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6 Cool iPhone Themes For Your Android Phone

Jessica Cam Wong — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:30:20 +0000

Maybe you despise the idea of dressing up your Android phone to make it look like an iPhone. Or maybe you wouldn’t mind some new eye candy for your phone. Either way, the fact remains that there are a large number of theme developers out there just waiting for users to download and give their apps a chance.

Well, today we’ll be taking a look at 6 of these meticulously crafted launcher iPhone themes for Android that can give your phone a refreshing dose of iOS rounded icons, docks and wallpapers.

While you can find a number of paid themes that can bring you even more customization options, the ones on this list are free and will get you started in making your phone look like a close brother of the iPhone. They all require you to have at least one third-party launcher/homescreen replacement app though, but most of them are free and very well-rated. One such launcher is ADW Launcher, for which we’ve already shown you where to get an iPhone theme for. For additional themes that you can use with other popular launchers such as Go Launcher Ex and even LauncherPro, read on!

Classic iPhone Themes

iPhone Go Launcher EX Theme [Android 2.0+]

For those of you who use and love Go Launcher EX, this theme brings you the default look from iOS, including classic rounded icons, dock and 3 wallpapers, but I couldn’t find the two other wallpapers that were presented on the Market product page (if you know, let me know in the comments!)

You can also choose a different app drawer background though the default one looks pretty slick.

QR Code:

If you’re using a different launcher, such as ADW or LauncherPro, worry not. There’s a similar theme for all three launchers that contains the classic icons, and a few more dock and wallpaper options.

iPhone VO Theme Lite [Android 2.1+]

For users with ADW Launcher 1.3.0+, Launcher Pro 0.86 or even Go Launcher 2.35+, this theme will provide a nice-looking launcher with classic icons, backgrounds and sounds as well.

If you like the icons from iOS, but don’t mind a few changes, this theme should be for you. You’ll see that the icons’ backgrounds are more colorful than on the original platform, and even the wallpaper is different.

What’s cool about this theme is that it comes with an actual drawer app shortcut, so you can browse through the theme’s backgrounds, sounds, etc, in contrast to other themes where you have to browse through the launcher’s preferences.

QR Code:

For more backgrounds, icon sets, and sounds, check out the full version.

iPhone-Inspired Themes

iPhone VD Theme Lite [Android 2.1+]

For the iPhone-inspired themes, we’ll be taking a look at this theme that wraps all icons in black, rounded containers.

This theme is available for LauncherPro, ADW Launcher and Go Launcher EX users, and as a drawer app, so you can browse through the theme’s offerings natively, without going through the launcher’s preferences.

As you can see, the ad only shows up when you open the app drawer. If you want more backgrounds, icon sets, and no ads, check out the full version here.

QR Code:

iPhone Black Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

I used to consider black a bit boring, but the previous and the current black themes have certainly proved me wrong. Like the previous theme, this one offers a set of cool and elegant icons, backgrounds, and more.

I know, the multi-color Apple logo on the wallpaper might be a little too much for Android purists, but I can’t help but think it’s absolutely gorgeous. Here’s a glimpse of the logo-free app drawer.

QR Code:

iPhone 3.0 Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

This theme brings forth slightly more vector-ish icons and cleaner but familiar overall looks. What’s neat is that the Market product page even has app and widget recommendations for the ultimate iPhone-ish look.

As you’ll see, this theme is iPhone-inspired, with even the wallpaper closely resembling the default raindrop background.

QR Code:

iPhone Epic Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

I’ve saved my favorite one for last, the iPhone Epic theme. It’s extremely colorful and has way-rounder icons (reminds me a bit of Puppy Linux’s original icon set).

If you need a refreshing splash of color, I’d definitely recommend this theme.

QR Code:

That rounds off our list of iPhone-inspired themes for Android. Care to share additional themes to this collection? Let us know about your favorite themes in the comments below!

Faience: One Of The Best Gnome Shell Themes Yet [Linux]

Danny Stieben — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:01:14 +0000

You have to admit that Gnome Shell does look elegant, even if you completely hate it for how it works. Some people even say that Gnome Shell practically breaks every ergonomics rule in the book, but others seem to enjoy it. Currently I myself find it most useful on my netbook, and I like what the developers have done to try to put some new life into the boring old desktop. With some more additions I might even consider it as the desktop of choice on my other machines.

As the developers are still sane enough to include the capability to theme Gnome Shell, people have been hard at work to create some stunning themes, some of which I’ve covered in this previous article. However, only a few days ago a new theme has debuted, and honestly it has already won me over. The default theme that comes with Gnome Shell is pretty and elegant, but no matter how good it looks, it’ll always still be the default, which deters some people away automatically.

