desktop posts

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Google

Google Voice desktop app keeps your SMS and Voicemail handy

by Jay Hathaway Oct 28th 2009

With Google Voice now able to take over the voicemail from your mobile number, there are more reasons than ever to keep your Google Voice messages close at hand. There's cross-platform Google Voice desktop app that does just that, giving you quick desktop access to your voicemail and SMS messages.

The desktop app's features are very basic: just your inbox and contacts, in a compact layout. It's good for making sure you don't miss incoming messages, but don't expect too much else from it. If you're on a Mac, you might prefer to use Fluid to create a standalone browser for Google Voice.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: adobe air, AdobeAir, desktop, google voice, GoogleVoice, sms, voicemail

Filed under: Video, Web services

Vimeo announces a Desktop Uploader and improved stats

by Jay Hathaway Oct 7th 2009

Video sharing site Vimeo has just announced some major improvements, including a Desktop Uploader and new, more detailed statistics pages. The desktop app will offer a lot of features that Vimeo's web interface doesn't, like uploading multiple videos at once, and pausing/resuming your uploads. Vimeo hopes the Desktop Uploader will also increase stability and avoid timeouts on large uploads. The app will be cross-platform, built on Adobe Air, and should hit public beta soon.

The new stats pages will roll out by the end of the year, offering advanced data on all your videos, both individually and in the aggregate. You'll be able to see who's playing your videos, where your traffic is coming from (both in terms of referrers and geo stats) and whether people are watching in HD or SD. Many of these stats features will be for Plus users only, but Basic members will get a new stats view too.

Tags: desktop, desktop uploader, DesktopUploader, stats, video, vimeo

Filed under: Windows, Productivity

Thin Calendar: desktop calendar with Google appointments

by Jay Hathaway Sep 14th 2009

You may have caught my post about Dateline, a cool, minimal calendar that sits right on your desktop. Dateline's great, but it's Mac-only. Windows users don't have to feel left out anymore, though. Thin Calendar is a Dateline-inspired Windows app that does much the same thing, but gives you access to your Google Calendar appointments instead of the Mac-only iCal.

Thin Calendar has a semi-transparent, unobtrusive interface that won't get in the way of your other windows. It's great for people who frequently need to use the Google Calendar web interface. When you can't find a desktop client you like, sometimes it's better to have a quick, attractive-looking way to get to the website. You can't change the look of Thin Calendar the way you can with Dateline, but it looks nice enough that you won't mind seeing it on your desktop.

[via instant fundas]

Tags: calendar, desktop, gcal, google calendar, GoogleCalendar, thin calendar, ThinCalendar

Filed under: Design, Utilities, Windows

Customize your Windows desktop using Rainmeter 1.0

by Jay Hathaway Aug 8th 2009

Rainmeter, a Windows desktop modification app, has entered version 1.0, and now comes with the popular Enigma theme as its default skin. Setting up all of Enigma's various widgets on Rainmeter is extremely simple. In fact, Rainmeter is basically code-free. You can enter all of your settings once using the GUI Configuration tool, and they'll be applied to any theme you want to use. It's also now possible to save and load your favorite setups.

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.

Tags: customization, desktop, enigma, mods, rainmeter, skins, themes

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Deskcretary automatically tidies up cluttered Windows desktops

by Lee Mathews Aug 3rd 2009

My worst Windows habit? Indiscriminantly downloading new files and dumping screen captures onto my desktop. When things start to get too messy, I'll go on a wholesale deleting spree or chuck everything extraneous into a single folder and bury it in the recesses of my d: drive.

Enter Deskcretary, a free app which claims to be the "most advanced Windows desktop cleanup software ever."

When you first launch the program, Deskcretary will step you through some initial setting screens - files that you want to exempt from cleaning, compression level, copy and replace policies. At the end of the process, you'll be asked to set an archiving schedule. Daily, weekly, and monthly jobs are supported, or you can turn off scheduling completely and run things manually.

The most clever feature is the Deskcretary Explorer, which allows you to browse previous archives. Jobs are cataloged by date and there's a built-in search feature which yields quick, accurate results.

I'd love to be able to change the location of the archive folder, but I'm not going to complain about the fact that Deskcretary plops it on the desktop. After all, that's where all my clutter was ending up anyway. Renaming would be a nice option, too - perhaps we'll see that in a future version.

