I got several emails and tweets asking questions about yesterday’s post, “On Sameness,” so I thought I’d just answer them all here.

The Wallpaper

That wallpaper is by John Carey over at fiftyfootshadows. It’s part of his “Dust” collection, which he posted in January of last year. If you’re looking for high-quality, stunning wallpaper images, look no further than his site.

The Menubar

My menubar is slightly different on my two machines, but here’s the basic set I keep on both boxes:

  • Spotlight (even though I use the far-superior LaunchBar 5)
  • User Accounts
  • Clock, with the date and time shown
  • Airport
  • Bluetooth
  • Volume
  • Time Machine
  • MobileMe sync
  • Keyboard Maestro, for mapping the Fn keys on my Extended II keyboard
  • Cinch
  • Droplr
  • Dropbox
  • Backblaze

I know that’s not minimal, but having these items just a glance away is more important to me than keeping my menubar minimal.

The only additional items that live up there at home are the OpenDNS and DynDNS updaters.

Why not use MobileMe to sync all of this junk?

MobileMe is great for a lot things. I use it to keep my bookmarks, calendars, contacts and keychains synced across my devices. And while MobileMe can be used to sync some apps, it’s not universally supported, and doesn’t sync preferences for most apps. I wish it could become a more integral player in sameness, but it just lacks the horsepower at this point.