Ever since Mac OSX Leopard was introduced customizing the dock has become a popular tweak to the operating system. At first the only way of customizing the dock was by transplanting the files yourself, or using an automator action. And if you don’t know what you are doing; things could go wrong.

Panic’s Candybar also has a way of allowing you to change the dock design (and do lots of other UI changes) - but it does, of course, cost in the region of $30, It’s a fair amount of money, there must be a free option if all you want to do is change your dock?

Enter, Dock Library, an easy way to customize your dock with ease, all within a clean GUI interface. Editing your dock with Dock Library couldn’t be easier. Dock Library also comes with a few popular docks for you to try out when you download the app; but if you want to find more, all you have to do is go to a website, such as LeopardDocks.com, choose the dock, you want to try out, download them. and open up Dock Library.

From here you can then go hit the Import Button (see bellow), choose the downloaded dock and you’ll find it has appeared in your portfolio of docks.

Now, all you have to do is select the dock and click activate and your dock will automatically change to your preferred design.

Of course, changing the design of your dock is only half of what Dock Library was designed to do, with the clean interface you can easily organize all the docks you have in your collection, so when you get bored of your current dock, it’s as easy as opening up the app and clicking on the new style you want to use.

To put it in a nutshell, it’s as easy to change a dock with Dock Library as it is to change your Mac’s desktop background in system preferences.

As you can see, Dock Library is currently the most efficient way of modifying your dock. The best part about this app, is that it is free (though donations are encouraged, especially if you want more cool applications like this). If you’ve been waiting for a quick easy way to modify your dock, this is the answer.

Longer Battery Life

Initial reactions from users of the MacBook Air SSD model report an increased battery life expectancy of around 10-15%, providing them with an extra hour of productive work while on the go.

Without the moving mechanical parts that cause latency issues, SSDs are not impeded by spin-up, seek time, or rotational latency. This equates to faster boot times, faster application loading, and greater overall system responsiveness.

No Noise From Drive

While typing away on the MacBook Pro, two noises can be heard. The fans cooling the processor, and above all else, the hard-drive spinning up and down as required to access files. The Solid State Drive has no moving parts, which means the drive doesn’t spin - providing a noiseless working experience.

Reliability From Bumps

SSD stands for Solid State Drive. Solid State means no moving parts. No moving parts means the data cannot be destroyed by bumping a head of the drive which is reading or writing. Get the picture?

SSDs are extremely tolerance to shock and vibration caused by the user.

Quicker App Switching

While some standard hard-drives will still beat solid state drives when moving or copying large chunks of data, the SSD moves ahead with leaps and bounds when asked to open multiple applications at once, and while switching between them. It’s areas like this where you come to appreciate the SSD, as the comparable hard-drive chokes and burns under similar conditions.

Lower Heat Levels

With no spinning heads, Solid State Drives do not require any fans to keep them cool. SSDs produce little-to-no measurable heat because they have no moving parts, thus helping keep notebooks operating cooler.

The Flip Side

Although they exceed performance of most conventional notebook drives, SSDs are still at a price premium in the current market. With Apple charging a very competitive $999 for the 64GB SSD build-to-order option in the MacBook Air, been an early adopter of the technology is not a cheap thrill.

Prices are expected to fall at the rate of 40% per year, so the $999 drives we see today are expected to cost only $200 by 2010. By that stage I’d expect Apple’s full range of notebook computers will ship with a solid state drive as the standard configuration.

The Story

I’ve had hundreds upon hundreds of requests for this certain WordPress theme I was using at my personal blog for the past 12 months. The three column theme labeled as “The Red Three” displays content in a very organized manner, providing room in the two sidebars for extra content, advertisements, or notices you wish to provide for your reader-base.

The public release of this theme is my way of saying thanks to the WordPress community, and you - the readers of Desktop Vibes.

The theme which was originally created by Andreas Lengyel, then further customized by myself has had hours upon hours of dedication and hard work put into it. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I have over the past year.

Instructions

Red Three is a three column theme made specifically for WordPress blogs. To edit the title/description of the site in the header, edit these values in the manage settings section of the WordPress back-end.

Please leave all footer links in-tact. These are served as a way for readers of your site to source the original theme download page.

Download & Install

Known to be compatible with WordPress 2.5+. If you are running an older version of WordPress, please, stop what you are doing and upgrade! To install, download and unzip the unstandard directory and upload to wp-content/themes.

Download Red Three Version 1.1

Update: This theme has been updated to version 1.1. Version 1.1 is now compatible with widgets in WordPress.