Monday's Mac Gadget
by John F. Braun

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Care To Change Some OS X Visuals? Look At Visage!

April 8th, 2002

Visage 1.0.1 ($10 Shareware)
Sanity Software

Sure, the OS X startup and login sequence is nice to look at, but it is always the same. Although the System Preferences offer a few ways to customize the OS X look and feel, there really isn't anything to change what happens while your Mac is starting up. Until Visage...

Visage is a program (more specifically, a System Preferences Pane) that offers a number of ways for one to customize the Mac OS X startup and login experience. The first option is to change the Boot Panel, which is the small window that says Mac OS X. This file is actually a 353 x 264 pixel PDF file. Choose another one, give it a name, and even preview it. The Help has pointers to sites where you can get more Boot Panels.

The next option allows you to change the Boot Strings. These are the strings of text that appear during startup, and let you know exactly what the system is up to. You probably shouldn't change these unless you have a good reason. Next is the Login Screen Icon and Text. Normally, there's a blue Apple and Mac OS X, but you can change these to whatever graphic you like.

To wrap things up, you can also modify the Login Background image, and change the "poof" animation that occurs when you remove something from the Dock. To get you started, there are some sample panels, poofs, logos and titles to get you started.

So be sure to customize your OS X startup and login experience, and give Visage a look.

Do you use any other gadgets that customize your user experience? Send John an e-mail, and he'll groove on it.

Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you with those cool things that we all just have to have on our Macs. Shareware, Freeware, Postcardware, Emailware, and even commercial apps, Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you find and use the best of these programs.

John is a software engineer who works in the corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 company, focusing on all aspects of communications technology. He has several degrees that claim he knows what he's doing when it comes to computers. After watching co-workers reinstall Windows, search for device drivers, and experience other horrors during the day, he's glad that he comes home to a Mac (compatible) computer. Have any comments, suggestions, or favorite Gadgets? Drop John a line at

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