About Faience

Faience is a Gnome Shell theme created by tiheum, the same guy that brought you the very popular Faenza icon set. Based on his own description the theme (and supporting icon set) are currently “works in progress”, so it appears that this isn’t a final product at all and that we can expect to see updates in the future.

Currently there is no GTK3/2 theme that is made specifically for the Faience Shell theme, but that is also currently in the works. In the meantime, tiheum recommends a different GTK3/2 theme that you can install, which in my opinion fits perfectly fine.

Installation

In order to install the recommended set of themes, fonts, and wallpaper, there will be a couple of steps you need to take for a successful install. The instructions I give you should work for any distribution that is currently running/supporting Gnome Shell, though for those who like to know, I will be using Fedora. In order to make the final steps of installation as easy as possible, we will be using the Gnome Tweak Tool.

Gnome Shell Theme

The first step would be to place the Gnome Shell theme itself into the right location. First, visit this page and download the ZIP file, then extract all of its contents and place them in your ~/.themes folder. So an example folder path would be /home/makeuseof/.themes and therefore you need to enter the path manually or enable hidden folder view.

Icon Set

Faience works best with its own icon set, which holds the same name. For those familiar with the Faenza icon set, this new Faience icon set will look very similar. You can use the Faenza icon set in place of Faience without any issues if you would like, or install the Faience icons. To do that, visit this page, download the ZIP file, and extract all of its contents to ~/.icons.

Additional Font

Next you can download a font to aid with the visual appearance of the theme. Go to this page, download the ZIP file, and extract all font files into your ~/.fonts folder. That’s all you have to do for the font.

GTK3/2 Theme

Second to last is the GTK3/2 theme that will be used by all the windows themselves. You will need to install the Unico, Murrine, and pixbuf engines for the GTK3/2 themes to work correctly. Ubuntu users will need to get Unico from here (or just google “unico ubuntu“), and install the other engines using sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine gtk2-engines-pixbuf. Fedora users will need to add this repository here by copying the contents of the page and placing them into a new file under /etc/yum.repos.d/, and then install all engines using yum install gtk3-unico-engine gtk-murrine-engine gtk2-engines. Finally, download the ZIP file, and extract all of its contents into ~/.themes.

Wallpaper

Finally, you’ll want to finish off the look with a nice wallpaper. A recommended wallpaper can be found here, or you can use whichever wallpaper you would like. If you would like to use the wallpaper that I used in my screenshots, then visit this page.

Selecting Them In Gnome Tweak Tool

Everything’s in place, but nothing is selected yet! Go ahead and launch your Gnome Tweak Tool, and then change the following settings:

Under Interface Tab, change GTK+ theme to Zukitwo
Under Interface Tab, change Icon Theme to Faience-Azur
Under Shell Tab, change Shell Theme to Faience
Under Windows Tab, change Current Theme to Zukitwo

In case Gnome Shell decides to take a break and crash for a moment, simply go along with its whims. In case that happens, you’ll get logged out but you can log right back in and continue changing the settings.

Conclusion

You’re now using the Faience theme for Gnome Shell along with the recommended GTK3/2 theme, font, and wallpaper. Use your computer to the fullest so that you can find all the changes that the new theme brings over your last used theme. Remember that as this Gnome theme is a work in progress, you should check the download page regularly for updates.

Do you use Gnome Shell? If so, what theme is your favorite, and why? Let us know in the comments!

How To Update Application Icons In Snow Leopard [Mac]

Angela Alcorn — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:31:54 +0000

When you upgraded to Snow Leopard most things probably got a whole lot better: more hard disc space, quicker performance and some other cool features. But occasionally you might stumble across something that doesn’t suit you and you want to change it back. It’s about this point that you might also realise that things don’t work quite how they used to.

One of these little annoyances is changing the application icons. Once upon a time, you used to be able to copy and paste your preferred icons straight into “Get Info” in order to change them to a new icon. But in Snow Leopard things are a little different. But don’t worry, we’ll get this fixed in no time.

Creating Or Finding New Icons

There are plenty of great tools to create .icns files, such as Img2Icns. These tools are described in more detail in this post. You can also find free icons using sites like InterFaceLift.

Method 1: How To Change Application Icons (With Backup)

What we’re going to need to do is quit Finder and relaunch as the root user. This will give us the permissions to change the icon in the “Get Info” detail of the application.

Personally, I’m not too keen on plain icons, so that’s what I’ll change to demonstrate.

