: Windows and Mac Apps That Really Will Help

Often times we find ourselves complacent with the Windows and Mac applications that we already own. However, once you check out these great apps you will be wondering why you haven’t heard about or used all of these before. From design to productivity, we have you covered in this weeks edition of Unplggd’s Weekly Download Recommendations.

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).

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Unplggd: Mac vs PC

Hunch and Mashable released this amusing infographic illustrating the polled difference between self-described PC and Mac users which we found remarkably accurate from a personal perspective. We’re often charged with being Mac-biased, but maybe we’re just a reflection of the type of inherent personality drawn to the operating system/computer.

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]

Unplggd: Using a Mac and a PC

For the last few months, I’ve had access to both a Mac and a PC. While I’ve been migrating my files over to my new Mac, I still use my PC most of the time. Each computer has different functions and they allow me the best of both worlds, without having to sacrifice much.

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)