In the article ‘Effective Apps To WOW Your Mac Desktop,’ you’ll find a list of effective apps to help you create your own desktop that suits your needs. You can even find items off the Internet to help. Things like backgrounds, a variety of icons (for your dock or apps), fonts, etc. There are even sites that provide tools to use with PhotoShop like brushes, patterns, textures, etc. This list consists of useful links for finding the tools you need to get started in creating an amazing desktop. It is sorted by category.

VERY USEFUL SITES

The following links are the usual locations to find lots of icons, fonts, backgrounds, etc.

deviantART

http://www.deviantart.com/

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/

Google Images

http://images.google.com/

Pixel Delicioso

http://pixeldelicioso.blogspot.com/

IconsPedia

http://www.iconspedia.com/

InterfaceLift

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/downloads/date/any/

dafont.com

http://www.dafont.com/

Brusheezy

http://www.brusheezy.com/

Vecteezy

http://www.vecteezy.com/

ICONS

The following links are full of icons for folders, apps, and your dock. There is a large variety to choose from in these sites.

Dryicons

http://dryicons.com/

Free Icons Download

http://www.freeiconsdownload.com/

Icon Archive

http://www.iconarchive.com/

IconFactory

http://iconfactory.com/freeware

IconFinder

http://www.iconfinder.net/free_icons

the iconblock

http://iconblock.com/

FONTS

The following links contain a huge selection of fonts to download for free.

Acid Fonts

http://www.acidfonts.com/index.html

Font Freak

http://www.fontfreak.com/main.htm

Font Reactor

http://www.fontreactor.com/

Font Squirrel

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/

MaxFonts

http://www.maxfonts.com/

CLIP ART

artvex

http://www.artvex.com/

Clker

http://www.clker.com/

VECTOR IMAGES

The following links contain sites that give you many vector images to choose from. These images are editable in applications like Adobe Illustrator.

123freevectors

http://123freevectors.com/

All Silhouettes

http://all-silhouettes.com/

Cool Vectors

http://coolvectors.com/

I Heart Vector

http://www.iheartvector.com/

Qesign

http://tools.qesign.net/

QVectors

http://qvectors.com/

Vector Junky

http://www.vectorjunky.com/

Vector Portal

http://www.vectorportal.com/

Vector4Free

http://vector4free.com/

VectorArt

http://vectorart.org/

VectorStock

http://www.vectorstock.com/

FREE STOCK IMAGES

These links offer free stock images to spice up your desktop.

everystockphoto

http://www.everystockphoto.com/

Free Photos Bank

http://www.freephotosbank.com/

stock.xchng

http://www.sxc.hu/

stockvault

http://www.stockvault.net/

MISCELLANEOUS IMAGES

Bittbox

http://www.bittbox.com/

Colorburned

http://colorburned.com/

Lord of Design

http://lordofdesign.com/

Obsidian Dawn

http://www.obsidiandawn.com/

PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES

These links offer free brushes for PhotoShop.

123Freebrushes

http://123freebrushes.com/

FBrushes

http://fbrushes.com/

Free4Photoshop

http://free4photoshop.com/

FreePhotoshop

http://freephotoshop.org/

PS Brushes

http://www.psbrushes.net/

QBrushes

http://qbrushes.net/

PHOTOSHOP TEXTURES AND PATTERNS

These links are full of textures and patterns for you to use with PhotoShop.

Amazing Textures

http://amazingtextures.com/textures/

Grunge Textures

http://www.grungetextures.com/

Love Textures

http://www.lovetextures.com/

Shizoo

http://shizoo.frozen-media.de/textures.php

Texture King

http://www.textureking.com/

Texture Lovers

http://www.texturelovers.com/

Texture Warehouse

http://www.texturewarehouse.com/gallery/

TextureVault

http://www.texturevault.net/

Urban Dirty

http://urbandirty.com/gallery/

WALLPAPERS AND BACKGROUNDS

These links offer a variety of wallpapers and backgrounds to choose from and some of them allow you to download the specific screen size for your Mac.

Desktopia

http://www.desktopia.com/

Pixelgirl Presents

http://www.pixelgirlpresents.com/

Vector Wallpapers

http://vectorwallpapers.net/

Vladstudio

http://www.vladstudio.com/home/

Wallpapers.com

http://www.wallpapers.com/?a=9061&adid=undefined&adtype=undefined

WallpaperStock

http://wallpaperstock.net/

There are many more resources on the Internet that offer valuable tools to use in creating your desktop. The links in this list are easy to navigate and offer free downloads. The Calvin and Hobbes Theme can be found here. If you have a site that is as good as the ones in this list, leave a comment with the link. If you liked this article, don’t forget to share it with others.

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

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