CHANGE MAC BOOT LOGO BY BOOTXCHANGER

As someone who has used Windows as my primary operating system for years, I got very comfortable with modding various parts of the user interface. One of the things that was most fun to change is the startup image - my favorite was a very official looking FBI splash screen that made it look like you were logging onto a government computer.

Since switching to the Mac platform, I've been surprised at the relative dearth of modding options for the operating system. Thankfully, Steven Sande over at our sister site TUAW recently posted about BootXChanger, which allows you to change the monochromatic Apple logo that you see when booting into OS X to something different. While it's not an entire boot screen, it is enough to give your machine a bit of personality.

It turns out that creating images for use on the boot screen is very finicky, but BootXChanger comes with a set of fifteen sample images to get you started. Right away I was torn between using the radioactive symbol, or the classic Commodore 64 logo. The radioactive symbol won for now, but given the ease of switching boot logos, I can imagine I'll be swapping between the various options or maybe even taking a shot at making my own soon enough.