Add a Quit Finder Option To Finder

The best way to quit the Finder is to use Terminal to add a “Quit Finder” option to Finder. To open Terminal go to Applications > Utilities. Then type in the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem 1

This will add a “Quit Finder” option to your Finder menu after you relaunch Finder.

Relaunch Finder

To relaunch Finder, you can use the Force Quit dialogue. Access this dialogue by going to the Apple menu and choosing “Force Quit” or by pressing Command-Option-Escape.

You could also relaunch Finder by using Terminal and typing the following command:

killall Finder

Quit Finder

Now in Finder you should be able to go to Finder > Quit Finder in order to exit Finder.

Run Finder As Root User

While you’re still in Terminal you can launch Finder as the root user. To do this, you’ll need to use the sudo command. Type in the following:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

You’ll then need to give your administrator password. When Finder opens it will be running as the root user, meaning you’ll have access to the properties of many more files than a regular user. Make the icon changes as quickly as possible and then relaunch Finder.

Changing Icon Files Manually

This way to changing the icons involves getting into the package and replacing the .icns file with another .icns file. This method allows you the option of backing up the original icon by renaming it.

Go to the application for which you wish to change the icon, then right click and choose “Show Package Contents“.
Then go to Contents > Resources and rename the .icns file for backup. Remember what the original name was! Copy the .icns file you wish to use into this folder and rename it to the same name of the original icon in this folder.

These changes should show up instantly in Applications, but you will need to restart your Mac before it will show up in the Dock.

Method 2: How To Change Application Icons (Without Backup)

This is using the copy-and paste method of changing icons, which doesn’t give you a chance to backup the original icon. You can use the previous method for obtaining file permissions or the following method.

Change Application Permissions Individually

This method of changing application permissions is simple when it works, but often the permissions can be a bit of a headache. Each application file needs the permissions to be changed individually and changed back individually afterwards.

Right-click on the application you wish to change and choose “Get Info“.
Click into the Permissions area and click on the padlock in order to make changes. You will be asked for your administrator password.
Change user type “Everyone” to “Read & Write” access.

Access the “Get Info” information of both the application image file you wish to use and the application you wish to change.
Click on the icon in the top left corner of the image you want so that it is highlighted.
Copy this file using CMD-C, then click on the icon in the top left of the destination application so that it is highlighted. Paste using CMD-V.

This process can also be achieved by opening a file in Preview, then selecting the entire picture and copying, then pasting into the icon detail of “Get Info“.

Again, the dock won’t reflect changes until the computer is restarted.

Did one of the two above methods work for you? Which one was easiest? If you are having any problems updating your application icons, let us know in the comments below and we’ll do our best to help.

A Guide To Facebook Symbols & What They All Mean

Ryan Dube — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:31:01 +0000

Have you ever noticed how many little Facebook symbols are scattered throughout the Facebook landscape? There has to be a Facebook team in some back cubicle at headquarters just thinking up what little image Facebook could offer next.

Whatever the reason for so many little images, the one thing it can do is cause a bit of confusion for newcomers. While many of the tiny icons are self-explanatory, for many people that are not only new to Facebook, but new to computers overall – some of these images are a real mystery.

In the past, here at MUO, we’ve helped new users navigate through Facebook. Steve offered a nuts-and-bolts explanation of Facebook, and I described how you could customize your account with MyStuff, or add Facebook widgets to your own website. But today, I’m going to put together a quick reference guide that you can use when one of those little Facebook icons really has you stumped.

Simple Facebook Symbols

I’ve separated all of these Facebook Symbols into two groups – the common icons most people recognize, and then the obscure ones. Most of you should recognize the first one, especially if you’re a fan on MUO’s Facebook fan page.

	Fast becoming one of the most recognizable images both inside and outside of Facebook – this is the famous “like” icon. Like a status update, quote, link, image or anything else? Click this image and let everyone know.
	At the top of your Facebook home page, you’ll notice three dark icons. The image of earth represents your notification list of all of the latest updates related to your Facebook activity.
	Click on this little conversation bubble icon, and you’ll see a dropdown box displaying the latest Facebook messages you’ve received.
	Finally, the last image at the top of the home page is the “Friend Request” icon. Click on this, and if you have any new friend requests, they’ll show up in a drop-down box.

The following icons are well known by most Facebook users, so I won’t waste much time on them. Basically, from left to right you’ve got photos, videos, events and links.

Click on any one of these icons to add that type of content to your wall.

The last of the common Facebook images is the “edit” icon. Any time you see this image at the upper right of a block of text or a column, that means that you can edit that particular area.

Obscure Facebook Symbols

The next batch of Facebook symbols are well known to regular Facebook users, but may not be quite as recognizable to brand new users. How many of these do you recognize?