Tags: cleaning, clutter, deskcretary, desktop, organization, organize, tidy

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

Add a minimal desktop calendar to your Mac with Dateline

by Jay Hathaway Jul 10th 2009

Dateline is a slick little Mac app that adds a clean little one-line calendar to your desktop. You can adjust the width of the calendar, and change the window level so it's floating on top of your windows or flush with the desktop. Double-clicking on a date will open that date in iCal, so Dateline's minimal featureset isn't a liability at all.

A couple of tricks you should know about using Dateline: first, you can hide the dock icon using a checkbox in preferences. Second, without that dock icon, the fastest way to open Dateline preferences if you need to change something is by control-clicking the calendar strip. If you're having trouble doing this, switch the display level of Dateline to "desktop icons" instead of "desktop." Dateline is nothing revolutionary, but I often find myself opening Google Calendar in my browser just to see what day of the week some upcoming appointment falls on, and Dateline saves me the trouble.

[via Daring Fireball]

Tags: calendar, dateline, desktop, ical, mac, minimal

Filed under: Design, Fun, Lists

10 free cartoonish icon sets to spiff up your desktop

by Lee Mathews Jun 15th 2009

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.

Tags: cartoon, desktop, fun, icons

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity

Desk Topmost brings your desktop quickly to the front

by Jay Hathaway Jun 8th 2009

If you're running Windows and you like to use several apps and windows at once, but also frequently need to access files stored on your desktop, the developers of Desk Topmost feel your pain. Even keyboard shortcuts that get you to the desktop collapse what you're working on to the taskbar and make you dig it out again. Desk Topmost doesn't -- it just puts the desktop on top.

Floating the desktop on top of everything else gives you easy access to whatever icons you need there, while leaving your Windows in place. It's sort of like a different take on the Mac's Exposé feature. Just like Exposé, Desk Topmost is most effective if you assign a hotkey to it for easy opening. If you open it up and then realize you don't need anything from the desktop, you can just right-click to close. Desk Topmost is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: desk-topmost, desktop, hiding, show-desktop, windows

Filed under: Design, Utilities, Macintosh

Loginox: easy way to change your Mac's login image

by Jay Hathaway May 15th 2009

Changing a desktop image on a Mac is no big thing. You can open System Preferences from the Apple menu or the Applications directory, or you can go straight to the desktop prefpane by right-clicking on your desktop. Changing the picture you see when you log in should be just as easy, but it's not. If you want to learn the Terminal commands to do it, then more power to you. For the average user, there's Loginox.

Loginox is an app with a simple drag-and-drop interface for swapping out your login image. That's literally all it does, but that's definitely enough. The only way it could work better is if the developers rewrote it as a prefpane, or if Apple decided to incorporate it into the existing desktop/screensaver settings.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: background, desktop, image, login, loginox, os x, OsX

Filed under: Beta, Browsers

Desktop lets you treat Firefox bookmarks like desktop icons

by Brad Linder May 4th 2009

Desktop is a Firefox add-on that's based on the same concept as Speed Dial for the Opera web browser. Both tools let you create a series of thumbnail shortcuts for frequently visited web pages that will be available every time you open a new tab.

But what makes Desktop different is that you can change the look and feel of the new tab page by dragging, dropping, and resizing thumbnails. In fact, it makes blank Firefox tabs feel a lot like the Windows desktop, which is probably why it's called Desktop.

You can also add search widgets, and folders to your blank tab layout.

The plugin is listed as an experimental Firefox add-on, which means it hasn't been tested extensively. But it seemed fairly stable with Firefox 3.0.10. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 yet.

Tags: desktop, firefox, firefox-add-ons, new-tab

Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software

Atebits releases Tweetie 1.0 for Mac

by Jay Hathaway Apr 20th 2009

One of the hottest Twitter clients on the iPhone just became one of the hottest Twitter clients on the desktop, with the official release of Tweetie for Mac. It's been a trending topic on Twitter all day, and reviews are positive so far. I predicted some of the app's features when the preview video came out a few days ago, but here's a rundown of what it can really do:

First, it supports multiple accounts. Tweetie lets you switch easily between several Twitter accounts via the sidebar or a hotkey. Direct messages are threaded, so you can open them as conversations to see who said what, instead of having to switch between your sent and received DMs on the web. You can also use Twitter Search from within the Tweetie app, and break off searches into a separate window to keep track of them.

The best part about Tweetie is that there's very little need to go to the Twitter web interface for anything: following and unfollowing, reading people's streams and user info, searching and posting, and even shortening URLs with the service of your choice are all included within the app itself.

TUAW has an in-depth look at the features.

