When Apple introduced the new shelf-like dock in OS 10.5 Leopard, users were up in arms over how ugly it was, with some even switching their docks to the side of the screen to avoid seeing it. If you hate the shelf, or just wish you could make it look better, you should give Dock Library a try. It lets you replace your dock with a custom design, and works in both Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Sites like LeopardDocks.com and LeopardDocks.net have extensive libraries of designs you can download and add to Dock Library. Once you've got a few of them set up, it's just a couple of clicks to change to a new one, or go back to the default. To install a new dock, you don't need to expand the downloaded, just use Dock Library's "import" button and select the .zip file.

[via Sizlopedia]

Enigma itself has improved by partnering with Rainmeter. There's now a quickstart wizard so you can set up the theme without editing text files, and Enigma can take advantage of some of the new features in Rainmeter, including iTunes and wifi plugins. Also, the new Rainmeter is fully compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Now anybody can set up a well-designed desktop mod without having to edit a single file in a text editor.

Firefox may never catch up to Chrome in the speed tests, but Mozilla has a huge lead when it comes to customization. The newly-announced Jetpack project might well ensure that they stay well ahead of the pack.

Jetpack aims to make browser addons easier to create by allowing developers to do so using only HTML, CSS, and Javascript (newer tags like <canvas> <audio> <video> are also supported, as is AJAX). And of course, Jetpack integrates well with Bespin (video clip after the break), which will make it easy for developers to create addons and roll out future updates.

You can see just how easy writing a Jetpack addon is in Mozilla's tutorial and by taking a quick look at the API reference.

If you add Jetpack to your Firefox install, don't expect perftection. It is, after all, only release 0.1.1. The two demos - GMail checker and UnAd - work just fine, but the position of their statusbar icons needs to be tweaked slightly.

The Firefox community loves their extensions, so making them easier to develop and accessible to a much larger group of developers is an excellent move by Mozilla. The simplicity Jetpack brings should allow for some exciting developments in a very short amount of time.

There are quite a few apps out there for OS customization junkies, but Magnifique for OS X stands out from the crowd for a few reasons.

First and foremost, it's free. Second, it doesn't require a full restart once you apply a theme, just a restart of the Finder and the dock. Third, there seems to be a pretty good community of theme designers and users around it, which means help with designing and using themes is readily available in the forums.

Although Magnifique seems to use its own file format for themes (you can't easily snatch themes from other Mac theming apps) there are nearly 30 themes available on the Magnifique website. Even better, you can also download them from within the app itself.

If you look around other Mac themes forums, you'll find some additional Magnifique themes. I haven't run into any problems or glitches so far, but you may want to turn off the "apply custom mods" option if you're running the latest iTunes or Safari 4, because the app-specific elements of some themes aren't as up-to-date as the system-wide elements.

[Via Lifehacker]

We love customization around here. Computers would be a sad, sterile place without being able to alter, to any degree, your workspace. Applications often provide "skins" for various reasons (usually just for fun). But the skins that provide a cool theme can also turn a workspace ugly in a hurry. In this case beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. Just as with clothes, there are plenty of skins out there I wouldn't put on my download queue, let alone my apps.

I'm going to leave full-on OS mods alone this round (with one notable exception of abandonware below). I'm sure everyone is familiar with WindowBlinds, etc.

Windows Media Player
The default UI is pretty bland, so MS has an enormous well of skins to choose from. I'm not sure what percentage of skins are marketing tools, but it looks like a pretty good number. Still, the sheer variety from amazing to totally fugly is staggering.

Coolplayer
There's definitely something to be said for bland, because Coolplayer's default skin is hideous. Red, orange and moldy tomato are not good color choices, nor is the wacky text layout which you should simply glance at for info. Lucky the thing is a nice player, I guess. I could keep listing music players with skins, but I'll leave them alone. Once you open that door, any kid with Paint can come along and thrash your look and feel. Maybe that's why OS X makes it so hard to radically change the look?

Kaleidescope
Speaking of Mac OS, this classic Mac OS goodie was a favorite of mine back in the pre-OS X days. There was an amazing variety of themes, and while I don't want to dwell on OS mods, I think Kaleidescope is a good example of the variety of artistry you find whenever customization is allowed. Still, while I love Masashi Ichikawa's work, I don't think I'd take a business client seriously if I saw their OS looking like KidPaint.