The “lock” icon is a relatively new one. It basically allows you to customize the privacy of specific Facebook content on a case by case basis.

All you do is select the lock before you post an update, and identify what group of friends (or everyone) may have permission to see the update. I offered more details on how to use this feature on an MUO Facebook privacy article.

	Next up is this little box with a green plus sign. This one isn’t entirely obvious, but it’s actually the link to create your own Facebook group.
	Looking for that elusive app that you heard about from a friend? Click on the applications icon, and you’ll see current app requests, your apps, and applications that your friends have installed.
	This one should be fairly obvious – it’s how you get to Facebook game requests, a list of your installed games, and a list of your friends’ installed games.
	The chatbox at the lower right corner of your screen is a useful way to communicate with Facebook friends when you’re both online. The status images at the left are usually displayed next to your friend’s name. The icon tells you whether your friend is logged into Facebook and active, whether they’ve gone idle or whether they’re logged out. The green bar is displayed next to friend “groups.”
	If you see the little “gear” icon next to any app, column or area of Facebook, then it means that you can configure the settings for that feature by clicking on it.
	This icon will take you to the polls page, where you can answer a poll question and have the results posted to your wall.
	This icon will take you to your “groups” page that displays all of the groups you’re a member of.
	This animated image, appearing either black or blue, slides back and forth like the lights on the front of the car named “Kitt” in the hit 80′s show “Night Rider”. Except, in this case all it means is that Facebook is processing your request.
	This icon is the “Causes” link to your page of causes. As I previously described here at MUO, Facebook causes lets you support things you believe in right from Facebook.
	Finally, this little purple marker on a map is the image for Facebook Places, which Tim previously covered. Facebook Places is a cool new feature where you can make Facebook more location-based.

Did this guide help you identify any new Facebook icons that you never knew about? Do you know of any other strange or obscure icons that aren’t on this list? Share your insight in the comments section below.

10 Easy Tips To Create Your Own Cool Icons With Photoshop

Simon Slangen — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:31:29 +0000

There are a vast number of free icon sets online, but if you want to roam beyond pure particular use, there are also a score of problems connected to them. Licensing and the lack of branding are just two of them.

Even if you’re not a software developer, learning to create your own icons is a tremendously useful skill. You can give your computer a unique skin or provide your services to the community and the corporate world.

This is by no means a complete icon design tutorial. We’re just getting you started on the rudimentary basics – technicalities, a design checklist, and an icon design toolset.

Icon Technicalities

Below are some specifications you should know concerning the icon format, most importantly image resolutions and file formats.

Size

The importance of size is further discussed below. For now, we’ll stick to the technical aspects.

Icons are always square. This means that a rectangular icon will either be stretched out or sized down to respectively fill the entire canvas or fit in it. Either way, highly rectangular icons stand out in a bad way. The following icon sizes are the most common in use:

16 x 16 px * **
24 x 24 px
32 x 32 px * **
48 x 48 px * **
64 x 64 px
96 x 96 px
128 x 128 px **
256 x 256 px **
512 x 512 px **

Windows XP advises the use of 16 x 16, 32 x 32, or 48 x 48 resolutions*. If none are available , it’ll resize the the icon that’s closest in resolution, up to 256 x 256. With desktop resolutions rising ever higher, it’s advised to always include larger resolutions. The Apple ICNS format supports sizes 16 x 16, 32 x 32, 48 x 48, 128 x 128, 256 x 256 and even 512 x 512 **.

File Format

For Windows, the most commonly used file format for icon distribution is ICO. The Mac counterpart is ICNS (Apple Icon Image Format).

The Icon Design Checklist

There is not one tutorial to design the perfect icon, time and time again. Different themes and designs require different approaches, and the ‘current trend’ is in a state of constant flux. Below are three major pillars of icon creation that have proven true time and time again. If you’re new at designing icons, make sure to keep the icon checklist in mind at all time.

Unmistakable

Above all else, icons need to be unmistakable. The relation to your application must be obvious to all, across time, culture and age differences. Fight the temptation to create flashy icons that bear no relevance, and stick with a simple, solid and obvious design.

Don’t see this as an obstacle for your creativity; icons can be beautiful and thought-provoking, but shouldn’t be open for interpretation (read: guesswork at the user’s end).

Uniformity

If you’re designing an icon set, keep the design uniform.

Make sure you’ve got a common thread that interconnects these icons and shows the synergy to the users; the whole needs to be bigger than the sum of the parts.

Size

Icons are always created in multiple sizes. This affects the design in more ways than one.