Tags: atebits, desktop, mac, tweetie, twitter

Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software, Beta

Tweetie for Mac coming soon, teaser video out now

by Jay Hathaway Apr 17th 2009

Tweetie has taken the iPhone Twitter client market by storm, and anticipation for the desktop version has been building sometime. The developer, Atebits, is fueling the fire a little bit more with a preview video of Tweetie's new Mac version, which is due out on Monday, April 20.

The preview shows a UI with a toolbar down the side, and chat bubble styling for the main stream. Knowing the iPhone version of Tweetie, I'm guessing we'll see more than one style option for the desktop version. It looks like there's support for multiple accounts, and for zooming in on a single conversation thread. The search features everyone likes in Tweetie for iPhone seem to be here, too, but the direct message page is new: it can apparently be sorted by individual contacts. There's also a nice link-sharing feature that I'm sure a lot of people will make use of.

We'll report more on Tweetie when we get a chance to test it out, so watch this space.

Tags: atebits, beta, desktop, preview, tweetie, tweetie-mac, twitter

Filed under: Design, Macintosh, Productivity, Beta

Grape: a new take on the OS X desktop

by Jay Hathaway Apr 15th 2009

Desktop clutter is a common problem, especially when your desktop is your default download folder. A new Mac app called Grape makes it all manageable, though. Grape is a great-looking desktop viewer that allows you to rearrange, resize, and zoom the icons on your desktop. You can also draw boxes to divide up your clutter, making it neat and even attractive.

Grape's big strength is the zoom function. What looks like a hopeless of icons stacked on top of one another might look a lot better when you zoom in tighter or zoom out more. There's also a stack function that will put things in order for you automatically. Grape previews your media, so the icons are mini versions of your movies, photos, text files, etc. If you enlarge them or zoom in enough, you basically get the Quick Look view. You can also drop things from the Finder onto the Grape icon, and they'll show up in Grape's "drop zone."

This was an app I didn't know I needed until I tried it out. Now I hope that Apple's next OS has a desktop design that functions the way Grape does.

Tags: beta, desktop, grape, organization, zoom

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Commercial, Freeware

BumpTop: Do we really need a 3D Windows desktop?

by Brad Linder Apr 8th 2009

BumpTop is a utility that replaces the standard Windows desktop with a 3D environment that looks and behaves much more like a real world desk. Instead of organizing your data into virtual folders you can place items on your desktop and drag, drop, and flip your way through navigation. You can copy itmes to a USB flash drive by tossing them onto icons, or print items by tossing their icons on top of the printer icon. BumpTop also lets you upload photos to Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter simply by throwing them at icons for those social networking services.

It's visually appealing, and some people may find BumpTop to provide an intuitive method for storing and interacting with information. But you know what? My real world desk is a mess. I'm not going to say I don't have more icons on my Windows desktop than I really need. But at least their neatly organized and alphabetized. I'm not sure I need a 3D desktop that mirrors the disarray of the desk that my computer is sitting on.

That said, BumpTop has some nifty features. You can thorw items into a pile instead of folders, flip through items, or pin items to the wall for later reference. If you want to make some items bigger than others so they're easier to find later, you can do that.

If you do want to give BumpTop a try, it's relatively light on system resources although it'll perform best on a system with dedicated graphics and 1GB of RAM. There are Free and Pro versions available. The free version includes limited support and lacks some o the features of the Pro version which costs $29. Right now BumpTop is available for Windows only, but Mac and Linux versions are in the works.

Tags: bumptop, desktop

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Social Software, web 2.0

FriendFeed Notifier brings real-time updates to the desktop

by Jay Hathaway Mar 14th 2009

Sometimes it seems that we're so plugged in to Twitter here @downloadsquad -- rather, at Download Squad -- that we don't even know FriendFeed exists.

Not true! In fact, I noticed that FriendFeed just released an official desktop notifier, built on Adobe AIR. It's pretty rough so far, but a lot of users are commenting with feature requests and improvements.

The main issue people have with the notifier so far is that it's a bit overwhelming. Right now, it just displays a pop-up for every new item in your feed. Useful, sure, but that can be a lot of items. Without customization settings to narrow down what you're seeing -- or slim down the size of the pop-up -- it's very obtrusive.

You also have to click through to take certain actions (like responding to comments) in a browser window, even though it looks like you should be able to do it right in the notifier. Despite these little annoyances, the desktop notifier is a good first step, and seems likely to improve in the near future.

Tags: adobe-air, AIR, client, desktop, friendfeed, notifier

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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