I’m a huge fan of VMware Fusion for Mac OS X, but I thought the icon that it ships with it application could use a little work. Above all else, I wanted it to be Leopard ready, as the maximum icon size increased to 512×512, and the one that ships with VMware is only 128×128. So, I put together what I hope is a suitable replacement for it. You can download the icon by clicking on the thumbnail at right, or check out the full size preview before grabbing it.

To install the new icon, browse to your Applications folder, find VMware Fusion, and View Package Contents on it. Open the Contents and Resources folders, and replace “fusion.icns” with the icon from the linked download. You may have to authenticate and delete the icon first, and then drop in the new one. After the Finder and Dock processes restart, you’ll see the Leopard-ready VMware Fusion icon in place.

As much as I enjoy my Mac and its sleek design, sometimes things break unexpectedly, and that’s why I usually pay for the additional years of AppleCare on my Apple hardware. I realize I’m already paying a premium for the design of the computer, but I can justify the additional few hundred bucks when it gets me fast, quality support.

Just a few days ago, I popped open my MacBook Pro to check a few emails, and when I closed the lid to head off to work, I found that it wouldn’t shut properly. The lid would close, and after I let go, pop back up. Somehow, the display latch button had gotten stuck “in”, and no amount of fiddling would coax it back out. What to do…

The next day, I called AppleCare support to see what could be done. If you’ve been reading Command-Tab for any amount of time, you know I’m ready to dive into computer innards at a moment’s notice, but when I have free support, I’ll sure take it. After a note about any possible abuse, the AppleCare rep had a box at my door the next morning (if the computer is externally damaged, they may charge to repair abuse — that’s reasonable). Overall, the free repair took only 3 days to complete, including transit times. That’s downright impressive. Thanks Apple!

Bungie and Microsoft released three new maps for Halo 3 today, including “Standoff,” a scenic outdoor battle environment, and “Foundry,” a map designed with the built-in Forge level editor in mind. Bungie stated that they would have a completely empty version of the map available soon, but I went ahead and deleted all the objects in the map and published it so others could start quickly creating custom map variants, perhaps to bring back old favorites (Hang ‘Em High, anyone?) or create something completely new and different.

You can download the empty map file from my Bungie.net File Share (note the seamless “Download to Halo 3″ link), or by browsing my File Share under the Gamertag “Mac Minded”. Now go create and have fun!

A few quick notes about building MySQL 5.x and getting it working under Leopard:

1. Follow Dan Benjamin’s excellent MySQL on Leopard tutorial.
2. Copy the PHP configuration example to the actual expected location: sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini
3. Edit it, and add /private/tmp/mysql.sock to both mysql.default_socket and mysqli.default_socket.
4. Save, and restart Apache: sudo apachectl graceful

Once completed, the default PHP5 setup that comes with Mac OS X 10.5.x will be able to communicate with the MySQL version built using the above linked tutorial. Time to get developing!