For starters, icons must look good and recognizable regardless of the size. Take down the contrast around the sides to avoid jagged edges and make important details stand out enough to retain focus in the smallest implementation of the icon.

On a technical level, icons are best designed using vectors, images composed of endlessly scalable shapes, rather than a set composition of pixels. Nevertheless, if your resolution is high enough, bitmaps will do just as well.

The Icon Design Toolset

Photoshop is a great application to design icons. You’ve got (nearly) all the tools you need to create vector graphics or manipulate bitmaps, and apply complex effects and shading. Most importantly will be following tools:

Pen Tool

The Pen tool allows you to create scalable vector graphics. You can draw a shape by creating nodes and drag to adjust the curve of the line. It’s harder to use than it looks, but probably the best tool of choice. We wrote about the pen tool in the past, read Photoshop Pathing: How To Use Photoshop Pen Tool.

ICO File Format Plug-In

This Photoshop plug-in adds the ICO file format to your export settings. The installation method is dependent on your OS and Photoshop version, so be sure to check the website.

Apple Icon Composer

Sadly, there is no such tool for Apple’s ICNS file format. This free tool takes care of the problem instead. It comes with the Apple Xcode package, which you can download after a (tedious) sign-up process. Or you can Google for the download.

Hongkiat: 40+ Hand-Picked Icon Design Photoshop Tutorials

Design blog Hongkiat.com has compiled a list of over 40 different Photoshop icon design tutorials. This list covers all kinds of icons, and several degrees of difficulty. Browse the list for inspiration, and extrapolate the techniques used to realize your own designs.

Layer Styles

Photoshop’s built-in layer styles are a great way to put the final touch to your icons. Open the layer style pane by double-clicking a layer, or right-clicking it in the layer overview. Use a 1px grey stroke with 40-50% opacity for your icon’s borders, and put your shadows at 110° for the best results. Try not to use shadows around the icon, though, as most operating systems already do this.

Do you have any other rudimentary tips on icon design? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!

Customize Your Computer with Cool Icons in Windows XP

Tina Sieber — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:30:56 +0000

Day in, day out; you browse folders, open programs and files. Each and every time you, see the same boring icons that everyone sees on their computers.

Why be the same as everyone else when it’s not difficult to be unique? You can easily personalize your computer and set it apart from the masses.

Folders that you open frequently deserve a dedicated icon. The same goes for programs you use a lot. There are many fresh icons out there that look a lot cooler than the default ones you see everywhere. It’s just a matter of finding and using them. I’ll help you with both.

How To Change An Icon in Windows XP?

First, you will want to know how to change to cool icons in Windows XP. It works differently for different types of icons. Below are the instructions for the most common ones.

Change Folder Icon

Right-click folder, select > Properties, switch to > Customize tab. Under Folder icons click > Change Icon… and > Browse… for the desired icon. Hit > OK on all windows to save your changes.

Change Program Icon

You will change the icon of the shortcut you’re using to open the program.

Right-click shortcut, select > Properties, switch to > Shortcut tab. At the bottom click the > Change Icon… button. You’ll be able to choose from a few standard icons or > Browse… for a custom icon on your computer. Click > OK on all windows to save your changes.

The icon in the Start menu won’t change until you reboot the computer.

Change Drive Icon

Right-click drive icon, select > Change Icon from the menu, > Browse… for a suitable icon, and click > OK to save changes.

Change My Computer / My Documents / Networkplaces / Recycle Bin Icons

For some system icons, changing the icon works a little different.

Right-click on desktop, go go > Properties, open > Desktop tab, and click the > Customize Desktop… button in the bottom left. Select the icon you would like to change, click > Change Icon, > Browse… for the new icon and click > OK on all windows to save changes.

Where To Find Cool Icons?

Now that you know how to change various icons, let’s look at some resources for stylish digital accessories where you can get some cool icons for Windows XP.

Icones.pro

Icones.pro is an icon search engine if you will. When you enter a keyword, for example a program’s name or an icon color or style; the search bar will suggest words. When you hit Enter, you can browse all available icons. Also note the most viewed, most downloaded, most rated and most searched categories to discover icons.

To download an icon, click it, and download the ICO file.

IconsPedia

At IconsPedia, you can download entire icon packs. This saves you a lot of searching for single icons of the same style.

The left-hand menu contains several categories, which in turn contain icon packs. You can also search this site by keywords and find icons and related packs. Overall, you will find that IconsPedia has one of the largest and most diverse collections available.

Find Icons

Find Icons is another search engine style icons page, which serves both single icons and packs.

What sets this one apart from the others is the side menu next to the results, which lets you refine your search. You can search within the results, define the size range with a handy slider, filter by color, select styles, and sort icons by different criteria.

