Cursorcerer is a little tool I hacked together which allows you to hide the cursor at any time by use of a global hotkey. It can also autohide an idle cursor and bring it back as soon as you move the mouse.

The inspiration for this tool is one of my favorite and most utilized OS X features: the control-scrollwheel zoom trick. I use it all the time to make things like embedded flash videos full screen. The trick’s only major downfall is that it’s a constant battle to get the cursor out of the way.

To install, just double click on the prefpane. Hit control-option-k to zap and unzap the cursor. If you want to uninstall, go to ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ and trash Cursorcerer.

The technique behind this global cursor hiding hack originates in a useful post to the Apple carbon-dev mailing list from Red Sweater’s Daniel Jalkut.

Download Cursorcerer 1.0

While hanging out in Chicago this past Friday, I decided to check out the line at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store in anticipation of the dramatic 6pm launch of the iPhone. It was nuts: cops on Segways, restauraunts handing out free food, and a line that stretched around the entire block.

I tried taking a few pictures on my crappy cellphone, but realized that I could probably get better results from the iSight in my MacBook Pro. So I ended up walking around, holding my machine up and attempting to capture the general pandemonium.

Around 6:15, I went across the street to a Starbucks to see what kind of stuff I’d managed to get, and quickly spliced it together into a little video in iMovie.

When I came out, everyone in line had already gotten phones, and I could finally wander into the store to try out some of the demo units on display.

I guess my thoughts echo those of most reviews. Really nice flashy interface, and my few minutes of trying to type ‘doomlaser.com’ into the touch screen made me want to destroy it.

Facebook’s new public API has brought forth a lot of creative effort from external developers, but there haven’t been many desktop applications released to take advantage of its power.

So I thought, what better way to do something fun with the platform than write an OS X screen saver?

Friend Photos finds pictures of your facebook friends and turns them into a dynamic slideshow.

It makes use of Quartz Composer in much the same way as the Apple TV’s famed screen saver, passing a data structure full of photos and metadata gleaned from facebook into a QC patch and moving them around for dramatic effect.

Let me know if you have any issues, clever presentation ideas, or what have you.

Dan Labriet has released his latest masterwork into the indie Mac game scene. It’s a highly polished 3d mini golf game, with a number of cool features.

My favorite is its iSight integration, which allows you to snap a photo to be used on your golfer’s avatar. The game also takes “polaroids” of significant events in your golfing exploits and saves them to a gallery for later viewing.

You can select these photos to e-mail, print, or upload to an online gallery on Dan’s site– all from within the game.

Wacky uses Newton Game Dynamics to handle physics, and it’s fun in and of itself to figure out what obscure corners of objects you can hit to send your ball flying in a preposterous path.

Graphically, the game sports a fur shader, depth of field, reflective water, and flowing lava with bloom lighting The player models are skeletally animated using Cal3D. But what’s most impressive is that Dan did all of the art and programming solo.

If only he’d used my story concept: You versus a cargo cult of mini golf worshipping cannibals..

So awhile back I was thinking, “You know what would be funny? A screensaver that fakes a kernel panic!”

For those of you who might never have seen one, a kernel panic is basically the most shocking crash that you can get on a Mac. It’s Apple’s equivalent to the famed Blue Screen of Death.

What a great way to play a prank on someone, or frighten yourself.

So here is the end result, a harmless screensaver that faithfully emulates the horrifying experience of a kernel panic. It comes complete with a misleading Quartz Composer Preview so that the KP is all the more terrifying.

Download KPSaver

I’ve wanted to have a place to post small projects, maybe talk about the video game I’m writing (screenshot), the Macintosh, and other assorted matters. So here it is: Doomlaser.

Could I have picked a cheesier, more puerile name? Maybe, maybe not. But now I’m stuck with it.

I figured I’d start off with something innocuous, but also maybe kind of cool. Below is a QuickTime movie of a quartz composition that visualizes your Mac’s incoming audio in the form of floating pink cubes that leave a comet trail.

If you’re running a Mac OS X 10.4 or later, click on it, and then try shouting, clapping near your microphone, or playing really loud music.

If you are not running OS X 10.4, do not click on it. I’m not sure what will happen, but my guess is it’ll involve a dialog box.

But wait a minute, who are you?

At this point, if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you already know me. But for future posterity, allow me to introduce myself… by way of a list!