Firefox
Well, of course! Not only does FF let you customize the look, you can extend the functionality of the browser with add-ons, which also alters the look and feel. Version 3 of Firefox changed things a bit, but Mashable did a nice piece last year featuring the top 20 themes still compatible with v.3. I tend to use the default, as Foxlite (its name) works very well and keeps RAM issues to a minimum.

The world of web browsers is a very unfair place. Internet Explorer isn't the best, yet everyone's using it, and it seems like Firefox gets all the cool add-ons and customizations. The Opera web browser is popular, but primarily with the mobile crowd, and as for Safari, well, it's nice. Safari add-ons aren't exactly the latest craze, but the few that exist are fairly useful.

Introducing: Safari AdBlock, the open source way to avoid internet ads. It's free and (like someone we know on too much rum) easy. To install, simply point your browser to the Safari AdBlock page at SourceForge and hit "Download." The rest is pretty self explanatory. Safari AdBlock should successfully block most ads, although one may get through on occasion. Theoretically, this should decrease a page's load time since you'll no longer have to load ads, but there's a lot that goes into load times so you may not see any increase in performance at all.

Safari AdBlock works with Safari 3 and runs on Leopard (not Tiger and Windows). Those looking for a paid option should check out Pith Helmet, which costs $10 and works with both Tiger and Leopard. If you'd like to further customize your Safari, check out Pimp My Safari.

[via tuaw]

Looking for a way to customize your Windows Vista boot experience? Ok, you probably weren't, fair enough. However, if you want to spend a few minutes tinkering to while the day away, here's a great time waster.

Windows Vista has a "hidden" boot screen, and you can enable it in a few easy steps.

• First, type "msconfig" into the search box.
• Second, Once MSconfig starts, click the "Boot" tab
• Third, Check the box that is labeled, "No GUI Boot"
• Finally, Click Apply, then "OK" and restart to see your new boot screen

Pimp out your ride, without having a knock on the door from X to the Z (Xzibit). If you aren't familiar with MTV's Pimp my Ride series, it features rap superstar Xzibit surprising viewers owning junky cars with a fresh custom ride from customization specialists GAS.

This little flash eCard builder plays off the Pimp my Ride series. Choose your ride, Ol'Skool, Coupe or SUV. Slap on paint, wheels, chrome, parts and finish it off with a unique scene. Save it out and send it to a friend and maybe start a battle of custom work.

UPDATE: MTV has just informed us that a new wilder Virtual Pimp My Ride is launching tonight at 9:30PM ET where you can trick your ride, then race it on the open road or drag strip.

For power users (read: those of us who sit in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day), keyboard shortcuts can be a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that using the keyboard is much quicker than using the mouse or trackpad. The curse, of course, is repetitive stress disorder, but that's not what this post is about.

If you want to assign a shortcut to a particular task (for me, it's "Crop" in Photoshop), delete a shortcut from a task that you never use, or reassign existing shortcuts, Menu Master is the utility you need. Menu Master comes to us from Unsanity Software, creators of many pieces of shareware near and dear to my heart, such as FruitMenu and WindowShade X (seriously, I don't know how all you people tolerate your windows collapsing into the Dock all the time). Menu Master works with all native Mac OS X applications. Bonus: it's compatible with Intel Macs.

Download the 15-day trial to see if Menu Master suits you; then hand over the paltry $10 if the answer is "yes."

Object Desktop 2007, described by its maker Stardock as "a suite of desktop enhancement utilities designed to allow users to turbo-charge their Windows experience," is probably best known for WindowBlinds, a program that allows Windows to be "skinned." Object Desktop really is a suite, though, and includes a whole pile of programs like IconPackager for replacing your icons in one fell swoop and WindowFX for adding new visual effects to Windows. CRN has taken the latest version of Object Desktop for a spin and gives it fairly high marks, recommending its interface customization features for kiosk use, but cautioning administrators against changing around interface features that users are accustomed to. Object Desktop 2007 costs $49.95.