Today’s desktop screenshot is by Cain Novocaine and I must say, it is awesome! I appreciate the detailed notes that he left on Flickr as to how he did this. Here are the notes from his Flickr page.

Not a significant change, but an evolution with some more uniformity and style. I consider this a strong fusion of the best visual elements of OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu linux. Feel free to copy it for yourself. I consider this theme done, GLASS HUD:

Main Elements

-**MENUBAR: Black Menubar(s) originally seen in Sweatshop Union’s Photostream. I also inverted all of the program icons I use in the menu bar (1. Locate the Application, 2. Right Click to Show Contents, 3. Replace or invert the current black icons, and save, 4. Restart the Application). I also used SECRETS to move the dock to the left side of the screen.

-**DOCK: Mirage for Snow Leopard to make the dock transparent. I also replaced the status indicators while I was at it with the status indicators from Adium Minimal HUD. For the dock icons, I used Opacity Folders with my own personal modifications.

The Easy Parts

-Adium theme is Minimal HUD, this is also where you can extract the status indicators (1. navigate to the file, 2. show contents, 3. copy contents) for your dock.

-Bowtie theme is Snowtie

-Wallpapers are from the DUST at fiftyfootshadows.net

The Boring Part

-GeekTool is used for the bottom bar, which is a 22 pixel tall black PNG as long as the width of your resolution. Its opacity is brought down to match the top bar. I also added a 1 pixel tall white border on top.

-Instructions on time, date, day, and weather can be found at this link. Remember to use the Lucinda Grande font at size 14 to match the menubar.

**The elements of this theme require replacing many default files of Snow Leopard. You should be fine if you back up what you replace, but I can’t guarantee any result for you.

Thanks Cain Novocaine for another great screenshot. To view his other desktops, click on his icon.

We at Appleviews would like to wish all our readers a wonderful and prosperous New Year (2010).
The desktop above was created in Photoshop CS4 and the 2010 has most of the languages saying ‘Happy New Year.’
We look forward to the new year with more articles on Apple applications along with iPhone and Internet articles.
We would like to let our readers know that we greatly appreciate your visits and comments and look forward to the
New Year for new beginnings.

This weeks Appleviews Flickr Pool desktop is by Alex (something1138). He used GeekTool for weather conditions, GT usage, RAM, music, day of week, month, day number, and year. He got the wallpaper from http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2000/sacramento_tower_bridge_passing.html and the icons he got at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30460784@N04/3839526599/. (NOTE: the link to the download doesn’t work…sorry everybody.) Check out his other desktops at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexlielz/. Great desktop Alex!

This weeks Appleviews flickr pool desktop is by something1138. It is titled Earth wallpaper with GeekTool. The only information he left about the screenshot is that he used GeekTool and where he got the icons. From what I can tell, he used GeekTool for the time, date, uptime, load averages, temperature, memory usage, and GT usage. He may have used GeekTool for iTunes information but I am not sure. For his dock icons, he got them from Nick Caron on Flickr (I went on the link but it was invalid). I chose this desktop because it has a unique look to it. Great job something1138! If anybody wants share feedback on the tools that you think were used on this desktop, feel free to comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers!

This wallpaper is for all the Batman and Mac fans out there.

1,900 x 1,200

We’ve been pretty busy trying to figure out how to create unique desktops. Also, the current trend seems to be minimalistic, but it is hard to figure out. There are tons of different styles of desktops on the Internet. We decided to create a simple desktop + since we like the iPhone and its apps, we decided to be creative and make a ‘Brain Monitor’ app. LOL. The concept is simple. When you think of an Apple (or any other computer), you often hear the term “brain” of the computer. Hence, we found a brain on Google and hooked it up to the iPhone to create the app using PhotoShop. We used GeekTool for the Macs top processes, but made it look as if it were an actual app reading the ‘brain.’
P.S. We set up an account with Flickr so that readers can submit their designs and start a discussion on topics like GeekTool, Rainlendar, SuperDocker, anything that pertains to creating awesome desktops. This can be a useful tool for readers to share ideas and learn from one another. Click the icon to be directed to the Appleviews Flickr group.

