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Filed under: Design, Developer

Tutorial9 offering free icon sets, Wordpress and Tumblr themes


Freebie downloads are always welcome. By a happy coincidence, Tutorial9 is offering a 25Mb download until November 26th, 2009 which contains four Wordpress themes, three Tumblr themes, and a whole slew of icons.

Better still, the whole package can be used for commercial purposes. There's plenty of good quality stuff inside, from the grungy sticker icons above to the clean, simple designs WP themes like Home Office and Business.

The set even includes a half dozen free vectors from GoMedia's Arsenal and a discount code for 10% further purchases.

Grab the download and tuck it away in your design goodies stash - you never know when a good free resource might come in handy!

Filed under: OS Updates, Linux, Canonical

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala icon theme available for download

Humanity Icons
Canonical is launching a new icon set called Humanity for Ubuntu 9.10. The new operating system should be available to download in a couple of weeks, but if you can't wait that long and don't want to download a pre-release alpha version of Ubuntu 9.10 you can download the Humanity icon set and use it on earlier versions of Ubuntu.

You can also install the icon set by opening a terminal and typing (without quotes): "sudo apt-get install humanity-icon-theme".

The new set includes icons for actions, animations, applications, devices, categories, and a whole slew of other areas.

The entire icon set weighs in at 1.4MB and each icon is saved in Scalable Vector format which means the icons should look good in a variety of resolutions. You can read more about the new icons at the Ubuntu Wiki.

[via Ubuntu Mini]

Filed under: Macintosh, Productivity, Adobe, Apple, Shareware

Opacity lets you create great screen graphics

We've covered a bucketload of image editors here at Download Squad recently: from Photoshop Elements, to stylish OS X apps to great Windows image manipulators. But if you're someone who works with icons and screen graphics, you're probably using something other than Photoshop Elements to create your stunning vector icons and glyphs.

Sure, there's the brawn of Illustrator if you want to spend big - or already own Creative Suite - and there's free & open-source Inkscape if you're looking for something that's also cross-platform. But if you're on a Mac, there's also another choice: Opacity. Unlike most vector drawing apps, Opacity is specifically designed to help you create resolution-independent icons and glyphs.

There's a tonne of presets available - from iPhone icons to desktop app icons - and perhaps most impressively, there's an option to export the vector drawing as - get this - Objective-C code that you bring straight over to Xcode and build for the iPhone and OS X platforms.

Sure, it's pretty specialised - but if you're creating icons and the like then you simply have to give Opacity a go. A licence costs US$89.99, with a free demo available - as well as a slimmer Opacity Express for US$39.99.

Filed under: OS Updates, Linux, Open Source, Canonical

Give Ubuntu a facelift with new community themes and icon sets

A lot of new Ubuntu users are put off by the default color scheme. "Brown and orange? Those are colors a non-winning football franchise would pick." (you know I love you, Browns!) Well, it's really not all that hard to tweak your interface to something more "you" in Ubuntu -- and soon there will be some more default options available.

Four new community-developed themes are now available, and they're all well done and visually appealing. While there are still plenty of mocha tones, I think each one is a nice alternative to Ubuntu's out-of-the-box look.

Check the screens and get download links after the break!

[via Ubuntu Manual]

Read more →

Filed under: Fun, Ask DLS, Browsers, Humor

Ask DLS: why is every damn web browser logo round?


Maybe you noticed this ages ago, but the thought just occurred to me (and most of the rest of our crew after I pinged the list) this afternoon. Why is it that every web browser has a round icon/logo?

Don't get me wrong - we kicked it around on the list and there's the obvious roundness in the phrase World Wide Web. But is there any other sector where the iconography is this uniform?

Netscape used to have a big, boxy icon, but even that vanished as time went by. With the digging I did this afternoon, I only found one non-round icon: Midori (right). And even it has kind of a squashed-but-still-round look to it.

Oddly, Opera, whose name "sounds" like it should be the roundest logo of the bunch, is noticeably less round than the others I shopped together.

What's the deal? Is the circle just the ultimate shape for a browser logo?