Icon packs do not come up in the results. However, when you click an icon, you will see a link to its icon pack. To browse all icon packs click the > Browse button in the top menu. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to download the entire pack.

Furthermore, Find Icons provides a file converter. You can upload your .jpg or .png image files and convert them to .ico files.

Do you already have great icons, but they don’t work because it’s the wrong file type? Maybe iConvert can help. Karl explains how to use it in his article iConvert converts Windows Icons to Mac and Vice Versa Online.

If you would like to change your icons more comfortably, try one of the 3 Free Icon Changer Programs to Customize Your Folders that Saikat described.

Image credits: agthabrown

8 Icon Search Engines For That Perfect Graphic Symbol

Saikat Basu — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:30:57 +0000

Icons don’t take up much space. The little 16×16 (up to 256×256) graphics though, grab our attention. How many times have you judged a software or web app, just by looking at its icons?

Originally meant to make computers easier for newbies to understand, icons now occupy all the spaces where you care to look.

As operating systems develop, icon development gallops along with them. From 16 color icons to 32-bit images with alpha transparency, we have come a long way.

When you think of customizing your computer, changing and tweaking the icons that originally came with it, are on top of the task list.

Where do you go for a spot of icon hunting? Thankfully, there are a huge number of resources. Check out our archives for posts tagged with icons and you will get some more.

And in case your still aren’t satisfied, here are 8 of the best free icons search engines to take the search further. After all, if everything else can have a search engine, icons deserve a few of their own”¦

FindIcons

FindIcons.com claims to have the largest searchable free icons database in the world. The minimalistic and neat homepage is taken up by a large search box. What you get with a search is access to more than 300,000+ icons and 2000+icon packs. Better user focus is provided with the User Set tool that lets you group frequently used icons in a personal Favorites box.

The web service also comes with two converters. The single touch integrated Convert button outputs an icon into any of the BMP, GIF, JPG, PSD, TIF formats. With the other stand-alone icon converter you can upload and convert a local image into an icon in these formats – ICO, ICNS, ICO (multi-res), ICNS (multi-res), BMP, EPS, GIF, JPG, PNG, PSD, SVG, TGA, and TIFF.

IconsSearch

IconsSearch engine scours the net and gathers icons in PNG (16×16 to 256×256) and ICO (16×16 to 128×128) formats from a variety of icon stock websites. It doesn’t make the distinction between licensed icons and free public ones. So, it’s always better to click on the Browse and check the copyright claims if any.

VeryIcon

VeryIcon.com catalogs about 20,000 high quality icons in its database for Windows, Macs and Linux systems. And there are three ways to search through them. You can do a normal keyword search, browse through the icon categories or do an advanced search.

The advanced search allows you to search for single icons or icon packs. Other options include choosing an icon size, the category or fine-tuning it all with two types of matches. Again, do verify the license of the icon you are downloading.

IconLet

IconLet.com improves the advanced searching for icons by giving you a few more options to set before you download icons. The most important is – specifying the license type before you start your advanced search. You can also search by giving the exact dimensions of the icons that you require for your project.

The image types supported by IconLet are PNG, GIF, and PSD. IconLet also provides a Firefox search plugin.

IconSeeker

IconSeeker.com covers icons for all three operating systems. With nearly 50,000 icons indexed, it’s a good place to dig in for an icon hunt. Though it does not have an advanced search, you can use the tag cloud and the size filters to narrow down the icon of your choice.

The icons are free for non-commercial use but author permissions are required for other purposes.

Easy Icon Finder

EasyIconFinder.com tries to justify its name by letting you search by keyword, by category or by using the tag cloud. The interface is flash-based, so be sure to have it installed in your browser. In the results, you can select the size of the icon from a dropdown and the icon format.

Looking through the categories and the number of icons listed against them, the total number seemed on the smaller side.

From our archives – Iconfinder

Just like FindIcons.com, this is one of the better designed icon searching tools. Get access to 150,000+ icons and 484 icon sets. The icon site also has an icon conversion tool and a Favicon generator.

This web service is a definite must visit.

And finally”¦

Google Image Search

Google Image Search is not very friendly when it comes to searching for icons, though it’s not for want of trying. The way Google indexes webpages, it’s not really meant for icons. But you can try out Google Image Search if the right icon still eludes you. Here are the pointers:

Click on the advanced search option or go directly to the advanced search page. Type in a keyword for the type of icon you are searching for. For the Size, dropdown and select Icon. You can also optionally enter a size in the field that asks for the Exact Size. Under the options given for Usage Rights, go for images that are meant for reuse and are not restricted by licenses.