I was looking for Mac applications through Google the other day when I ran into this website (Vladstudio) that had wallpaper clocks. To my curiosity, I installed the Wallpaper Clock, which is free and added some of their free themes. What I found to be really unique about these wallpapers is that the clocks actually worked. Normally, I use GeekTool to produce my date, time, etc. but these functions were built into the wallpaper. The wallpaper that I used for the theme shown is the Metal clock. I still used GeekTool to add This Day in History and the Quotes using Kraken Thin for the font.  The website where I downloaded the wallpaper clock from has many wallpapers to choose from. Some are free and some are for registered users only. To become registered, they offer a Lifetime account (which is currently on sale for Halloween and never expires) at $19.99, a 3 Month account for $9.99 and a 12 Month account for $19.99. Below is the GeekTool command for the Quotes and This Day in History commands:
Quotes:
curl http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/feeds/rssfeed.aspx?type=quote | grep description | sed -e 's/\(.*<description>\)//' -e 's/<\/description>.*//'
This Day in History:
curl http://www.infoplease.com/rss/dayinhistory.rss | grep CDATA | sed -e 's/\(.*\[\)//' -e 's/\].*//'
This concludes todays customized desktop. Enjoy.
-TINA

Todays article is about the creative implementation of GeekTool and Yahoo Widgets by Zack. He has done an excellent job implementing these tools into everyday scenes. Check these out.
GRAFFITI
On this desktop, Zack chose to use Graffiti as part of his customization. He used several fonts in GeekTool for the clock, date, month, weekday, CPU, RAM, Uptime, Top Processes, to do list and calendar. He used Yahoo widgets for the battery and weather. Blending it all into the background. This design was also featured in Lifehacker.

Wallpaper:
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/949/train_with_graffiti.html
Dock Information:
www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
Font Information:
Degrassi	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=degrassi
Time 65pt Date 36pt Uptime Text 18pt
Searfont	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=searfont
Month 48pt
Vandalism	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=vandalism
Weekday 36pt RAM Text 24pt
Garage Shock (Condensed)	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=garage+shock
Calander 17pt
Turntablz Bold	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=turntablz
To Do List 14pt Uptime 13pt Top Processes 12pt
Graffiti Treat	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=graffiti+treat
RAM 24pt CPU 24pt AM & PM 36pt
Graffonti 3D Drop	http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=graffonti
CPU Text 24pt
Geek Tool Commands
Top Processes	top -FR -l2 -o cpu | grep -v 0.0% | cut -c 7-24| sed -n '15, $p'
Time	date "+%l:%M"
AM & PM	date +%p
Date Number	date +%d
Month	date +%B
Weekday	date +%A
Calendar	cal
To Do List	Create a text file with TextEdit but make sure you click Format>Make Plain Text before save. Then select the file in path in GeekTool.
Uptime	uptime | awk '{print "" $3 " " $4 " " $5 }' | sed -e 's/.$//g';
RAM	top -l 1 | awk '/PhysMem/ {print "" $8 " "}' ;
CPU	top -l 2 | awk '/CPU usage/ && NR > 5 {print $12, $13}'
Text, Uptime, CPU, RAM	Another text file, remember have to Make Plain Text before saving
Yahoo Widgets
Weather Widget	widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/widescapeweather
Battery Widget	widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/wdscp-battery
Icons
iCal	www.blocksoft.net/iconical.html
Folders	http://jr050680.deviantart.com/art/Pry-System-95517859
Hard Drives	http://thvg.deviantart.com/art/Slick-Drives-95235862
Others
http://rimshotdesign.deviantart.com/art/Milkapp-26790473
http://kano89.deviantart.com/art/iPhoto-08-93032097
http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/details.php?id=1980 (alumi icons)
Coversutra for iTunes integration – www.sophiestication.com/coversutra/

SPIDERMAC

INTERESTING BOOK DESKTOP

I’ve been working most of the day to come up with this design. My husband is extremely proficient in PhotoShop. For this desktop, I wanted something to show what my idea desktop would look like. I also wanted to show my love for my husband, hence the love note in my moleskine. So I gathered as many pictures as I could from Google Images and incorporated them into the desktop. I arranged everything to my liking and my husband worked his magic with PhotoShop. I used GeekTool only for the small calendar and the Month, Day and Year. This is what the outcome is. Enjoy!