Could there be some kind of Illuminati-run conspiracy at work?

Sesame Street was all about circles the other day, maybe those creepy little muppets are behind it all...

Filed under: Design, Fun, Lists

10 free cartoonish icon sets to spiff up your desktop

Now that I've got a full-time work laptop and a second system to reformat every other day I finally have a reason to customize my desktop with some snazzy wallpapers, sound schemes, and icons. I like to keep my desktop lighthearted, so I tend to lean toward cartoony, fun elements.

All of these sets are totally free for personal use, so download away! If you know another great set, feel free to share your links in the comments!

Comic Tiger - Obviously Mac-themed, but the set works well on Windows desktops, too. Created by Fasticon, but no longer listed on their free downloads - fortunately InterfaceLIFT still has it.

Desktoon - I first came across Everaldo's icons when playing with some Linux live CDs several years ago. Desktoon is packed with 31 pieces of hand-drawn goodness. Available from Yellow Icon.

Read more →

Filed under: Design, Fun, Macintosh, Freeware, Mods

Fifty gorgeous icon sets for Macs

50 gorgeous icon sets for MacsWhat can I say? I loves me some sweet-ass icons. If you like to mod your desktop with gorgeously rendered icons as much as I do, you're going to love this list of what App Storm calls 50 unusually awesome icon sets for Mac. The icons are definitely Mac-themed, but if you're looking to appropriate them for use on another operating system, check out Lifehacker for some ideas on what to use.

If you're looking for a tool to easily swap icons on your Mac, check out CandyBar, Download Squad's favorite Mac icon management tool.

Have you got a favorite icon set or list of icon sets? Link it up in the comments.

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Freeware, Mods, Design Tips

Fifty gorgeous and free icon sets

50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008Icons are to me like clothes are to my wife - meant to be changed. I love sprucing up my desktop with customized icons and a funky background, only to change it all up a week later.

If you're like me, then you're going to enjoy this list of 50 of the most beautiful icon sets created in 2008 at NOUPE. The icon sets listed are intended for everything from customizing your Mac or Windows desktop, to iPhone replacement icons, to web development. There's a little something for everyone, so have a peek if you're at all curious.

Do you have a favorite resource for free icons? Link it up in the comments.

Filed under: Utilities, Troubleshooting, Web

iConvert: web-based icon converter

Ever see an icon you like, but when you go to download it, you find out it's in the wrong format? You could copy and paste it into an image editor, and save it in the correct format, but some editors don't save .icns, .ico, or other popular icon types. iConvert does, though, and it's web-based. It also works with Windows, Mac and Linux-compatible formats.

Just upload a file in any one of the numerous formats iConvert accepts, from .png to .tga. It will spit out download links for other formats, and you can just take the ones you need. I tried uploading a .ico file, and got links for .hqx, .icns, and 6 different sizes of png. So, don't despair the next time you find some great icons you don't think you can use: iConvert might be able to make them compatible with your system.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Social Software

Dress up your Tweets with Twitterkeys

Twitter KeysAre you leaving work early to fly off somewhere with your sweetie? You could Tweet that to your followers on Twitter, or you could tell them, "I'm going to ? out of work early today and hop a ? to Montego Bay with my true ♥."

Adding symbols to Tweets used to involve remembering a whole bunch of keystroke combinations but thanks to TwitterKeys, created by the folks at The Next Web Blog, all you have to do now is cut and paste.

Just drag the TwitterKeys bookmarklet to your toolbar and next time you're looking for a symbol, just click the link to open the directory. Find the symbol you like, copy it (Control + C), then paste it (Control + V) into your Tweet. Pretty sweet.

Two things to note: TweetDeck users will need to change the apps defult font setting to international/utf8 in order to use TweetKeys. Also, Mac users will recognize many of these symbols from the Special Characters set found on OS X. While not all of those characters will work cleanly in Twitter, the ones selected for TwitterKeys will.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Open Source

Hide, show, customize Windows icons with Iconoid

iconoid
Tired of looking at all 67 icons littering your Windows desktop? Sure, you could just clean them up and place just the shortcuts you use most often on your desktop. But Iconoid presents an easier alternative - hide your icons when you don't need them.