Searching for icons is actually not a huge problem. Searching for the right high quality icon which is free does take an iota more effort. Hopefully, these icon resources will make it a breeze. Let us know if you have any more icon search engines to add to the list.

Image credit: dunkr

How To Create & Change Mac Icons Quickly & Easily

Jeffry Thurana — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:01:15 +0000

Humans are, by nature, good visual learners. That’s why visual things are engraved easier in our brain. We will recognize faces in photos easier than listening to the description. That is also why the first thing that we will remember about a certain type of file or application is its icon.

In the computer world, icons are an app’s visual representative and personal identity. In terms of marketing, icons are the packaging and one of the selling points. I know some people who would try out (or even buy) applications just because of the beautiful icon. If you think I’m exaggerating, visit the iTunes Store and go to the iPhone applications department.

Mac is famous for its good looking icons. Apple has set its icon standard so high that third party developers have to match or surpass the quality if they want to survive in the demanding community of Mac users.

Giving Files & Folders Some Personalities

Even though Mac users can feast their eyes with tons of beautifully crafted Mac icons, some general items always use the same old icons. I’m sure that, just like me, sometimes most computer users would love to give their personal files and folders unique personalities.

I’m not talking about changing the whole set of Mac icons for the whole system using some icon packages. I’m talking about changing icons for individual items using your own customized creation.

There are at least two ways to do that quickly and easily in Mac, manually and automatically. The first method could be done if you’ve already have ready to use Mac icons.

Getting Mac Icons

Due to the different file format, you can’t just use Windows icons in Mac – and vice versa. Mac icons are in .icns format while Windows’ is .ico.

While a great number of sites with free downloadable Mac icons are only a search engine away, a free web service to create your own Mac icons is a rare breed. The only one that I could find is iConvert. This service will help you to convert images into Mac icons. The service is also able to convert images to icons, and icons to icons for other platform like Windows and Linux.

So we can use this service to convert and use Linux and Windows icons in Mac (should you ever need and want to do that ), or convert Mac icons to be used in those other platform.

To use iConvert, you need to browse and upload the image or icon file and click “Convert“. As simple as that. After the converting process is done, the icons are available in Mac, Windows and Linux formats, ready to be downloaded.

With the icons ready, we can continue to the next step: replacing the old icons with the new.

Changing Icons

Replacing icons in Mac is very easy. You just choose a file or folder with the icon that you want to change and hit Command + I (or File –> Get Info menu) to open the File/Folder Info window.

Then drag and drop the new icon to replace the icon image at the top left corner of the Info window.

That’s it.

And as if the above method is not simple enough, the second option of changing an icon is even easier.

The Automatic Method

All the above steps can be done offline in a more simple manner using the help of a small application called img2icns. The app is available in the paid version and the free version – with some features disabled. But the free version is more than enough for daily uses.

Just drag and drop the image that you want to change into icon to img2icns and it will be automatically converted.

The next step is another drag and drop. This time, ‘the victim’ is the file or folder which needs the facelift. The new icon will be attached without all the hassle.

Alternatively, you could save the new icon as an .icns file to be used later.

Do you know of another application to create and change Mac icons? Share using the comments below!

3 Free Icon Changer Programs to Customize Your Folders

Saikat Basu — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 20:01:28 +0000

How boring is yellow? The color brings on a state of yellow blindness when you have been staring at it for a decade. But ever since I can remember, that has been Microsoft’s color of choice for its folders. Vista has brought in some changes, but for us Windows XP users it’s the same old default without resorting to a total change of our icons. We can change icons but we fall short at changing its colors.

Changing the colors of our folders has certain visual advantages. Other than the superficial visual appeal, different colors for different folders can serve as visual tags. We can color code folders according to importance (for instance, red for red hot documents) or say, according to contents (green for country music, orange for grunge?) or whatever strikes our fancy.

Looking at a bunch of yellow folders can make us unsighted as to the true value of the folders. And it’s quite easy to inadvertently delete the wrong folder. With color labeling, we can easily make the important ones standout amidst the sea of yellow.

So, let’s begin to paint our folders in any colors other than yellow, with these three free icon changer programs.

iColorFolder

iColorFolder (ver. 1.4.2) is a small icon changer program that lets us color Windows XP folders with a right click. Choose from 7 different colors (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink and Gray) or eight differently colored folder icons. Selecting a new color is a cinch. Just right click on the selected folder and select Color Label to go into the sub-menu with the seven colors. And if you hanker for the old yellow, you can go back to it easily by selecting None.

iColorFolder also comes with three skins ““ Agua, Mac OS X and Vista. Additional folder skins are available for download in a 7MB pack. The skins can be easily applied with the installed Skin selector. On un-installation, all icons return to the same ol’ yellow.