-TINA

UPDATE:

I just made a few changes to this desktop. I had removed a few items and added a few items. Then, I added some Yahoo Widgets to it. The widgets that I used are the Pictures (which change every five minutes), the calculator, the clock, yahoo mail and a tiny post it note (by the plant) which allow you to add stickies on your desktop. Here is a screenshot of the new desktop:

[starrating template_id=4]

I’ve been working on a new MacBook desktop design. I wanted to have a customized desktop screen with the look of a home office that I’d see my Grandfather in. But, at the same time, I wanted to add something new to bring it up-to-date….My husband offered the suggestion of adding a New MacBook Pro laptop with a screenshot, and Voila! He worked his magic and here is the outcome…
(click the picture to view larger)

Here is the work that was involved in building the desktop as you see above.
First, I looked for all the images. The desk, the armoire (I wanted to make the desk and armoire merge together to have it look like a hutch is on top of the desk), the 2 old framed photos, the 2 tiffany lamps, the chair with the blanket, the plant (which was duplicated – to have on each side of the desk), the desk blotter, the ink pen, the ink jar, the grandfather clock, the cat, the vase, the DaVinci Anatomy of Man art, the Last Supper picture, the antique phone, the antique typewriter, the coffee cup with steam, the old map, the old framed map (above grandfather clock), the stack of papers, the stack of books….I could go on and on. Every single item was found on Google Images.
I drove my husband crazy….every time he would get things arranged on the screen, I’d find more items to put into the room. LOL. For those of you who work with PhotoShop, there were 40+ layers involved in making this a beautiful piece of art. It took HOURS for him to get it Just Right.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with the outcome and will probably keep this background for a couple of weeks. Leave a comment and tell me what YOU think about this desktop! Thanks for visiting!!!
-TINA

I’ve decided to wait on upgrading my Mac OS X (Leopard) to the newer version Snow Leopard. Why? I figured that I would wait for Apple work out some of the bugs before I upgrade. I am also making sure that most of the apps that I have on my Mac will work on the new Snow Leopard before upgrading. So, I have been modding my MacBook (you know, the screen, the docks, the icons, the folders, etc.) and came across Magnifique.

What is Magnifique?

Magnifique is a nice little app for theming your OS X. Best of all, it is absolutely FREE! Here are a few examples of some of Magnifique’s features: (Click on the link to see the image of that item.)

• It includes a free theme manager from within the application.
• It saves themes that you have downloaded for easier applying when you’re ready to change Finder or Dock themes.
• Magnifique also offers developers an opportunity to convert their themes into a Magnifique (.mfq) format and provides support for their distribution through the website.
• It has a preview pane for viewing themes before installing or applying new or downloaded themes. (note: not all themes offer previews.)
• Easy to activate themes from within the app via the ‘Restart Finder’ or ‘Restart Dock’ features. (Although if you are running any applications during an installation, you may have to restart those applications.)
• It allows you to mix themes with the Theme Mixer.

Those are the main features of this application. You’re probably wondering how to install the theme and use it. Not to worry, here is a brief explanation of how to use the Magnifique application.

When you launch Magnifique, you want to download some themes. These are located on the bottom of the Available Downloads on the bottom left panel of the screen. From this panel, you can choose which theme you’d like to download (this does not apply the theme, it just downloads it to your ‘My Themes’ panel above the ‘Available Downloads’ panel). When looking through the available themes, you will be able to preview what the theme will look like in the preview pane to the right side of the screen. Once you have downloaded the theme you like, it will appear in the ‘My Themes’ panel. Just select the theme from that list and click ‘Apply Now.’ It’s that easy!

Now you will be presented with a dialog box in which you can either apply the system theme (which themes the windows, menu bar, etc.), apply the custom mods (which are applications mods to match the theme, like QuickTime or iTunes), and/or apply the Dock theme (which themes your Dock) with the chosen theme. Then, you click ‘Apply Theme.’ If you ever want to revert your revert your Mac back to its normal state, just press the ‘Uninstall Theme’ button in the bottom right corner of the window. Then just restart any open application or re-log in to see the changes. Another nice feature that I forgot to mention is the ‘Theme Mixer.’ It allows you to choose different elements from different themes and apply them as one custom theme. You know, a window theme from one, the custom application mods from another, the dock from another. Then, you can save the theme and apply it to your Mac.

Some words of caution:

Remember that there are potential risks when theming your Mac. The files that are necessary for theming could harm your Mac. Make sure you keep a backup of your files. Magnifique is an interesting application and should be used with care. If you apply a theme and it damages your default OS X theme, there’s not much you can do, so again…..make sure to backup, backup, backup.

I use Magnifique for many of my desktop customizations and haven’t had any problems; but, again… you must backup your files! Thanks for reading!

-TINA

To download your copy of Magnifique, click the icon below to go to the website.