Iconoid is choc full of features. You can set it to always hide your desktop icons, never hide them, or hide them based on where your cursor is. You can also choose whether to hide or show the taskbar.

The program also lets you adjust how your icons are displayed. You can select background or text colors or adjust whether a drop shadow will be displayed. You can also save the position of the icons on your desktop so you can quickly restore your desktop settings even after you've moved icons around or changed your screen resolution.

[via Lifehacker and Life Rocks 2.0]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

DesktopOnTop shows your desktop, no minimizing necessary

DesktopOnTop
Sometimes you want to open a file saved on your desktop, but you don't want to minimize all of the applications you're currently running just to get to it. DesktopOnTop can help. While Windows lets you add a "desktop" toolbar to the taskbar that will let you launch items saved on your desktop, DeskTopOnTop goes one step further and actually shows you a visual representation of your desktop.

If you just want a list, you can right-click on the DesktopOnTop icon in the system tray and get a start-menu lookalike with a list of programs and files on your desktop. But a left click brings up a picture of your desktop. Sort of. The first thing you'll probably notice is that the wallpaper doesn't match yours. If this bothers you, you can either change your desktop wallpaper to match DesktopOnTop (which nobody really expects you to do), or you can select a solid color that looks good with your desktop an adjust the program's transparency level.

DesktopOnTop is highly customizable and light weight. It uses about 8MB of RAM.

[via Freeware Genius]

Filed under: Design, Productivity, Search

ICONlook: icon search engine


When it comes to tracking down some icons for a project -- nothing real fancy, and preferably under some kind of open license -- image searching on Google doesn't always do the trick. ICONLook is a search site that you can try instead: it's specifically for icons, and it has some useful features that make it worth a peek if you're in a pinch. These are generally OS-type icons, for stuff like apps, documents and search buttons, so don't get your hopes up for anything too fanciful. Heck, we couldn't even find anything as wild and crazy as a cat icon on ICONLook.

Selection is not ICONLook's strong point. Even within the categories it's designed for, there's not a lot of variety. On the plus side, many of the icons are available in a number of different sizes, and there are links to the source and the license for each one. This puts to rest any worries that this might be some kind of hack job, or the work of nefarious icon pirates. Instead, what you get is a legitimate, middle of the road selection of licensed icons that will hopefully expand to become more useful.

UPDATE: An astute reader was able to find a cat on ICONLook. We stand corrected, but we still feel the site could use a bigger library. Thanks, Jeff_RE!

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Restore your desktop icon positions with DesktopOK

DesktopOK
If you spend a lot of time changing your Windows desktop resolution, there's a good chance you also spend a lot of time rearranging your desktop icons. That's because every time you change to a new resolution and then change back, Windows tends to knock your desktop icon layout of whack.

A few months back, we looked at Icon Restore, a nifty little tool that lets you save the state of your desktop icons and then restore them. DesktopOK does pretty much the same thing. But unlike Icon Restore, DesktopOK lets you save and restore multiple layouts.

DesktopOK hangs out in your system tray when minimized. When you're getting ready to change your display resolution, you can just pop it open, save your state, and then play with your resolutions as much as you like, safe in the knowledge that you can restore your desktop to that state when you're done. Or you can keep a couple of saved layouts handy for different situations.

[via Confessions of a Freeware Junkie]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Extract program icons with IconsExtract

IconsExtract
Have you ever wanted to find a program icon so you could apply it to another application or just copy and paste the pretty picture into an image or Word document? While some program icons are clearly labeled as ICO files, others are hidden inside of EXE, DLL, OCX and CPL files. But you can still get at them, using the freeware application IconsExtract.

Here's how it works. You choose a directory to scan and IconsExtract will search through any files that might contain icons. If you search a particular file, like say C:\WINNT\System32\shell32.dll, the search will be super-fast. If you scan your entire program files directory it might take a bit longer.

When IconsExtract is done scanning it'll display a list of available icons. You can save them to ICO or CUR files, or copy an image to your clipboard.

[via gHacks]

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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