The only two negatives I could observe were its tendency to realign my desktop icons when they weren’t auto-arranged. The other peeve relates to the lack of skins. But beyond this, iColorFolder is a simple color labeler for our folders.

iColorFolder is an Open Source project and supported by Windows XP.

Folderico

Folderico (ver.3.7.2) is another icon changer program built for Windows XP just to give it some touch of color. Folderico is quite similar to iColorFolder but it has its individualistic pluses.

Using Folderico, we can browse to the target folder and select any icon to apply from the five icon libraries provided. A further bit of customization can be added by putting in a custom tooltip for the folder that gets displayed with a mouse hover.

Additional Folderico themes (i.e. icon libraries) can be downloaded from the website. Using an associated program called ICL Builder (Beta), we can create ICL-files from standalone ico files.

Right click integration is a matter of choosing the choice theme and setting it. We can opt for one theme and set it to apply on folders using the right click context menu. The best feature of this little free software (apart from the tooltip customization) is that it stores the folder’s new icon within the folder itself. So, if we transfer the folder to another computer it will retain the new icon.

Folderico is a free software and supported by Windows XP.

StyleFolder

Customizing a folder’s icon is just one feature in the repertoire of StyleFolder (ver.1.0.3). It goes one up on the first two icon changer programs by letting us customize the entire folder starting with its icon.

Let’s start with changing the icon ““ StyleFolder does not offer any unique sets of icons but we can use it with any available (or downloaded) icon resources.

The folder can be given its own “˜wallpaper’ using any picture as a background. Set contrasts within the folder by giving the sub-folders names their own color. Like Folderico again, you can change the folder’s info tip. Right click integration makes the whole process easier and if going back to square one is easy with a click.

Again, the best thing about this freeware (like Folderico) is its ability to keep the look “˜permanent’ even with a change in folder location, as the customizations are stored within the folder itself.

StyleFolder is a free software and supported by Windows XP.

As with all things related to customization, the ultimate goal is to create an intuitive system for ourselves. These three are just a few among the many tools which help us to change a bit of our Windows user experience.

Probably, Varun’s post on 10 Tools to Overhaul Your Windows Interface would make good reading for those bored with timeworn milk-and-water looks of our PCs. If you happen to read his post, then do also click through to the mention of Rainbow Folders, another of the ilk we talked about here.

Are you caught up in colors and customizations? Or do you like your yellows just the way they are?

Get Cool Website Icons and Buttons For Free At IconFinder

Karl L. Gechlik — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:01:43 +0000

I find myself using the same crappy buttons on websites because that is all I have. Everyone knows that buttons and icons are a integral part of any website. So it’s always back to the drawing board and start making new icons!

Time and time again I have to create custom icons and buttons for clients. Now with IconFinder that is a thing of the past. IconFinder is a search engine that will return icons or png files with free website icons. They allow you to change the background of each from either black, white or transparent as well as filter results for a commercial website or just for personal use.

Let’s take a look at Icon Finder:

Just like any other search engine the search bar and options are at the top. Type in a search term and hit that search button. It will then search through their 109,067 free website icons and 206 icon sets. Not too shabby for a new site.

After hitting that search button you will be shown your results. They will look like this:

Now you can click on one to download or view it but check out these features. Click on the transparent or black button under background color and watch the free website icons change to meet your requirements:

You can also narrow down your results to only show commercial images or ones you can use personally by hitting this:

Once you see the image you want to download click on it and it will bring up another screen that looks like this:

You see from this screen that you can grab the PNG file or the ICO file. It also has the dimensions ““ in this case it is 128×128 – a nice size for an icon. There is a link to show all icons in this set and tags/ratings.

When we click on the show all icons in this icon set button we get this:

These images are free for commercial use! WOOT! That means I do not need to pay any royalties or fees to use these in a website that makes someone money. I can’t express how awesome this is. Consider this the equivalent of Creative Commons for icons!

I ran a few other searches before I bounced, including this left arrow search:

These icons are great for small buttons designating back or forward.

The site is pretty new and I can only assume that as time goes on the site will get bigger and be filled with more and more icons. If you create icons I am sure you can get some recognition by uploading them to their site. You can browse all those sets by hitting the browse sets button.

That will take you to a page that looks like this:

You can then click on the entire set and view all of the icons in it. This is great for sticking with a static theme throughout the website.

Where do you grab your icon files from? We would love to hear about more icon download sites in the comments! Don’t be shy guys!