There are a few tools that you can use to customize your desktop. Most of the apps in this list are free or free to try. They are fairly easy to use right away and you can find resources on the Internet to make them even better. This list contains apps that are most frequently used by users who customize their desktops. The list includes a link to the site and a brief description.

Adium

http://adium.im/

Adium is an instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more. You can even find custom themes to use with Adium. (FREE)
Here are two sites to find xtras for Adium:
http://www.adiumxtras.com/
http://www.deviantart.com/#order=9&q=adium

Bowtie

http://bowtieapp.com/

Bowtie is an application that allows you to control iTunes with customizable shortcuts, it submits your songs to Last.fm with support for Loving and Banning, and sports a very simple, yet powerful, html5 + css + javascript based theming system. You can find themes for Bowtie in a variety of places on the Internet. (FREE)
Here are three sites to find themes for bowtie:
http://www.jackrebel.com/category/bowtie-themes/
http://www.iconpaper.org/bowtie-en/
http://www.deviantart.com/#order=9&q=bowtie+theme

CandyBar

http://iconfactory.com/software/candybar

CandyBar is easy to use and gives you a safe way to customize icons found on your system and application toolbars. You can also customize your apps, folders, clipping icons, locations and more. (Free to try/$12.95 to purchase.)

DragThing

http://www.dragthing.com/

Use DragThing to keep all your documents, folders, and applications a single click away. It is highly flexible, allows multiple docks, each customized to suit your exact needs.
It stores frequently used clippings such as text and pictures, and lets you easily paste them into other applications with just a click. (Free to try/$29.00 single user. Other prices available for multiple users.)

Img2Icns

http://www.img2icnsapp.com/

Img2icns is an application to create icons from images or images from icons, keeping them organized for future use. Creating an icon is as simple as dropping one or more images into Img2icns and choosing an export format. (Free Version and $12.90 for Pro)

Magnifique

(site down)

Magnifique allows you to browse beautifully crafted themes and apply them to your system with ease. The site is currently down. I have found a download at http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30497/magnifique. I do not recall if it comes preinstalled with themes, if not, you would have to download from sites like deviantART or other locales.  (FREE)

GeekTool

http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/

GeekTool is a PrefPane for Mac OS 10.5. It allows you to display different kinds of information on your desktop, provided by 3 default modes:
File mode is used to monitor your MacOS X activity with /var/log/system.log, or any file that you want to follow.
Shell mode is used to launch custom scripts or commands.
Image mode helps you monitor bandwith usage, CPU loads, memory availability of your server, via tools like MRTG, Cacti, or RRD. (FREE)

NerdTool

http://mutablecode.com/apps/nerdtool

NerdTool is a GeekTool like application that displays shell output and more directly on your desktop. Unlike GeekTool, it is run like normal applications.
Nerdtool allows you to display many things directly on top of your desktop; weather reports, headline news, and system vitals are just a few uses. Nerdtool is capable of displaying shell outputs with ANSI escaped formatting, but can also manipulate the final output’s colors, size, and font. If more intricacy is desired, Nerdtool is also capable of displaying images, HTML documents, and other higher forms of media. (FREE)

Overflow

http://stuntsoftware.com/overflow/

Overflow is an application designed to quickly launch applications, open documents, or access folders while reducing the number of items needed in your Dock.
Any item you see in the Finder can be added to the Overflow interface, making it accessible through a few simple mouse clicks or keystrokes. You still have quick access, but now that item is tucked away in Overflow instead of cluttering up your Dock.
The interface is resizable, and fully customizable. Create separate categories for your applications, work files, games, or anything else you want to be able to access quickly. (Free to try/$14.95 to purchase.)

DateLine

http://machinecodex.com/dateline/index.php

DateLine is a small app that displays a linear calendar on your desktop in a transparent window. It provides easy access to iCal by double clicking on a day. The background and text colors are customizable with support for transparency. (Free/Unlock features for $4.95 donationware.)

Rainlendar

http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php

Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn’t take much space on your desktop. The application is platform independent so you can run it on all major operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
The appearance can be customized with skins and you can even mix different skins together. Many of these skins can be found on http://www.customize.org/rainlendar or find skins at deviantART. (Rainlendar Lite is Free/$13.49 Pro.)

SuperDocker

(site down)

SuperDocker is a free utility that gives you the opportunity to customize some aspects of your system. For example, you can customize your Dock, your Dashboard, and even the Safari progress bar. And because the appearance customization is useless for some people, SuperDocker also brings up the ability to activate some hidden features. SuperDocker site is down but I found a site that has a download: http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/SuperDocker-Download-30474.html (tested and it worked). (FREE)
Here are a few links to download docks:
http://www.deviantart.com/#order=9&q=mac+docks
http://www.leoparddocks.com/Browse_Leopard_Docks_Designs.php
http://www.dockulicious.com/docks/
http://www.jackrebel.com/category/mac-dock/

Secrets

http://secrets.blacktree.com/

Secrets provides handy checkboxes to turn terminal commands on and off, and doubles as a menu of secret settings. A “Top Secrets” entry shows a list of popular options, but many more options for various applications can be selected from the application sidebar.
Clicking on any of the listed features will show you a short description of what it does in the bottom of the window; click on the More Info button for a detailed description. (FREE)

Wallpaper Clocks

http://www.vladstudio.com/wallpaperclock/

Wallpaper Clocks is a desktop wallpaper that refreshes every minute to keep your time and date precise on the desktop. They have many to choose from and you can register to download the better wallpapers. (FREE and the plans are Lifetime for $29.99, 3 Months for $9.99 and 12 months for $19.99)

Yahoo Widgets

http://widgets.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Widgets are sort of like the Dashboard widgets. You can choose from more than 4,000 widgets from the Yahoo widgets site and place them wherever you want on your desktop. (FREE)

Check out the list of sites that consists of fonts, backgrounds and wallpapers, icons, clip art, stock photos, vector images and more in ‘Fantastic Resources For Desktop Customization.’ If you have a useful app you’d like to share, leave a comment with a link. Don’t forget, if you like this article, share it with others.

To download this image (without my desktop info), click the download button.

Image size 1,280 x 800

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.

Today’s desktop customization theme is by Chazz. The reason I chose this theme is because of the personal feel it gives. Also, it isn’t cluttered. It has the feel of a real desk.
Here are the tools that Chazz used to create this one-of-a-kind desktop.
To change the menubar, Chazz used the program Magnifique with the Mistkikons Dark Theme.
To change the dock, Chazz used the Summer Dock theme.
For the background, Chazz started with a wooden background. Then,  got a .psd of a film strip and a book. Chazz filled the book with pictures and text. For the plant and iPhone, Chazz got them from the internet and traced them out.
To see more of Chazz’s work, check out these links:  (click on the picture to be directed to the site.)

My husband is a wonderful designer. I started messing around with a variety of Mac desktop tools to enhance my own user experience. I’ve seen articles in LifeHacker about a variety of desktops that users have created and I decided to make my own. All from messing around with tools like GeekTool, Docks, Magnifique, Drag Thing, Img2Icns, Rainlendar, Screeni, and SuperDocker. These are all wonderful tools for the noob like me who wants to change their user experience with their Macs. I’ve downloaded icons off the internet and didn’t really care much for some of them for this desktop design so my husband made the post-it note icons for me using .psd and the Img2Icns for my icons. Pretty cool – right?!? I wanted something that you would see in a normal home office. A bulletin board is usually what people see. So I thought it would be cool to make my desktop background a bulletin board – with my husbands help with .psd of course. He’s a genius at this. Anyways, this is the finished look. What do you think? I LOVE IT!
-TINA